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Off To The (Lobster Boat) Races
| 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."