With close to 30 boats on hand in Morehead City, N.C., for Saturday’s Lookout Shootout Poker Run, which preceded Sunday’s Offshore Powerboat Association Crystal Coast Grand Prix race in the same location, the dedicated group behind the run was excited by the turnout as well as the money raised for a couple of local cancer-based charities.

The team at Marker 17 Marine in Wilmington, N.C., brought several boats out for the Lookout Shootout Poker Run, including a 50-foot canopied Outerlimits V-bottom. Photos by Clinton Garant

According to Keri McCann, who has helped organize the poker run with her husband and frequent offshore racer, Jeff McCann, for many years, last weekend’s event—thanks to the OPA show coming to town—was the best one she’s witnessed. McCann, a Morehead City Council member, is also part of the nonprofit organization Carteret Cancer Crew, which organizes several local events such as a fishing tournament and a wig donation fundraiser and handled the charitable aspect of the poker run.

“We still have some donations coming in and some bills to pay so I don’t have an exact amount, but we should be able to donate $15,000 or more to a couple of incredible organizations,” said McCann, noting that the Carteret Health Care Cancer Foundation and the Pretty in Pink Foundation are the beneficiaries of the event. “We are thrilled about the event as a whole and we’ve received tons of positive messages from our community and beyond. We had the best time this year. The weather wasn’t perfect but that’s out of our control and we made the best of it.”

While the objective of the Carteret Health Care Cancer Foundation speaks for itself, McCann, a breast cancer survivor, explained that Pretty In Pink provides financial assistance to women when breast cancer is present but health insurance is not.

The host location—Jack’s Waterfront Bar, which is owned by the McCanns and was named in honor of Jeff’s father, Jack—hosted much of the fun throughout the weekend, including Saturday evening’s poker run gathering that followed an intracoastal waterway tour of Beaufort and Morehead City.

Check out the slideshow above for more of Garant’s images of the poker run.

“We had a good time at the event, which is always a laid-back run,” said Virginia’s Mark Tuck, who attended the poker run with his wife, Nancy, in their Wright Performance 360 catamaran powered by twin Mercury Racing 450R engines. “It was cool to have the races back this year, too. We had a slip at the hotel so we took the boat out again this morning, ran around a little and rafted off with a group to watch the races.

“Nancy and I thought the charities were good this year, and I’ll tell you what, they had the nicest helicopter for a poker run I’ve ever seen,” he continued. “At the beginning of the run, I looked at Nancy and said, ‘That can’t be the helicopter for the run.’ And sure enough it was.”

Tuck said the weather for Saturday’s poker run was windy, which whipped up the water and prevented the group from running offshore to the scenic Cape lookout point that is always a highlight of the event. He said they still had fun and logged about 60 miles in the process.

Overall, Tuck, who wasn’t the only participant who thought this way, was excited to be able to get out and run in a poker run again.

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