Dean Holcomb Poker Run | BarefootSailingClub

Dean Holcomb Poker Run
Thursday, January 1, 2026

All Lake Lanier Sailors are invited to kick off 2026 with our open Poker Run,

named for Dean Holcomb, a much-loved sailing friend we lost over the summer of 2019.

Need a boat? OR, need crew? Signup on the Crew/Skipper Board below.

Please RSVP to let us know you're coming.

And join us afterwards for the Chili Cookoff at Branch House Tavern!

Crew/Skipper Board

RSVP

Skippers

Name	Sail #	Boat	Make/Model
Bill Bond	007	Moneypenny	Hunter 356
David Steadman	131	Out of Office	Catalina 355
Lara Wittlin	888	Witchburner	Hunter 335
Rob Suba	8170	Rob Roy	Tartan 33R

Crew


Hong "Dan" Wang
Laura Clarke
Nan Deegan

BACKGROUND

Because of the support he provided Barefoot Sailing Club over the years, we decided to honor cherished memories of him with a fun event that he enjoyed. The New Year's Day event was renamed to the Dean Holcomb Poker Run.

Post-race, we gather in the pool room at Branch House Tavern for a fiercely competitive Chili Cookoff.

We're also grateful to Dean's widow Dee Rosenbaum for her steadfast devotion to Dean and mutual support of the Joan Holcomb Women Skippers Race named after his late first wife and Barefoot Commodore. Dean's love of Dee was always apparent in how he glowed and spoke of her.

To read more about Dean, see his obituary on the Memorial Park Funeral Homes site.

2024 POKER RUN

Poker run weather was a little chilly but on the nicer and exiting side with winds average 9 to 17 knots and 45 Degrees F Temperature and semi-cloudy.

The race committee went out early 9:00 AM to explore lake, the weather and to decide which markers to use. Wind was a perfect reach to H mark from the north, so this was a no brainer but then the question was either to use A-mark or B-mark. We decided on B-mark since there has been a few recent incidents rounding A-mark with the lake low level. As it turned out, B-mark was perfect reach sail to H on the day. Many thanks to Bill Anchors with his pontoon boat, Bill Bond and Duane Simms (friend of Bill Bond) for helping with installing and removing the Poker Card Socks on the markers on the cold day.

Poker Cards were placed in Markers B-X-E-H with H marker being the farther one (from the north) since we had good wind and the expectation was that skippers would enjoy the long reach sail – and they did! Skippers could start any time after the skippers meeting and pick markers in any order. It was so obvious that skippers and crew were having so much fun, we should have placed more cards in more markers! 😊

We started collecting and pulling the socks from markers at 2:40 PM (race committee crew were hungry 😊) but did not realized there was one last boat remaining that was returning from H-mark and that had not finished and was pending B-mark card – so we handed the B-Mark card at the cookout. The race committee crew were also picking up some scattered cards that fell in the water in error from boats trying to catch cards – we need to keep lake clean 😊

All-in-all, was great sailing and FUN! And we were able to see Chris Koerner new J-80 sailboat flying-by in action!

Chico
Racing Fleet Captain