Lake of the Ozarks Article

[Dave98]

Last Sunday in the Kansas City Star newspaper was a first page article on how rough the water is getting at Lake of the Ozarks.

It cited several recent deaths (mostly drowning)due to large waves created by increasingly bigger and faster boats. The had 5-6 foot waves there July 4th at one spot on the lake.

Most of the problems are created by inconsiderate captains that probably had a few too many beers.

Let's all be careful.....and considerate of others as the article said that size/speed restrictions maybe looked at in the future.

[mjpcowboy]

I read the article Dave is referring to. The media tends to blame it on anything other than poor operation and lack of respect for the water. The thing is that none of the deaths this year at the Ozarks have had anything to do with speed. One person fell off a pontoon, two people drowned at the Party-cove and the third was on a boat that was at idle speed that sunk which was not sea worthy (full of leaks). I agree that people need to pay better attention however we place blame in the proper place which is people that have no business driving or even being on a boat. Speed limits and restrictions simply do not work. Just my $.02 :rolleyes:

[z22owner]

Here is my 2 cents. Being a boater of small inland lakes in the midwest, I have been forced to reckon with the rollers that come from 30-50' cruisers. When its just me on the lake with no family aboard its no problem, just point the boat right at the roller and have some fun, but its damn scary and not real fun for my wife and 1 year old. I wish that these small lakes had some limits set for how big a boat can be run on them. No sense in having a 40' cruiser on a lake that I can swim across.

Z22owner

[mjpcowboy]

I would hardly consider the Lake of the Ozarks a small lake. With more than 92 miles of water you can use and multi-million dollar houses how could you set a limit on size. Anyone can avoid the rough part of the lake by simply not going on that part of the lake or boating during the week. I don't know of many other lakes around the midwest that have this problem. I think anyone has the right to have any size or speed boat they wish as long as the operate it in a safe manner.