ORANGE BEACH POWERBOAT WEEK

from Powerboating In Paradise Vol22#3

BAHAMAS POKER RUN

SWEET HOME Alabama

Just three years in and already at full stride, the Orange Beach Powerboat Week Poker Run at The Wharf on Alabama’s Gulf Coast is becoming a membership favorite—and there’s more to come. By Jason Johnson

In just a few short years, the Florida Powerboat Club’s Orange Beach Powerboat Week Poker Run in Orange Beach, Ala., has turned into one of the club’s most popular events, and for good reason. First and foremost, the location is unlike any other FPC event in that the variety of waterways to explore, including the Intracoastal Waterway, several bays and offshore opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico, is a perfect fit with The Wharf, the all-in-one host location of the poker run since Jones and company started it in 2019.

Add in a few ideal hang-out spots, near-perfect weather and a wellrounded fleet of 55 boats with more than 200 participants overall, and it’s easy to see why Texas performance boater Chad Havens, who has attended all three of the Alabama-based happenings (it was cancelled in 2020 because of the pandemic), called the Orange Beach Powerboat Week Poker Run a “can’t miss event.”

“I’ve made it to Orange Beach every year since FPC started organizing it and I have to say—and this may sound a little strange— but Orange Beach is actually my favorite venue,” said Havens, who brought Savage, his 40-foot Skater Powerboats catamaran that is powered by a pair of dual-calibration Mercury Racing 1550/1350 engines, to the poker run with several friends. “Everything is just set up so convenient that once you get to The Wharf and you get your boat in the water and park your vehicle, you'll never be in your vehicle again. There's just no need to travel. Your boat is there; the shopping is there; the food is there; heck there’s even a movie theater there. Almost anything you could possibly want to do is literally within a few steps.

“And it’s geographic location is great—you don’t have to do the same thing twice if you stayed there for a week,” he added. “One day we headed east to Pensacola (Fla.) and the next day we went west to Mobile (Ala.), and the best part is you can play around in the protected water or head offshore if you want to go outside. There are also some really good raft-up locations out there. The Orange Beach area has a lot to offer.”

Havens said he plans to attend the two-day poker run next year and encourage as many of his boating friends to sign up as well.

One person who won’t need any convincing to return in 2023 is Vince Oddo, who is the president of the Texas Offshore Performance Powerboat Squadron (TOPPS) Clear Lake organization and attended the Orange Beach event for the first time in his Cigarette Racing Team 38 Top Gun powered by twin Mercury Racing 500EFI engines. Oddo, and his wife, Rachael, and daughter, Graylon, enjoyed the run with a few friends and other TOPPS members who also made the trip to Alabama with their boats.

Photos by: Pete Boden & Stu Jones

his team for recognizing the TOPPS members with two awards during the Saturday night party that included dinner, seven-card poker-hand play and award presentations. “I really enjoyed The Wharf and all of the different locations around Orange Beach. And for us coming from Texas, it was a pretty easy pull since we didn’t have to travel too far.

“We’ll definitely come back—I really liked the variety of waterways that the event offers,” he continued. “You’re able to run through the Intracoastal, you're able to run through the bay and you're able to run offshore near the beach. We decided to head offshore for some of it and wow was that fun. We caught some good air out there.”

Oddo said Sean Porter, the TOPPS Club vice president, also enjoyed his time in Orange Beach.

“It was great to be out there with our fellow club members—hopefully next year there will be even more of us,” Oddo quipped.

Although they didn’t travel as far as some of the Texas participants or some of the FPC members who came from Louisiana, Georgia, South Florida and beyond, Panama City, Fla.-based boaters Jack and Kay Stewart brought their twin Mercury Racing Verado 400R-powered 32-foot catamaran from Doug Wright Powerboats to the event for the second year and had an awesome time. has hauled his Doug Wright as far as Missouri for the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout and to other Florida Powerboat Club events around the state. “The facilities that The Wharf offers are pretty nice and we really love being around like-minded people who enjoy going fast. The water is nice, too. Most of the runs are on the Intracoastal so it’s pretty protected. I prefer that for my boat—I’m not in a big V-bottom or center console so it’s not as fun when it gets over two or three feet.”

Louisiana-based performance boater Scott Favre, who has attended every Orange Beach run thanks to his personal connection to the event, said he and his family had an absolute great time at the poker run in his Sunsation Powerboats 40 CCX that he sold this summer upon ordering a new MTI-V 42 luxury performance center console to complement his 44-foot MTI catamaran.

“The Sunsation was a great boat—we had a blast in it at the Orange Beach event and the Tampa Bay Poker Run the month before,” said Favre, who owns The Wharf—the Gulf Coast location that features a nearby boat ramp, first-class lodging, top-notch dockage, abundant truck and trailer parking, a washdown for flushing and more—with his father, Art, who hosted a lunch on Saturday at his waterfront property for sponsors, friends and VIP.

“I’m hopeful that everyone who came to the event had a good time. I know we were a little limited this year on parking because of the storm the year before, but it worked out. (Continued on page 8) POWERBOATING IN PARADISE | 7

Scott Favre | LA | Team NEVER ENOUGH | 40' Sunsation

Terrell & Lara Haydock | TX | Team I SED 8U | 36' Sunsation

Mike Kelley | TX | Team THE CAT'S ASS | 28' Eliminator

I SED 8U Crew

“This event is unique because of The Wharf and also because there are a bunch of little restaurants and bars in the area—none of them are big enough to house everybody for lunch so we split up into smaller groups, which to me works out well with the way Stu sets it all up,” he continued, explaining that the Wharf has come a long way since his family purchased the location 10 years ago. “When I first started doing all this, I approached Stu with the idea and told him we have a ‘one-stop-shop deal’ between the marina, the conference rooms, hotels and condos, restaurants and bars, and more, so no one really has to leave, which is good. And here we are several years later.”

Favre added there is soon going to be even more to offer his fellow Florida Powerboat Club members in Orange Beach as his father purchased 86 acres of the Bama Bayou property on the north side of the Intracoastal Waterway across from The Wharf this summer and development is in the works on a new marina that will be called The Wharf Landing. “It’s going to take us a year or two to have the marina in place, but once that’s the case, this event can get as big as it wants to after that,” Favre said.

Sounds like music—cue Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama—to everyone’s ears right there.