Bahamas Bound, VI—Wrapping It Up By The Numbers And More

At home in Cape Coral from the annual Florida Powerboat Club Bahamas Poker Run this morning, I am light two objects, a pair of Ray-Ban Club Master sunglasses and a simple, logo-less black baseball cap. Both were brand-new eight days ago.

Both losses were predictable, at least if we’ve met.

Described by one seasoned participant as “the best poker run ever,” the 34th annual Florida Powerboat Club Bahamas event is in the books. Photos by Max Jones copyright of the Florida Powerboat Club.

Purchased for its color and lack of branding—to be fair I don’t even wear Speed On The Water-branded gear though I’m told incentive to do so exists—the hat blew off my head on the new 49-foot, six-outboard Deep Impact offshore-for-sure center console.

Embarrassing rookie move. Playing it cool, I shrugged, grinned for effect and grabbed another hat out of my pack. But I was steamed.

Equally predictable and mortifying? I left my shades at a restaurant on Harbour Island, Bahamas, last Sunday night. They were not to be found when I dropped by to check the following day.

Yet knowing my habits and tendencies, I had not one but two pairs of Wayfarers in my backpack back at the Colonial-style rental home Deep Impact Custom Boats owners Mark and Eileen Fischer had secured for our group. All was very well.

Unless I lost my only tube of sunscreen, which I did misplace but found thanks to fellow passenger Dave Smith, a colorful character and fast friend. Fortunately, Smith, who is married to Florida Powerboat Club office manager Megan Smith, provided backup in the interim.

Banana Boat doesn’t smell as familiar or frankly as good as Coppertone Sport. But I was in no position to be precious about it. Acceptance and gratitude seemed a better call.

Losing two new items in six days got me thinking about the numbers that emerged from the club’s 34th annual Bahamas adventure, such as Nor-Tech with a by-the-brand leading four center consoles in the registered 16-boat mix. Of those Nor-Tech models, three were 39-footers owned by Weston and Amber Bass of Louisiana, Jimmy and Jackie Blackburn of Ohio and their fellow Ohioans Joe and Jen Greulich. Michigan’s Brandon Jennings ran a 40-footer.

The Atlantis Resort in Nassau towers the channel that leads to the sprawling 154-acre property.

With a new 49-footer owned by the Fischers in South Florida, Deep Impact had the largest boat in the fleet, as well as a 39-footer owned by Missouri’s Mike Leardi. Sunsation Boat laid claim to the smallest offering not just to participate, thanks to 32 CCX center console owner Mark Grieser of Michigan, but to complete the entire 500-plus-mile Atlantic Ocean adventure. Also repping the Sunsation brand with their 34-footer were Georgia’s John and Connie Fahmy.

The only other two-boat brand in the group was Fountain Powerboats with 38-foot center consoles owned by Georgia’s Kyle Fowler of Georgia and Clint Newcomb of Arkansas.

Single-brand entries built-out the rest of the fleet, and all but one of the participants— Missouri’s Scott Favre with an MTI V-42 owned by Scott Favre of—was from Florida.

Attack Marine owner/Mystic Powerboats and Fliteboard dealer Chris Richards piloted an M4200, Luis Vigoa ran a 42-foot Aviara, Rob and Tara Rill in a 37-foot Axopar and Frank Bulte piloted a 42-foot Scout.

With a half-dozen 500-hp outboard on its transom, the Deep Impact 499 also was the most powerful boat in the fleet. “I have to thank Mercury Racing for putting together an incredible power package,” Fischer said yesterday as we idled through the channel leading to the new waterfront home he shares with his bride in Fort Lauderdale. “My hat is off to them.”

As a passenger on the 49-footer for six days, I grabbed a few other numbers related to the second 499 built to date. In conditions that ranged from ripples to following 4- to 6-footers during yesterday’s return trip, the boat covered the 183-mile trek from Harbour Island to Chub Cay in 3 hours and 15 minutes. Running 60 mph, the center console got approximately .4 miles per gallon, nothing, of course, to scream about relative to the automobile world, but plenty to scream about from a six-outboard, 15-ton beauty that left homeward bound with 950 gallons of fuel.

Once the largest offering in the Deep Impact center-console line, Mike Leardi’s 399 looks small next to the Fischer’s new 49-footer.

With the seas down to 1 to 3 feet, top speed in the 85-mile trip between Chub Cay and Bimini was 74 mph. The trek took less than 90 minutes including a brief open-water rest stop.

Those numbers were enough to dazzle Florida Powerboat Club head Stu Jones, who also was onboard for the entire adventure with his wife, Jackie, and their younger son, Max. Though the club’s Bahamas Poker Run celebrated its 34th anniversary this time around, Jones has done more side trips to the island than he can remember. He knows the Bahamas and what them Bahamas requires.

So he marveled at the 49-footer’s performance.

“That’s the fastest that leg anyone has ever been done,” he said. “At last in a Florida Powerboat Club event.”

Once the 499 was tied up at docks behind the docks at the Big Game Club on Bimini for our lunch stop, captain Kyle Heidecker, who helps operate the Fischer’s Ocean Alexander Yacht, grinned and shook his head.

“That was incredible, Mr. Fischer,” he told our host. “This boat is incredible.”

A longtime performance-boat owner and operator, Fischer smiled and nodded. Just eight days ago, the six-outboard beauty did its first sea trial. Two days later it was off to Bahamas for six days. That, plus the event itself, impressed him.

“Best poker run ever,” Fischer wrote in a text message to our group after we arrived back in Florida.

As if six days in the Bahamas weren’t enough, the group above enjoyed them on the newest Deep Impact 499 center console.

The Fischers have invited me to repeat this adventure next year and—seeing as my mom raised no fools—it’s already on my calendar. But there’s a wrinkle.

And of course it involves a number.

I’ll be joining them on a new Deep Impact 43-foot center console currently under construction at the Miami company, which will debut at the 2025 Fort Lauderdale Boat Show, that also will be offered with six outboard engines.

For that reason and countless more—as you can glean from the related stories below—the Bahamas have my number.

Related stories
Sequence Of The Week—Sunrise On Harbour Island
Bahamas Bound, Part VI—Pink Gold
Bahamas Bound, Part V—Pigging Out
Bahamas Bound, Part IV—Welcome To The Memory Factory
Image Of The Week: Bahamian Hues, Nor-Tech Style
Bahamas Bound, Part III—Taming The Big Stuff In A Deep Impact 499
Bahamas Bound, Part II—When High Winds Are Nothing To Beach About
Bahamas Bound, Part I—The Crossing
Bahamas Bound—29 Years Later

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