Written by Tom Allen | 01 July 2010

An air-horn sounds. A thunderous roar rumbles across the bay. White foam flies. Boats-or are they rocket-driven projectiles?-skim across the water toward the finish line.
Welcome to the Harpswell Lobster Boat Races, which for well over two decades, have attracted fishermen, boat builders, and other race fans. One in a series of ten venues in harbors up and down the Maine coast, the races may be coming soon to a television near you.
Locally the race is organized by a committee headed by Henry Barnes, who this year took the reins from long-time president Roy Knight. As part of the organizing effort Barnes and the committee decided to move the location of the July 25th races from Pott's Harbor to Middle Bay opposite George J. Mitchell Field. Barnes says the decision to move the races after more than twenty years was in order to provider better onshore viewing.
In previous years with good weather the event has drawn over 150 spectator boats, but it has been impossible to judge how many people were watching from the shore since there was no central viewing site on the shores of Pott's Harbor.
"To see it well you had to come by boat," says Barnes. "If you were down there (on shore), you were on someone else's property."
Mitchell Field, says Barnes, will provide good viewing for the public, as well as provide space for onshore activities. Alison Hawkes is organizing food vendors, crafters, games and other attractions for an event they are calling the Harpswell Shindig.
Hopefully, Barnes says, "It may grow into something better."
Head of the Maine Lobster Boat Race Association Jon Johansen, who handles registration, says that he can't guess how many boats might be racing on July 25th in Harpswell. While there are almost 30 different classes of boats, from skiff and outboard to 900-plus horse-power diesels, he notes that sometimes classes are combined to make up enough boats to race. It all depends on the weather, he says, though not in the way you might think.
Good weather attracts more boats, but if there has been a spell of bad weather that has prevented them from hauling traps, lobstermen may stay home to tend their gear. These are real workboats after all.
Or are they? Johansen says that fishermen can spend tens of thousands of dollars and more souping up their boats. They modify them, stripping off gear such as the hauler and davit to reduce the weight, adding turbo chargers, and even adapting them to burn alcohol and propane fuels. Some modifications to engines are impossible to recognize without computerized equipment, so race officials depend on the honor system when it comes to placing boats within their proper horsepower classifications. The truth is, the fastest boats might never, in fact, see a trap come over its rail.
"What is a real workboat?" wonders Johansen.
Because it's so difficult to know where to draw the line, Johansen says, the rules have been kept fairly loose. A boat has to have a lobsterboat hull and a windshield, two people must be in the boat, and a kill switch must be installed in case one falls out, but really the pocketbook is the only limit.
Such gray areas have led to intense competition, and a lobsterboat arms race. Earlier this summer in Rockland, Galen Alley of Beals Island broke his own record by attaining a speed of 68.1 miles per hour in his 30-foot fiberglass boat, Foolish Pleasure, in which he has installed an alcohol-fueled engine.
While such highly-modified boats are still the exception, local fishermen have not been immune to the fever of the fast boat. Harpswell fishermen Andrew Johnson, Tom and Wayne Clemons, Chipper Johnson, and others take the race very seriously and invest heavily in their boats, says Barnes, who is a competitor himself. These fishermen, however, all use their boats to haul traps.
The speed, the danger, the competition, and the colorful characters involved in lobster boat racing have caught the attention of marketing and production company Aura360. The Portland-based company, which specializes in extreme sports video production, hopes to create a pilot based on the races, a la the Discovery Channel hit show, Deadliest Catch. Two video teams were on-hand in Rockland to capture video for the project, including Galen's record run.
Lauren St. Clair, a spokesperson for Aura360, says that the project is still in the planning stages, but that they have had some expressions of interest from networks.
"It's an idea that we've been bouncing around for a couple of years, but we're such a small company we needed an opening to do it," says St. Clair.
Once the pilot has been completed, they will try to sell it as a complete series. St Clair says if all goes as planned they will shoot in Harpswell as well.
So while it will be easier to enjoy the lobster boat races in Harpswell this year, it may sometime soon be possible for the whole country to root for their favorites.
Tune in to find out.