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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 2
October 2005
 Searsport, Winter Harbor slugfests bring season to a close
Clair Whitten Jr.’s CC & Water, a MC-35 powered by a 350 hp Yanmar, took first place in diesel Class G in Winter Harbor, besting Phil Torrey in the Back In Black, a Duffy 35 with a 430 hp Cummins. We aren’t sure why the guy in the pulpit is posed and armed to stick a tuna.
WINTER HARBOR, ME - The conclusion of the 2005 Maine Lobster Boat Racing season cruised in on fumes here Sunday, Aug. 28, eight days behind schedule and with the lowest number of racers in memory for this venue.
Eighteen boats that had signed up to race on the originally scheduled date of Aug. 13, which was postponed due to fog, didn’t return for the make-up. The field of 49 boats that did show up, however, was actually one of the stronger turnouts of working lobster boats this season, as Winter Harbor does not run any skiff or pleasure boat classes.
Click here for full results and photos
High fuel prices and slow lobster fishing combined to dampen overall participation in the races this year, according to an informal poll of fishermen taken at the Searsport races on Aug. 20, where only 35 boats (and one airplane) came up to the starting line.
Two lobstermen told CFN that their fuel bills for racing the previous weekend (cruising to Winter Harbor’s non-race on Saturday, then racing at Pemaquid on Sunday) were a wallet-flattening $500 apiece. And that was at pre-Hurricane Katrina fuel prices.
With the total numbers of racers down, some of the Maine Lobster Boat Racing Association (MLBRA) official points classes actually went begging this year. Of 23 classes, four had no qualifying entrants, and six others had only one entrant each.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have a lot of that next year,” said MLBRA President Clive Farrin two weeks after the racing season ended and several days following Hurricane Katrina’s devastating visit to the Gulf Coast.
“Diesel is $2.50 a gallon. Gasoline is well over $3. On a year when you’re not making any money, it’s a tough enough job to just to try to keep working,” Farrin said.
The MLBRA oversight committee huddled prior to the annual awards banquet at The Chowder House Restaurant in Belfast Sept. 24 to discuss issues that have arisen during the season, Farrin said. Details for another season will be worked out at the group’s annual meeting at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum early next March.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next year. There’s no predicting it. We’ll deal with it when the time comes,” Farrin said.
Close shave
Meanwhile, there was no lack of enthusiasm among those who did show up to race in Searsport and Winter Harbor, where some classic duels were waged.
Here, the long drama involving a pair of V-8 Mack powered Northern Bay 36s finally reached its climax with one winning a battle; the other the war.
Alfred and David Osgood’s Starlight Express of Vinalhaven had posted a record diesel speed of 55.2 mph at Stonington back in July in a losing diesel Class N match with defending speed champion Andrew Gove’s Uncle’s UFO. Gove took the lead coming off the starting line and held on for the win on his home course.
At Searsport, Starlight Express took the early lead at the start, and fortunately so for both racers, as disaster struck soon thereafter.
The center bushing on Starlight’s rudder shaft split, throwing the boat into a hard turn right across UFO’s course. Fortunately, Starlight had gained enough of a lead by that point that it was able to cross completely in front of the trailing boat without a collision.
Starlight veered off the race course and stopped dead in the water, as a somewhat rattled Gove steered Uncle’s UFO down the remainder of the course for the victory.
At Winter Harbor the following week, the stars finally lined up right for Starlight Express, as the Osgoods picked up a hat trick sweep of the diesel Class N, diesel free-for-all, and fastest lobster boat races, posting a top speed of 53.9 mph on the radar gun.
Uncle’s UFO, which had set the old record of 53.5 mph on this course in 1999, finished all three heats with a clear view of Starlight’s transom. Overall, however, Gove lugged off the first place hardware in the Class N points challenge, thanks to a consistent good performance from Uncle’s UFO throughout the season.
More bad luck
Starlight Express didn’t have a corner on mechanical adversity this season, however, as the crew of Searsport’s diesel Class H contender, First Team, can attest.
The Sisu-powered, black-hulled, 36-footer from Otis Enterprises Marine Corp. got a late start on the season, missing Boothbay Harbor, while Keith Otis performed an engine overhaul to replace a split connecting rod.
The cure was a success, as First Team took first at Moosabec Reach as well as Stonington, where it fended off a challenge from last season’s winner, Hooked Up, a John Deere-powered Crowley-Beal 33 owned by Jim Minott of Brunswick.
Hooked Up then turned the tables at the next two points races, winning at both Friendship and Harpswell.
First Team got back into the winner’s circle in the non-points race at Pemaquid, however, and skipper Travis Otis was looking forward to the stretch run, where a victory in either of the final two races would assure him, at least, of a tie for the overall points championship. But such was not to be.
“She was styling at Pemaquid,” reported Keith Otis, adding, “She ran good coming home, too.”
Then, just two days before the Searsport races while performing some mooring maintenance chores in the harbor, a rapping noise started emanating from First Team’s crankcase.
“We’d heard that sound before. We knew it wasn’t good, and it got louder,” said the elder Otis. The boat was pulled out the next day, its season over.
Travis Otis got a consolation of sorts, however, as he was tapped to pilot David Grant’s Sisu-powered Venom to victories in Searsport and Winter Harbor on the way to winning the 2005 overall Class C championship.
Exciting contests
Other highlights at Searsport included a stiff challenge in diesel Class P.
The class had been ruled all season by Dickie Hildings’ RP 40, What’s Left, but John Drouin didn’t sail Rebbie’s Mistress, his new C-18 Cat-powered Wesmac 46, all the way from Cutler to admire Hildings’ transom. Searsport judges declared the first heat to be a tie (34.0 mph), with Nick Lemieux’s Phantom coming in third.
Hildings found a few extra rpm and won the rematch, but at a price.
In the diesel free-for-all that followed, What’s Left apparently didn’t have much left, as she finished fourth, well behind the jubilant crew aboard Cutler racer Wendell Bryant’s 16th Avenue.
One of the stranger moments at Searsport was the cameo appearance of a Lake 270 amphibious airplane sporting the name Hate Me Rose II, which was reported to be owned by boat builder/lobsterman/racer Steve Johnson and piloted by one of his Long Island neighbors.
The plane “raced” alongside Johnson’s Wild One in diesel Class K, as well as in the Class N race, where it was “disqualified” for leaving the water’s surface at an even 100 mph.
The airplane made a similar appearance at Winter Harbor. Johnson said the air show was staged, “just for the scene.”
Complete individual race results for Searsport and Winter Harbor appear in the accompanying results boxes, sponsored by Shepherd Lobster Wire and Rose’s Marine, respectively. MLBRA season points winners, as tabulated by Maine Coastal News, are detailed on the following page, presented by Smithwick & Mariners Insurance. /cfn/
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