2009 PDRacer World Championships - Poker Race

We have a really fun type of poker race. What we do is get a 20 foot piece of line and tie a bottle to the back of our boats.

Nobody had a knife handy, so we used a torch to cut the line.

Bigger sailboats are anchored around the lake, and each has a couple of decks of cards.

If you sail up to an anchored boat, you get one card.

You can't get another card from that boat, until you visit one of the other anchored boats.

Now here is the fun part, if you sail up to another ducker and grab the line they are towing, you have "captured" their vessel, and they must give you one of their cards.

Here is the fuzzy part. Some people would give up all their cards, some would throw one of their cards, and some (like me) would say here is what I got, what do you need?

So at the start of the race, just to be ornery, I got someone else to sail to the far side of one of the anchored boats. He kind of distracted the card-keeper a bit and I swiped a full deck of cards. :)

I didn't want to cheat, so I gave him the cards back. But I had them and I could have made a run for it!

Scott had a nifty bag on a pole that he used to hand out cards.

It was interesting the strategies that people did. Some would chase each other down. Some would turn and sail at each other, and it was kind of questionable who could grab who's line first. Some would use oars to help make their getaway.

I had a simple strategy, since my triangle sail is so much better to windward, I climbed into the wind and nobody wanted to follow. When the coast was clear, I'd head for one of the anchored boats and grab a card, then head back into the wind.

This is Marc Blazer, isn't he cool !!

After the time is up, we head in and whoever has the best poker hand wins the race.

It is really fun !!!

I know I probably say that at the end of every web page that includes puddle ducks, but hey, how can you not love, all the fun things that make up puddle ducking !!!