Lobster fishermen hold boat races in Maine

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Nearly 70 lobster boats gathered in Bass Harbor, Maine, for a special race on Sunday.

The race, in its eighth year, was one of a series of lobster boat races held annually in nearly a dozen towns in Maine through summer months.

Fishermen from harbors along Maine's coast gathered and competed against one another to see whose boat is the fastest.

Most of the participants are working on fishing boats.

"Ninety-five percent of the boats that race are going to work on Monday," said the race coordinator and fisherman Wayne Rich.

File: A lobster fisherman. /VCG Photo

Rich has been racing since 1997 and has helped to organize the race in Bass Harbor since it first started in 2010.

"I just love it and enjoy being with fishermen from other harbors, I get to talk to them about different boats, and it's pretty fun," said Rich.

On Sunday, boats were divided into different groups according to criteria like horsepower and size, and a total of 30 races were held.

Every participant won at least one prize or more in the event. Prizes, which were donated by local businesses, including roundtrip airline tickets, lobster traps, lobster baits, and many others.

Unlike other lobster races along the coast where faster boats win bigger prizes, boats participating in Sunday's races went through a raffle.

According to Rich, the price of the prizes varied from 20 to 700 US dollars but the organizers bundled prizes together so that each participant got at least 100 US dollars' worth of prizes.

"The slowest boat could win the best prize," said Rich.

Chris Smith's boat "Misty" won second place in the race. He won first place in two races held in other harbors last weekend.

Smith normally does seven to nine races every year. Like Rich, he loves meeting friends and racing to see how good his boat is. Prizes are just a bonus after half a day of fun racing.

"You never know what you're going to come home with and if you go in for the prize money, you ought to pick another hobby," he said.

Boats traveled about 1.2 km on the race course on Sunday. The lobster boats typically go at about 56 km to 64 km per hour in the races, but some can go as fast as 80 km per hour.

(Cover image is Bass Harbor, which from VCG.)

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency