Rock The River Cincy Fun Run Is All About The People

Perspiration cools your physique. It’s important for survival. Fail to perspire lengthy sufficient and also you—your human self—will expire.

Even when you didn’t trouble to sweat passing your highschool biology class, you most likely already knew this.

Even two days of smothering warmth couldn’t preserve the Rock The River Cincy from top-to-bottom success. Photos by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

Of course, there are components of your physique that don’t sweat resembling your eyeballs and fingernails.  But I swear to all that’s holy and unholy that mine did yesterday throughout Rock The River Cincinnati Fun Run on the Ohio River, the place the warmth index reached the high-90-degree vary.

“It’s hot,” mentioned Pat Feldhaus, a giant dude with a large smile who organizes the annual occasion along with his twin brother, Matt, and their mutual pal Michael Caliguri, as he stood in entrance of a large fan throughout the Lighthouse Point Marina out of doors lunch cease. “It’s really hot.”

Powerboats of all sizes and vintages as welcome within the Ohio River occasion.

“One of the three food trucks we had coming broke down on the way here,” he added, then nodded towards the rising line of red-faced members behind him. “It’s going to be a long afternoon.”

When I steered that he should be careworn, Feldhaus shook his head.

“No, not really, it’s just hot,” he mentioned and grinned. “We’re going to raise a lot of money for charity. That’s what matters.”

Mississippi’s Tim and Trisha Freund ran the occasion for the primary time of their new-to-them 48-foot MTI catamaran.

“It’s all about the people,” he added. “The people make it happen.”

Said his sometimes silent brother earlier that morning, “I haven’t heard anyone complain. All the people here know it’s about the charity. They’re great people.”

Standing only a few ft away Pat Feldhaus, Sunsation Boats nationwide gross sales supervisor Ryan Wenk chatted with just a few of the Algonac, Mich., center-console builder’s prospects. Like Feldhaus, Wenk was a sweaty, grinning mess.

Despite leaving a propeller-shaft and a propeller on the underside of the Ohio River, Southwest Florida’s Tim and Cyndee loved the run.

“Rock the River is absolutely the most underrated event in the country,” he mentioned. “Sunsation will always be here.”

Aaron Treppa, his Sunsation firm cohort, took it from there.

“These are our people, right here, and this is our brand,” he mentioned. “This is the Sunsation lifestyle.”

The of us at Formula Boats way back realized the worth of Rock The River Cincy.

As returning backers, Sunsation’s Wenk and Treppa knew what to anticipate from the two-day, nearly 150-boat, 600-plus-participant affair, as did Wayne Porter and his son, Jeremy, of Formula Boats. But Kentucky’s Dan Weiss and his spouse, Julie, didn’t. The couple not too long ago partnered in bringing the Nor-Tech Hi-Performance Boats line to Unlimited Marine of their home-state.

So they seen the occasion by way of recent participant and sponsor eyes. And what they skilled delighted them.

“I told Pat to sign us up for the next 10 years,” Dan Weiss mentioned.

Enjoy extra motion from yesterday’s occasion.

Power To The People—With A Bit Of Breakage
Ask members what makes the Rock The River Cincy occurring so extraordinary and also you get the identical reply, as you could have famous above.

The folks.

“Great people run it,” defined Mike Matt—a reputation that has earned him adopted son standing from yours really—who got here from Wisconsin with associates Jordan Hart, Nikki Mueller and others to expertise the occasion. “That brings in quite a lot of nice folks from everywhere in the nation.

“It’s epic,” he mentioned.

Ryan McClaran and “the boys” loved the run his his 32-foot Sunsation heart console.

Hart and Mueller are Rock The River Cincy regulars. They tackled this yr’s occasion of their Statement Marine 360 catamaran this yr and final. Next yr, they’ll run it in a brand new Statement Marine 396 catamaran that’s slated to reach Stateside from Brazil by the tip of the month.

“It’s a great run,” Hart defined. “But it’s really all about the people who come here.”

Kentucky’s Greg and Heather Scheller skilled the occasion for the primary time final yr in a DCB Performance Marin M37R catamaran referred to as Cowboy & Indian and co-owned their associates by Kelly O’Hara of Upstate New York and Indiana’s Kiran Pinisetti. The Scheller’s new 37-footer from the Phoenix  firm was only a few weeks from completion on the time, so Greg Scheller drove the Cowboy & Indian cat throughout the return leg of the run.

For Ohio’s Justin and Johnna Beischel, the Rock The River Cincy affair is their favourite native occasion.

Now they’d their very own DCB creation to run on the Ohio River.

“I enjoyed it last year, but I am enjoying it more this year,” Greg Scheller mentioned.

After lunch, the Scheller household and several other different members ran their catamarans ran all the best way Smuggler’s Cover in Warsaw, Ky.,, some 80 miles from their Manhattan Harbor Marina start line.

As it seems, the farther you get from downtown Cincinnati, which boasts a formidable skyline, the prettier the Ohio River and the encompassing countryside will get. The journey to Smuggler’s Cove had everybody who made the trek praising the waterway and its lush shoreline.

It additionally didn’t harm that the 90- to 120-mph on speeding wind cooled our our bodies. The oppressive actuality of the climate returned with a vengeance whereas we have been fueling for the return.

That proved to be a double-bummer for Greg Scheller, who realized simply earlier than fueling {that a} chunk of particles within the water had taken a chunk of out of the skeg on his port outboard’s decrease unit—the one he had simply changed after a debris-strike destroyed it the day earlier than the late-June Lake Cumberland Thunder Run.

A visit to Smuggler’s Cove Marina was simply the ticket for a number of catamarans within the group.

That wasn’t the one mechanical casualty of the day. Tim and Cyndee Hill of Cape Coral, Fla., broke a propeller shaft, and now the shaft and the propeller reside on the underside of Ohio River. The Fort Myers Offshore management couple nonetheless managed to seize lunch at Cabana On The River Restaurant—the day gone by’s lunch-stop—earlier than working dwelling on certainly one of their 32-foot Skater catamaran’s Mercury Racing 450R outboards.

Just outdoors the occasion’s home-base, a belt inside port Mercury Racing 500R outboard on the DCB M37 owned by O’Hara and Pinisetti shredded itself and left what appeared like grey-green moss everywhere in the powerhead.

The Big Finish
All of that light as soon as everybody was again at Manhattan Harbor Marina and able to rejoice. The occasion included an public sale and its proceeds, plus these from registration and sponsorships, will go to the Cecil B. Dye Foundation, a neighborhood charity that helps most cancers sufferers pay fundamental payments resembling utilities.

“The auction and card-play raised $8,000,” Pat Feldhaus mentioned. “Everyone donated back their winnings to the organization. I don’t have the final numbers, but the rough estimate has us at $83,000 to $95,000 for the organization.”

With a record-setting 147 entries, the Manhattan Harbor Marina has reached capability.

Though the weekend warmth did create some participant attrition, it didn’t have an effect on the charitable trigger.

“Of the 147 entries 11 or 12 boats didn’t run,” Feldhaus defined. “We had quite a lot of these guys say, ‘Hey, we’re not working however right here’s the cash anyway.’

“I think we’re going to need a bigger venue next year,” he added, then laughed.

When Feldhaus tried to credit score speedonthewater.com with the occasion’s development and success, I lower him brief. The day by day powerboating information web site might shine a highlight on an occasion, I instructed him, but when he and his fellow organizers don’t execute that, that mild means nothing.

Because as everybody who loves the Rock The River Cincy Fun Run is aware of, it’s all in regards to the folks.

Human capital powers the Rock The River Cincy Fun Run.

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