Originally Posted by rouxsterre

Am I a thief, or outta line ? ? ? . . . seriously. I'd like to know.

Originally Posted by 10x

Guess you were well prepared to go "overboard" and not worry about drowning. :D
BTW, NICE personal floatation devices.

As being one of the organizers for the Chicago Poker Run last summer, and this July 21st and 22nd, I see both sides of the story. Personally, I think the author chose the wrong words to expless his feelings. :( I'm not in any way sticking up for what he wrote, but I can't even imagine someone honestly feeling like that, calling people thieves. I want to believe that he just chose the wrong words to express his point. I would hope anyway. :(
At our poker run, we encourage people to come and watch, whether by boat, or by the docks, and we had ALOT of spectators in the water and on land also.
All the participants that paid the entry fee were invited in the evening to a open bar and dinner at the main ball room of the casino. What was'nt right, was that there were just people coming into the room that were not part of the poker run, just trying to mingle with the poker runners and they were getting the same thing as the poker runners were. Well, that was our fault for not having someone at the door checking registerred participants. :mad: It'll be a little different this year. :rolleyes: Now those people you could call "thieves" :D

I too know the feeling of having a boat that you feel is'nt worthy enough of running a poker run. For several years after we sold our Cigarette, we had a 21ft Wellcrart Scarab I. It was'nt the greatest boat to run in lake Michigan, but what the heck, it was a blast to go skiing and tubibg behind. :D I can too remember being anchored out at a beach or with a bunch of other boats and hear the roar of those big engines in those big offshore boats going past us. All the people would just stop whatever they were doin and stop and watch all the hot rod boats come ripping past with the pipes rumbling and the rooster tails shooting toward the sky, and I can remember telling my wife, everytime that happened, we gotta get another big fast boat. :(

With this in mind, when we put together the 1st Chicago Poker run last summer, we tried to "cater' to the guy with the smaller or slower boats. We had a start that was 15-20 minutes ahead of the faster boats, for the 70 mph and slower boats, figuring that they would have cleaner water to run in and not having to be in and out of the bigger boats wakes, and we should all arrive at the 1st card stop about the same time. Worked out pretty well, some of the people in the slower boats just bragged about how cool it was watching the cats and the faster V's passing them off to the sides.
All in all, everyone had a great time, and there were absolutely no attitudes from anyone nomatter how big or fast their boat was. It was a great bunch of people getting together, and doing what they love to do.

Hope some of you people that feel a little intimidated by the bigger faster boats could attend our poker run this july. I'm sure we could change your outlook on poker runs. :cool:

Frank

Originally Posted by dhlaw

Here on the east coast poker runs are starting to cost upwards of $800. Big money?? No, but add in $600 for fuel, $200 for extra crew charge, $500 for lodging, $250 for fuel to transport, membership in the organization for $300... blah blah blah..... you start to examine where your $3000 went last weekend. Frankly, I can afford to spend the money but I always do a cost/benefit analysis. The fact is that the runs offer little more than a gathering that we could do on our owm. $250 is a deal for a run, $750-$800 is not and thats my point. That doesnt even address the safety issues which irrespective of what you think the drivers meeting accomplishes when that flag drops its effing auto pilot for alot of these guys... wide open or crash. Watch the videos of 100mph 30 footers chine walking with 6 people in the boat, or 161 mph cats running without proper safety gear..... You think a piss ant vest from west marine will help if they blow over?? Even a full impact Lifeline will be lucky to help. That doesnt even address the danger to other boaters not involved in the run.... There is a place to run these speeds, its called OSS or SBI. Want to show everybody what your boats got then get over there and do it, they would love to have ya..... In the mean time we need to start looking at the document that Polli and the Be SAfe guys have been working on. Common sense guidelines for events.

Originally Posted by Dean Ferry

Brett,
BINGO! BTW, what is the cost of the Daytona Poker run?
Dean

Originally Posted by TRICK

I rarely find you so far off base Rich. :)

This isn't Nascar and it's not held on a privately owned track.

Speaking of dangerous situations, liability and such, perhaps you could enlighten us on some statistics regarding serious accidents and deaths during poker runs? I don't recall reading about deaths in the spectator fleet as they watch the Poker Run participants head out. But I can recall some pretty horrific accidents and deaths among actual participants.

They liability issues that Poker Run organizers are facing have little to do with non participants and a lot to do with deaths of actual participants.

I'm not into freeloading meals or crashing private parties. I also don't feel any particular need to run along side an organized even in some test of machismo. And, I don't believe the majority of my fellow boaters do either.

That being said, I don't much care for a journalist telling me to "stay away, stay far away" when we're discussing boating on public waterways.

I don't believe poker runners have any more right to the public waterways than the fisherman in his 14 foot Aluma-Craft.

Originally Posted by articfriends

My feelings exactly. A millionare with a skater has NO MORE RIGHT to run his boat than a old man on his pontoon boat with his grand kids fishing,NO ONE OWNS THE WATER!!! At SOTW I didn't see spectators driving STUPID,it was the poker runners. All its going to take is a few more underskilled guys driving 850,000$ boats killing them selves and their passengers and pokerunning will have so much negative publicity it will not be welcomed ANYWHERE. At SOTW the 32,000$ (or whatever it was) that was donated to make a wish foundation was quickly forgotten when the news was concentrating on the USCG searching for bodies :( ,Smitty