Model boats to compete at Maine Lobster Festival

ROCKLAND – The competitive world of lobster boat racing has taken on a new dimension.

Using remote-controlled model lobster boats, you too may participate in a round of competition planned early next month at Rockland Harbor.

The contest will simulate, on a small scale, the lobster boat races held up and down the Maine coast each summer.

Open to the public, the competition will be run in conjunction with the Maine Lobster Festival, which starts next week. The racing will start at Harbor Park at 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 7.

The Penobscot Marine Museum and Bluejacket Ship Crafters – both from Searsport – will stage the head-to-head races, which the organizers believe mark the first time that scale-model remote-controlled lobster boats have squared off in a formal setting.

Along with the Penobscot Marine Museum-Bluejacket Ship Crafters own match race competitors, as many as a dozen model boats will compete in the event.

“Just because we have the word museum in our name doesn’t mean we’re a bunch of old men smoking pipes,” said race planner and museum official David M. Blanchard. “It’s really a fun, exciting place and this is part of the fun.”

Blanchard said the museum wanted to create an event for the Maine Lobster Festival that would also draw attention to the museum’s ongoing “Lobstah” exhibition.

“Several of our exhibits this summer emphasize lobster boats, lobster boat races and lobster fishing,” said Blanchard. “We hope to make people aware that if they are interested in lobsters or boating, they should come and see what we’re doing here.”

Blanchard said Rockland Harbor Master Ed Glaser has designed a course consisting of six strings of buoys, 40 feet apart. Three boats will race at a time. Spectators will be able to watch the race from the seawall or the public piers on either side.

As a long-time model builder, Blanchard said it was a natural to consider remote-controlled boats. And what better choice than remote-controlled lobster boats?

Blanchard approached Bluejacket Ship Crafters about building a prototype and owner Jeff Marger signed on immediately. Bluejacket is renowned for its museum-quality model ships and boats.

Bluejacket Ship Crafters was founded a century ago in Washington as the model-maker for the U.S. Navy. Besides replicas of famous ships in museums and private collections all over the world, there are more than 70 Bluejacket Ship Crafters models in the Smithsonian Institution.

Marger said he had wanted to create a remote-controlled boat for some time and the museum’s needs matched his. He and his team of designers settled on the Bluejacket 33, a 1-inch to 1-foot scale model lobster boat with a fiberglass hull.

The model has been added to the Bluejacket line of products. Bluejacket Ship Crafters will race the prototype electric-powered boat and the Penobscot Marine Museum will race the first model off the production line.

“This is the first of what we hope will be an annual event at the Maine Lobster Festival,” said Blanchard. “We’re even thinking about taking the show on the road. We can replicate this event anywhere there is a harbor, or a body of water.”

The boats will be on display before and after the races at the festival’s marine tent. Patrons of the festival will get to vote for their favorite model. Race winners will receive a gift certificate, as will the favorite model lobster boat.

To register or for other information contact Blanchard at 548-2529 or dblanchard@penobscotmarinemuseum.org.

For information about Bluejacket Ship Crafters contact Marger at (800) 448-5567 or bluejacketinc.com.