The Friday lunch run and raft-up portion of the Old Hickory Fun Run that started at the Blue Turtle Bay Marina outside of Nashville, Tenn., is in full swing and has reached the “lunch portion” at Awedaddy’s waterside restaurant in Gallatin. Next up is the afternoon raft-up.

A couple of quick notes from the lunch stop. First, the Cumberland River is spectacular. Second, for late July the humidity is remarkably low today—a pleasant surprise for the 50 or so high-performance boats and their crews including Habitual, a 50-foot Mystic Powerboats catamaran that belongs to Chad Collier, the event’s organizer. While it’s not here today, John Woodruff’s well-known Windship 48-foot MTI cat is expected to be part of the fleet tomorrow. Longime Shogren Performance Marine customer Vinnie Foglia brought both of his new Mystics, a C4400 catamaran and an M3900 center console (my ride to the lunch stop) and they are two fine pieces of hardware in an exceptional fleet.

For a quick look from the first day of the 2015 Old Hickory Run, checkout the slideshow above.

Third, according to Collier, there could be more than 100 boats in tomorrow’s fleet. Registrations are still coming in. “At this point, I’ve lost count,” he said, then laughed.

That would be a record for the event, which is looking good to set another benchmark this year. Without the Old Hickory Fun Run even officially beginning—that will happen tonight with the welcome party at the Rock Bottom Brewery in downtown Nashville—$50,000 reportedly already has been raised for the Wounded Warrior Project, the event’s benefitting charity.

And that’s amazing.

Editor’s note: Look for updates throughout the weekend on the 2015 Old Hickory Fun Run.

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