During last month’s Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Central Missouri, Tony Townsend, an Iowa-based performance boater who has spent a good amount of time at Lake of the Ozarks as a teenager and over the past several years since his wife and two daughters picked up a second home at the lake, received a lot of attention for his newly formed Ozark Powerboat Club and its accompanying website and social media pages—all of which have an OPC acronym (back to that in a minute).

Iowa performance boater Tony Townsend, who owns a 28-foot Sunsation, is the mastermind behind the new Ozark Powerboat Club. Photo by Jeff Helmkamp/Helmkamp Photos

Townsend, who owns a Sunsation Boats 288 Mid Cabin Open Bow sportboat and is the senior vice president of digital marketing for Townsquare Media, was thrilled with the positive feedback he received throughout the week about the club, which he decided to start primarily as a way to aggregate boating-specific information about one of the country’s most popular waterways all in one place.

“The feedback was amazing, especially at the Shootout on the Strip,” Townsend said. “The club is free to join and is going to be shaped by the members as it continues to grow. I built the site to answer the questions I needed to know when first coming to the lake and that many others ask everyday—who, what, when, where and why. From where to get the right service, launch a boat, store a trailer, add/upgrade audio, buy merchandise and more, all targeted to powerboat enthusiasts. I was ignorant when I got here and I’m hopeful the Ozark Powerboat Club can be the resource I desperately needed.”

During the last few months, Townsend with guidance and support from his wife, Jaime (right), has been fine-tuning the club website prior to its early-August launch and reaching out to local business to include in the club directory as well as to local photographers to help capture club members at events or during a regular weekend at the lake. And, as previously mentioned, he’s expanded on the OPC brand by starting social media pages and sections on the website for Ozark Pontoon Club, Ozarks PWC Club, Ozark Pet Club, Ozark Party Cove, Ozark Pontoon Classifieds, Ozark PWC Classifieds and Ozark Powerboat Classifieds.

So far, Townsend said the fastest growing social media page for OPC is One Pretty Copilot, which makes complete sense to him and everyone else.

“The only thing someone wants to see more than a pretty boat is a pretty person on a boat,” he said. “We have more OPC things coming but for now our goal is focusing on building the Ozark Powerboat Club into the ultimate place to bring people together at the lake and share our passion for powerboating. We do have merchandise for sale—shirts, hats, stickers, bikinis, tumblers and more to come—and we’re making it easy for members to purchase photos of their boat through the site. We have plenty of other ideas that should provide additional benefits for club members.”

Townsend plans to keep the organization local, at least for now since he’s already registered Offshore Powerboat Club and other OPC names he could come up with. Because, as he likes to ask on social media as a nod to one of his favorite rap songs from the early 90s, “You down with OPC?” He accepts “Yeah you know me” for an answer and he’ll also take the hashtag #downwithopc as a response.

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