Slideshow of the Week: West Michigan Offshore’s Third Rock The Coast

Even though the fleet of boats ended up being less than half of what the club expected for its third annual Rock The Coast fun run because of the rain throughout Saturday’s event, the West Michigan Offshore members still had a fantastic time.

Despite rainy conditions, West Michigan Offshore members who ran in Rock The Coast had fun. Photos by Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix

“Yeah the weather was terrible, but we made the best of it,” said Chris Dekker, one of the club’s founding board members. “We try to think about it objectively and understand we can’t control that side of things so we make the best of it no matter what. We had to decide that morning if we were going to proceed as planned with the helicopter photo shoot and the raft-up in Port Sheldon after lunch.”

Ultimately Dekker and company chose safety first and called off the helicopter as well as the raft-up.

“We had more than 100 boats signed up, but only 40 of them decided to make the run to Boatwerks in Holland,” Dekker said. “I wasn’t too disappointed though because we had some pretty flat water and a good mix of boats. Plus, I think this says a lot about the health of WMO because we still had 40 boats show up despite unfavorable weather.”

Check out more images from Rock The Coast in the slideshow above.

Dekker said many of the Rock The Coast participants still traveled via car from Grand Haven to Boatwerks Waterfront Restaurant as they had meal tickets and wanted to socialize with fellow WMO members. He added that several out-of-state participants made the trek to Michigan and ran their boats to lunch and back.

During the lunch, a 50/50 raffle was held with proceeds going toward WMO’s Make-A-Wish Foundation fund, which, according to Dekker, has donated more than $20,000 so far this year.

On tap for WMO in about a month is the August Fun Run—the club’s only overnight event (Aug. 25-26)—that runs from Grand Haven to South Haven. According to Dekker, the club has the entire South Haven Municipal Marina reserved for Saturday evening, and that there is going to be a pub crawl, marina party and more. He added that space is limited for overnight slip availability.

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