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The Wildest, Hottest Boating Stories From This Summer At Lake Of The Ozarks: 2025 Edition

  • 3 min to read
Collage - Wildest Boating Stories of 2025

Summer is a wild time at Lake of the Ozarks. From high-speed powerboat races to stupid-human-tricks to bizarre creatures, there's always something everyone at the Lake is buzzing about.

Here are 8 of the wildest, hottest, most buzzworthy stories from this boating season. Thanks for the memories, Summer 2025!

#1. Fastest-Powerboat-Ever Returns... And Doubles-Down

The former Spirit of Qatar boat came back to the Lake after a decade, and threw down an unbelievable speed at this year's Shootout: 242 mph. That took the Top Gun title from reigning champ American Ethanol. It was a thrilling weekend of speed and an incredible new record at a new Shootout race course.

In the comments: nobody seemed to believe this run was actually 242, because it just doesn't look like 242 on their phone screen. K.

#2. Your Powerboat Can't Outrun The Water Patrol

Dude allegedly tosses woman off his boat (a very nice boat).

Dude allegedly speeds away from the water cops.

Dude gets caught.

Unrelated: the boat is for sale.

In the comments: was the boat orange (we reported it was, because the original Patrol report said the report they received said it might have been orange...) or red? And we caught flak for calling the suspect a well-known powerboat racer when apparently he hadn't raced for a couple of years. Definitely the most important parts of this story. *sigh*

#3. The Aquatic Cowboy & Captain Cupcake Grab A Rope & Save The Lake

You can't make this stuff up.

A diver who goes by "The Aquatic Cowboy" and the towboat captain who goes by "Captain Cupcake" teamed up to save boaters from a hidden danger on the Lake. A rope (who put that there?) floating across a huge area at the mouth of a cove kept tripping-up boaters who passed through.

These heroic vigilantes took matters into their own hands and cut it free.

In the comments: The video got seen like 100k times on Facebook. Mostly people said "Thank you" but one dude had to ask why scuba divers go into the water backwards.

#4. Powerboat Flips On Race Weekend

There's not much more to say about this one. A 24-foot racing catamaran from the XINSURANCE team apparently caught a wave wrong and flipped. Everybody was ok.

#5. The Blob Returns Again

It's not a new story at Lake of the Ozarks, but it resurfaces every year... not unlike its subject matter. The story of those strange blobby critters floating in the Lake never ceases to captivate — and sometimes disgust — Lake visitors and residents alike.

The good news is, they're actually a good sign! The blobs (aka bryozoans) only thrive in clean water.

#6. Rare Flooding Event: Lake Breaks The 660 Mark

For the first month or so of the boating season, it seemed to never stop raining: great for all the growing things, but not very good for boating (or the businesses that serve boaters). And even Bagnell Dam operators could scarcely keep up.

The target "full pool" level for Lake of the Ozarks is between 659 and 660 feet of elevation above sea level. Dam operators typically try to avoid ever allowing the Lake level to rise above 660 feet. But for a brief time amid this summer's rains, it did. Towards the end of June, a massive rain event caused flash flooding around the region and pushed the Lake level slightly above 660 feet. With two of the dam's eight turbines out-of-commission, dam operators were forced to open the floodgates to regulate the Lake level.

#7. The Money Dries Up & Fireworks Get Axed

Most of the summer fireworks shows were cancelled, after a court ruling put the nail in the coffin of the Lake area's lodging tax. Multiple venues that typically hold fireworks shows on Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day weekends told LakeExpo they had scaled-back or eliminated their plans for fireworks this year due to not receiving lodging tax funds to help pay for the shows.

In the comments: Debate about lodging taxes. Proceed at your own risk.

#8. National News Media Proves It Is Braindead

On the eve of two of the summer's biggest weekends — Shootout weekend followed by Labor Day weekend — the Missouri Dept. of Health and Senior Services announced a potential connection between Lake of the Ozarks and a man who had died of a brain-eating amoeba.

It's unclear what the point of this announcement was, but state and national media found it irresistible. They ran with it, driving irrational fear into the hearts of vacationers as Lake of the Ozarks businesses were still reeling from a summer season that was rained-out for the first month. It was absurd, reckless, and unnecessarily harmful, so we did what we could to push back against the tide, penning the headline we never imagined we'd write: Lake Of The Ozarks Will Not Eat Your Brain.

Nope, it will not. Now, back to scrolling that social media feed...

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