Gallery Of The Week: Forenski All In With Avalon And Tiki Lee’s
When Bill Forenski, the owner of Delaware-based WMF Watercraft and Marine, stepped up as a title sponsor of the inaugural Tiki Lee’s Shootout On The River, which took place at Tiki Lee’s Dock Bar in Sparrows Point, Md., in early July, he wasn’t sure what to expect.
WMF Watercraft and Marine owner Bill Forenski, who drove a 27-foot Avalon faster than 75 mph on the event’s three-quarter-mile course, said he will happily support the Tiki Lee’s Shootout On The River in 2022. Photos courtesy Bill Forenski and Tim Sharkey/Sharkey Images
Yet after the event, which included highlights ranging from Friday’s 140-plus-boat poker run, Saturday’s kilo run records and a top-speed shootout-winning 139-mph run in the recently overhauled 40-foot Skater Powerboats catamaran Chaos (clink the links to read the stories), Forenski was ready to sign up to support the second annual event and the owner of Tiki Lee’s, Dave Carey.
“Dave Carey and his staff did such a great job,” Forenski said. “Tiki Lee’s is an amazing place and everyone there is super service-oriented—it was very impressive. They put on one hell of a show for a first-time event. The poker run was ridiculously fun and the shootout was a blast.”
Not only was Forenski impressed with the overall organization and setup of the event, the longtime performance boater who has owned seven Cigarette models and has an MTI 340X for his current ride, also participated in the event in his dealership’s 27-foot Avalon Pontoon Boats Excalibur model equipped with twin Mercury Racing 450R engines.
Check out the slideshow above for more images of the Avalon models Forenski brought to the Tiki Lee’s Shootout On The River.
With just one pass down the three-quarter-mile course, Forenski ran a respectable 76.9 mph in the boat dubbed Absolut Madness, a triple tube pontoon that was one of the most eye-catching boats at the docks throughout the weekend. And while he was pleased with the boat’s speed, which he believes makes it the fastest production-built pontoon on the water, he also thought he could have gone faster if he took the boat out with less fuel, removed the fully loaded coolers and faced less headwind running it down the course.
“My goal was to show what a fully loaded Avalon, exactly how it can be purchased, can do performance wise,” said Forenski, who added that the boat was weighed down with 100 gallons of gas and two fully loaded coolers. “I’m certain I could have run the boat faster in the right conditions. I’ve had it faster over a longer stretch, but with 20-mph winds blowing down the course, I was pleased with the result.”
Forenski, whose multi-brand dealership also sells boats from Excel, NauticStar and Tahoe, also was pleased with the 52.9-mph top speed that WMF’s Kyle West recorded in a 25-foot Avalon Excalibur that was powered by a single Mercury Racing 450R engine. Overall, Forenski and the team at WMF were thrilled with the overall exposure for Avalon Pontoon Boats.
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