Officially ‘Captain Morgan’ Now

The Boyne Thunder Poker Run in Northern Michigan wasn’t my oldest daughter Morgan’s first experience at a performance boat event—she’s been to the Big Cat Poker Run in Discovery Bay, Calif., the Desert Storm Poker Run in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., and the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Sunrise Beach, Mo. It was, though, the first event where she started to realize what dad does for a living is kind of cool.

The day before the Boyne Thunder Poker Run, John Tokar let Morgan Johnson take the helm of his Monterey 328 Super Sport on Michigan’s Lake Charlevoix. Photo courtesy Julie Tokar

Of course, thanks to the Speed On The Water Year In Review magazines sitting on our coffee table and the Speedonthewater.com sticker on my car and my computer, my 8-year-old is very aware that I cover fast boats. Beyond that, her interest pretty much ends.

We’ll see if that’s the case any longer after getting bit by the boating bug at what could be considered the best poker run on the planet. It helped that she’s at an old enough age now to soak it all in, but it really helped that our relatively new friends from Michigan—John and Julie Tokar, who own the jaw-dropping Outerlimits SV 43 Kahuna—took Morgan and her four-year-old sister, Colbie, cruising the day before the poker run in their “Plan B” boat, a Monterey Boats 328 Super Sport bowrider with twin 300-hp MerCruiser 350 Mag engines.

John even let Morgan take the helm, and you couldn’t wipe the smile off her face if you tried as she drove the 32-footer from East Jordan to Boyne City. Surely it was an experience she’ll be talking about for a long time, and it made me realized how quickly time flies since it doesn’t seem like that long ago she was reaching for the steering wheel in Ironman, the Hustler Powerboats 377 Talon project boat that Waves and Wheels owner Justin Wagner took us for a ride in five years ago on Lake of the Ozarks.

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