Starting next month with happenings from the Cigarette Owners Rendezvous and the Support Our Troops Poker Run produced by Big Thunder Marine to the Power By Performance Invitational and Outboard Fun Run organized by Performance Boat Center, the Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri will host more organized go-fast boating events than any waterway in the country. If you planted yourself at the lake for the summer, as more than a few powerboat owners, do, you could run with an organized pack almost every other weekend leading up to the annual Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in late August.
But if you really want to catch the lake at its finest, spring and fall are your times. Even on the weekends during the “shoulder seasons,” the water doesn’t become a psychotic jumble of boat wakes. The daytime temperatures are delightful. The mornings and evening are cool enough for windbreakers, but far from cold.
Plus, most of the waterfront hotspots open by mid-May—and don’t close until mid-October—and the docks are wide open.
Having just spent a week at the Lake of the Ozarks, which started with the aforementioned Spring Fun Run and ended with a lunch run in a Waves And Wheel Edition Doug Wright 39 Carbon catamaran, I can vouch for the shoulder-season experience. I’ve never enjoyed what the locals call “lake life” more
Now, in the interest of full disclosure I confess to disliking anything crowded. Crowds make me twitchy. God bless big-group events and the people who live for them, but after 15 minutes (on a good day) I’m looking for—and will find—an exit for an Irish Goodbye.
Hence my appreciation and gratitude for the Lake of the Ozarks in the spring and fall.
On the flight home from Central Missouri to Southwest Florida yesterday, I started thinking about the tried-and-true bucket-list waterways and events likely to make any go-fast powerboat fan’s bucket list. From taking in the dramatic scenery of Lake Powell on the water to running with the pack in the Florida Powerboat Club Key West Poker Run, they’re hard to deny.
That’s because they lean toward the exotic, the out of the ordinary. They belong on the list. They’re more than worth your time. No argument
But if you haven’t boated on the Lake of the Ozarks in the spring and fall, you’re missing the waterway at its absolute best. Put one season or the other on your to-do list and you won’t be disappointed.
Because you’ll see experience the waterway as you never have before.—Matt Trulio