As Declan O’Connor and his boat-building partner for the day, Chuck Gerry, launched their just-completed 12-foot Monhegan skiff on Saturday afternoon, a spectator saw a resemblance to another, famous vessel.

“Edmund Fitzgerald!” he shouted as the O’Connor-Gerry plywood skiff bounced and rolled and barely kept above the waves of Belfast Harbor, apparently reminding the spectator of the freighter that sank on Lake Superior in 1975.

There were lots of laughs at the National Boat Building Challenge in Belfast’s waterfront Heritage Park, the first such contest held in Maine. Organizers hope it becomes an annual event.

One of several priceless moments was hearing O’Connor, an Irish native who has lived in Belfast for decades, arguing with the younger Gerry about who would take the first leg of the rowing relay race.

Neither wanted to be the first to test the boat’s seaworthiness, and with good reason – O’Connor confessed to having incorrectly attached the transom to the front of the boat, which the team remedied by nailing ill-fitting planks across the stern.

The O’Connor-Gerry boat notwithstanding, there was a lot of serious woodworking to be seen and heard during the four-plus hours of the competition, and the event drew hundreds, a mix of locals and tourists.

The nine two-men teams paid $100 to enter, and were given materials valued at close to $150 and plans for building the 12-foot skiff. Most teams had a small table saw, a radial arm saw, circular saws and screw guns ready for action in their roped-off booths under the large tent.

Interestingly, a stroll around the tent an hour into the competition revealed very different results among the teams. Some opted to cut up the parts first, others began assembling the rails to the plywood sides first.

Jarlath McEntee, 52, and Bill Corbett, 42, both of Castine and both self-employed engineers, were not woodworking experts, but tried to improve their odds with good planning. Studying the plans in advance, the men created their own larger, expanded blueprints, and a sequence.

“We have a build sequence that has 21 steps,” McEntee explained, “which, with any luck, should work.”

And they also broke down the labor.

“I’m working the power tools, and he’s the glue and nail guy,” McEntee said, gesturing to Corbett.

The team of John O’Donovan of Belfast and David Tuck of Brooks was one of two teams sponsored by the Belfast yacht-finishing business French & Webb.

The men’s familiarity with the craft was evident as they worked in tandem with lots of quick words exchanged.

One of the men began “ripping” a strip of wood with a circular saw while his partner, to save time, began sliding the wood under the saw as it neared the end. Later, the O’Donovan-Tuck team could be seen sanding their boat’s “rub rail,” an attention to detail that took more time, but created a better quality boat.

Mary Ann Reisetter of Newton, Iowa, said she and her husband were traveling through Maine as part of a trip to Ontario and the East Coast, and wanted to be on hand for the boat-building contest.

“We have a sailboat at home,” she said, “and we saw this advertised and my husband said, ‘We’ve got to come back here.'”

With the digital clock displaying 80 minutes into the contest, one team had joined the sides and transom of their boat, another had cut out the bottom and was readying the sides, and yet another was still cutting out parts.

At about 90 minutes, the screeching of saws died out almost in unison, as the teams entered the fastening and finishing stage. At about the four-hour mark, the teams were asked to stop work.

One team had not gotten to install the seats that act to stiffen the plywood sides of the boat, and it looked incomplete. The others, though, generally looked like boats.

The small fleet was arranged on grass outside the tent, and three judges ranked the work on several criteria.

The “Daves Team,” consisting of David Crabiel of Belfast and David Brassbridge of Monroe, made no pretense of being boat builders.

“First time ever,” Crabiel said, as the men, looking hot and weary, grabbed some food and drink after work was halted. “My first time building anything out of wood,” Brassbridge chimed in, joking. The two operated a business called Calamity Daves Property Preservation.

“We’re a couple of seats short,” Crabiel said of their boat, but “we had a lot of fun.”

That seemed to be the consensus among participants and observers alike. Along with the boat building, artists and wooden boat builders were on hand displaying their wares, and a blues band played for most of the afternoon.

The overall prize, factoring in points for speed, quality and performance on the water, went to Greg Bauer of Brooks and Jeremy Gage of Thorndike, sponsored by boat builder French & Webb.

The Golden Gun award for the fastest boat builders went to Willie French and Dan Skerman of Georgetown, S.C., sponsored by The Weathervane Restaurant of Belfast.

There was a tie for overall second place shared by French and Skerman, and McEntee and Corbett.

And the Broken Oar Award for the worst boat in the National Boat Building Challenge went to Timothy Wry and Anthony Jacovino of Belfast, sponsored by The Look Out Pub of Belfast.