Boyne Thunder 2024—The Winner And Still-Defending Poker-Run World Champion

Like pretty much everyone I’ve ever met in Boyne City Mich., barman Aaron Fritzsche of the Boyne City Taproom was pleasant and engaging late yesterday afternoon. He didn’t know anything about speedonthewater.com, but he knew it had something to with this weekend’s poker run.

“Is this the best poker run in the country?” he asked

I grinned. “No,” I said. “It’s the best poker run in the world.”

No Boyne Thunder Poker Run would be complete without the 47-foot Kemosabe V-bottom. All aerial images courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix. All water-level images courtesy/copyright Jeff Helmkamp/Helmkamp Photos.

And then I rattled off my list of reasons for taking such a strong position. They included the waters of Lake Charlevoix, Round Lake and Lake Michigan, the gracious people of Boyne City, the community of participants who bring the most spectacular high-performance boats on the planet to the run and the charities served by the 120-boat event.

Still, calling the Boyne Thunder Poker Run “the best” event of its kind is risky business and it has created a few headaches for me during the past few years. Like all such opinions, it is subjective. It invites strong disagreement. Especially from the organizers and partisans of other events.

A pair of MTI 390X catamarans added color to the 21st annual happening.

Inspired by my conversation with Fritzsche, I headed to last night’s post-event dinner celebration on a mission to ask random people at the party a couple of heavily biased questions. Is Boyne Thunder the best poker run on the planet? And if so, why?

Round Lake is the gateway to Lake Michigan and is as busy as it ever gets during the annual Boyne Thunder Poker Run.

Hoping for immediate bias-confirmation, I started with insurance man Devin Wozencraft, a good friend who housed me in Boyne City for the last two nights. Wozencraft tackles more than a dozen poker runs a year.

And he promptly shot me down.

Steve Gordon once again ran his unforgettable 46-foot Skater Powerboats catamaran called Deal With It in the event.

“For me, it’s the 1,000 Islands Charity Poker Run in New York, primarily because of the incredible host venue, the 1,000 Islands Harbour Hotel,” he said. “It’s right on the banks of the St. Lawrence River and the harbor, where all the participants have their own slips, is just steps away from the hotel.

“And there’s nowhere you can go boating and run by castles in the middle of a river,” he added. “Plus, I like to watch all the cargo ships running down the river.”

Great points, but not enough to sway me.

Through the run, the Cowboy & Indian (right) and Mad Props DCB Performance Marine M37R catamarans were joined at the hip.

I caught up with participant Vickie Franks last night at the event-ending, open-air dinner celebration and auction while she was getting food for her husband, Shane. The couple runs the well-known 42-foot Statement Marine V-bottom called Saddle Up. As of yesterday morning, their chances of running in the main event looked slim thanks to a broken rocker-arm in one of the boat’s engines. But Mike Holford of CK Performance Marine in Norton Shores Mich., came through with the needed replacement-part and installed it in time for the run.

The 42-footer ran all day without a hitch.

Shane and Vickie Franks overcame mechanical issues just in time to make the start of the poker run.

“Boyne Thunder is one of the world’s best poker runs,” she said. “I like 1,000 Islands Charity a little better, but Shane likes this one a little better.”

Clearly, he liked it better enough to drop $6,500 on a “Boyne Thunder Rated The World’s Best Poker Run by speedonthewater.com” banner during the live auction.

Before I bumped into Vickie Franks, I stopped to say hello to Dave Meizels of Camp Quality-Michigan, one of two local charities for children—the other is Challenge Mountain—supported by the event.

Enjoy more images from the 2024 Boyne Thunder Poker Run.

“Absolutely, Boyne Thunder is the best, and that’s not just from me,” he said. “I hear it all the time from the participants. They come here from another poker run. They leave here and go to another poker run.”

I was getting warmer. But I needed a bigger sample size.

So in no order particular, I asked participants Kristie Tschida and her son, Tyler, Melissa Snook, Rob Turner, Lori Lemanske and John Tokar. I also posed the question to event backers Ryan Wenk of Sunsation Boats, Henrik Margård of Nor-Tech Hi-Performance Boats and Miranda Doan of Avalon Pontoon Boats.

All agreed with the “best poker run in the world” description.

No family enjoys Boyne Thunder more than the Tschidas.

“The community welcomes everybody,” said Kristie Tschida, whose husband, Jeremy, piloted the family’s Outerlimits SC 37 catamaran all weekend with his wife and son. “We love being here.”

Added Tyler when I spied him later in the evening, “It’s fun, exciting and amazing.”

The owners of a 42-foot Fountain V-bottom, Snook and her husband, Justin, live a short-drive away from Boyne City in Mancelona, where they run their automobile body shop.

“It’s absolutely the best—the best organized, best water and best people,” she said. “But the water could have been a little rougher. I like it when we’re breaking things.”

She wasn’t joking. Clearly, Justin Snook, who also lives for sporty water, married well.

For Mancelona, Mich.-based Melissa and Justin Snook, the Boyne Thunder Poker Run is a home-water event.

Boyne Thunder Poker Run veterans Turner and Lemanske were canoodling near the bar when I approached them. Both sported big grins and fresh sunburns.

“The best for sure,” said Turner. “Just look at the venue. Look at the hardware. Look at the people involved.”

Lemanske nodded. “We are a family,” she said. “And we are all here for the kids.”

Tokar, who had I posed both questions to as we walked to the party through Boyne City, told me he needed to think about his answer and would find me later. Good to his word, he did.

“It is the best poker run because it’s not about a poker run” he said. “It’s about family.”

Now the national sales and marketing manager of Sunsation Boats, Wenk once worked alongside his longtime friend Brad DiMaggio of Scrapyard Media, which produced last night’s spectacular short video that rocketed to the heart of the event.

A big-hearted guy, Wenk had a grin that lit up the event-tent last night.

“Boyne Thunder is the best poker run that has ever existed,” he said. “Number one, it’s in Northern Michigan. Number two, it’s on Lake Michigan water. And number three, Speed On The Water is here.”

Shameless pandering that it was, item No. 3 resonated with me.

The chief operating officer of Nor-Tech, Margård participated in the event a few years ago with the Cape Coral, Fla.-based company’s dealer manager Geoff Tomlinson. Both are married and have pre-teen daughters.

“I love that I can bring my family here,” Margård said as he enjoyed dinner with his wife, Carey, and daughter, Abby.

Avalon’s Doan didn’t have her two daughters with her this weekend, but Margård will be pleased to learn that she rode on a 39-foot Nor-Tech center console with friends during the poker run as Avalon had no boats in the event as the company did in 2022.

On Friday before Saturday’s poker run, a group of participants visited Sleeping Bear Dunes by boat. (Read the story.)

“Honestly, Boyne Thunder is the absolute best poker run,” she said. “It’s such a good show—the best high-performance boas in the world are here. And the city of Boyne is great.”

Nothing about this survey, of course, is close to scientific, much less conclusive. But on my way out of the party, I bumped into Artie Clark, his 10-year-old son, Ace, and the rest of their beautiful, Michigan-based family. At his tender age, Ace already drives his parents 47-foot Fountain V-bottom—the paceboat for our poker-run group during yesterday’s trek across Lake Charlevoix—and operates a powerboat better than most people ever will.

Ace Clark has cred. His opinion matters a lot more than mine.

And he thinks the Boyne Thunder Poker Run is the best poker run in the world.

Case closed