The usually quiet village of Northport, Michigan is disturbed on one Saturday in July every year by being a destination on the Poker Run for the Boyne Thunder event. The Boyne Thunder attracts a fleet of very special boats, very big, very powerful, very fast race or pleasure boats. They came to Northport today beginning about 11:35 a.m. for the second destination on their poker run.
You can hear them coming for quite a while before you can see them. Some of these boats are enclosed cockpit twin inboard engine boats with speed potential of more than 100-MPH. The conditions today were good, as the winds were about 10-knots and wave height was less than one-foot.
These boats are quite interesting to see. I am sure that the cost of the paint job on some of these big 60-footers was much more than my boat is worth.
A popular engine this year was the Mercury Racing division V8 450R engine. They go for about $55,000 to $65,000. Many boats were rigged with five of them--hey that is 2.250-HP and about $300,000 or more in engines alone. Also, most of the VERADO 450R engines have custom cowling paint jobs, so figure about $2,000 each (at least) for another $10,000. Then there are the propellers. I am guessing they are running Lab-finished Mercury propellers with special hubs, so another $2,000 per engine, and another $10,000.
I will say this: the VERADO 450R engines are still quiet, at least in comparison to the big inboard engine with raw exhaust.
At full throttle with 2,250-HP I would expect the fuel burn rate is about 225-GPH. If they are burning REC90 gasoline at $6.50-per-gallon, that is about $1,500-per-hour in fuel cost.
They are fun boats to watch, but I don't want to own one.
By the way, the entry fee for the Boyne Thunder is $800 for the boat, the driver, and one crew. Additional crew are $200 each. A few boats had eight aboard, so that is $2,000 for the entry fee. For that money you do get some goodies, two dinners, and one breakfast. If your poker hand wins you get $5,000. The money raised goes to charitable organizations.
The little village of Boyne City gets really inundated with all these boats and crews. About 120 boats participate. By about 1 p.m. they were all through Northport, and the village went back to its quiet Saturday-afternoon-in-Summer mode.