It’s that time of year again: The iconic lobster boat races in Maine. Here’s a great first-person story from a writer for Popular Mechanics who’s been there and done that:
When you ask a Maine lobster-boat racer what kind of horsepower he’s running, the first answer will always be a dutiful recitation of the factory specification, usually delivered with a smirk. Ask again, and the second answer might be more like the truth. Like if his 18.1-liter CAT diesel was rated for 700 horsepower before he made a few mods—free-flowing intake and exhaust, at the very least—maybe he’d acknowledge it’s more like 800 horsepower now.
If the first answer is 1,000, the second might be more like 1,200. But the reality is that nobody knows. It’s not like you can dyno-test a commercial fishing boat. All you know is that when you’re done hauling 600 lobster traps, you get back to the harbor a little quicker than you did before. And when you enter a race some weekend over the summer, you’ve got some extra speed in your back pocket.
Yes: Maine lobster-boat races. It sounds like a goof, like the fall pumpkin races that they hold in Damariscotta, where they mount outboard motors on giant gourds and race around the harbor. But it’s serious, an annual circuit with events up and down the coast.
Some of the boats are purpose-built racers, trailered to each event, cammed-up big-blocks bursting through their decks. They’re lobster boats in the same way that Joey Logano’s Nascar race car is a Mustang. But most of the entrants are actual commercial fishing vessels, work boats that happen to be screamin’ fast. Their owners might make a 100- mile trip, or more, just to race for a minute or so.
And yeah, there are prizes—bait, maybe a set of tires from a local sponsor—but the real reason they’re there is for the thrill. I know, because I used to race.
Back in high school, in the ’90s, my dad was a lobsterman and we had a little 21-foot Novi boat with a Volvo-Penta four-cylinder. The last time I raced it, at the Merritt Brackett race in Pemaquid, I came in fourth in the Novi class, just missing the podium. I’ve always dreamed of making a return and avenging that performance.
Today, I’m attempting just that. Race 3 is “Clamdiggers and lobster-pickers, 71 horsepower and over, skiffs 16 feet and over.” And I brought a skiff, of sorts—a new Yamaha 210 FSH center console. Which lands me in trouble right from check-in, where I forget to lie.
Registration is at The Contented Sole, a waterfront restaurant that serves as the staging area for the Pemaquid race. A guy with a laptop asks me questions as he logs my entry. What make is the boat? “Yamaha,” I say. Make of engine? “Yamaha, inboard,” I say. Then the touchy question, the one nobody wants to answer straight. Race classes are determined by horsepower, so if you’re in, say, race 13—diesels 651 to 800 horsepower—you don’t want to stray into the next class, which is 801 horsepower to infinity. Read more:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a28196445/lobster-boat-racing/
