ROCKLAND — That noise you could hear about 5 p.m. Sunday was Lobster Festival directors patting each other on the back. The 1990 edition, beset by hot weather and early reports of cancellation, was pronounced a roaring success.

Veteran festival worker Frank Smith reported that the festival sold 5,200 pounds of lobster, believed to be the best ever in the 43 years of the festival. “I think that is a new record by about 1,000 pounds,” Smith said.

The remarks heard at the festival were mostly positive, with the only gripes from those trying to peddle fried dough or hot sausage in the 90-degree weather. Everyone else, especially those selling drinks, were doing a land office business.

This was a radical departure from February and March when reports flew about cancellation and possible death of the festival. If it was a publicity stunt, it was a great one. The community responded with donations and scads of volunteers, the backbone of the annual event. Individuals, business concerns and service agencies turned out en masse, doing the 1,000 jobs necessary to run the four-day event.

“There were a lot of new faces down here,” Smith said. The festival gave out 600 T-shirts to volunteer workers.

The tar-and-feather crew was out hunting for Chuck Kruger last year after the now infamous Bellamy Brothers he hired refused to perform in a rainstorm at festival 1989. The country music group got their money anyway, left town and earned a place in the hearts of Rockland area residents.

This year, Kruger hired the Chili Brothers and Eight to the Bar to headline the event. “We had teen-agers and 60-year-olds dancing Saturday night to Eight to the Bar. Now that’s hard to do,” he said.

“It was the community support which turned the tide,” said veteran festival worker Alice Knight. Knight said that many who attended the festival were from out of state. She could tell by the unusual number of requests for directions on Main Street and requests for instructions on how to eat the fast-selling lobster.

Knight said that one man came all the way from Israel after he saw the Lobster Festival listed in the Rand McNally atlas. It was apparently the only entry under Maine, the man said.

Special praise was handed out to the ultimate volunteer, John Field III. He had the brutal job of running the steamy lobster cooker for three days in the sweltering 80- and 90-degree weather. It was reported that Field is a Cape Cod veteran of fire department clambakes, where he learned his trade.

Few people know more about lobsters than Jack Wood of Mainly Lobsters. He worked the festival for years before he became a lobster dealer who now sells to the festival. He has been around the festival for more than 20 years. This year’s possible record of 5,200 pounds followed one of the worst ever, last year, with only 3,100 pounds. The 1989 festival is now called “the year of the Bellamy Brothers.”

The 1987 count was 4,300 pounds, and the 1986 count was 3,700 pounds. This year, the festival sold 200 pounds of lobster on Thursday, 1,300 pounds on Friday, a whopping 2,300 on Saturday and 1,400 pounds on Sunday when the lobsters were sold out.

This year the festival offered 1 1/2-pound lobsters for $6.50 each compared with a smaller lobster for $8.95 last year. “It was a much better deal,” Wood said.