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photo: K. Stephens

A Day in the Life of Maine Lobster Boat Racing
K. Stephens

Moments before the annual Rockland lobster races start, people are lined up on the Rockland breakwater waiting for some kind of signal designating the kickoff. All kinds of spectators—parents with babies strapped to their backs, dogs, locals and tourists—wait patiently.  This is the first year in several that it has been a bright hot day with perfect visibility. For the moment, their only distraction is several hundred feet away. Parallel to the breakwater, dozens of lobster boats are rafted up together.  From the breakwater you can hear the cheers and laughter across the water. This is a flotilla of locals, the tight-knit lobstering community known for working hard and partying harder.

“Wow, how much fun would it be to be hanging out on one of those boats?” a spectator says thoughtfully.

Aboard the Total Eclipse out of Owls Head, ME, this is how much fun it is. It's finally summer here in Maine. It's finally hot out. No one lobsters on a Sunday, that's just the rules—so everyone is making the most out of the day off, chatting and laughing or climbing over the rails to socialize on neighboring boats nestled alongside one another. These are people who have grown up together. Everyone here is someone who lobsters in the area, who has married into it, who works in the community or who has some kind of connection to lobstering. The vibe is Key West friendly. Coolers of every size line the stern. A picnic table and a grill has been set up. Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” blasts out of the speakers as girls in bikinis and shorts dance and air guitar. A variety of drinks are in people’s hands: wine, Jell-O shots, Bud Lites, a special cider from South Africa. Clayton’s gripping onto a two-gallon cooler of vodka and grape juice like some one might rip it away from him.

A sharp whistle pierces the air. “Everybody quiet down and turn to Channel 10,” yells Scott Herrick, one of the organizers. The noisy crowd passes the message from boat to boat until everyone settles down. Sandie Galvez, a petite mom of teenagers who could pass for a 25-year-old, gets on the VHF radio and begins singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” A former lounge singer from L.A., her voice comes clearly over the mike as she nails the high notes at the end. This particular song produces goose bumps, especially in this charged atmosphere. At the conclusion of the song, a roar of cheers spills out of the rafted boats.

Now it’s officially party time.

More than 110 lobster boats from all over the state will race at this event. This lobster boat race competition takes place in a variety of locales from Portland to Winter Harbor in the summer, but here in Rockland, considered “The Lobster Capital of The World,” the races are particularly exciting. As the first boats of the lobster races spray rooster tails, there is a deafening engine blast from one of the boats as it takes an effortless lead. The cheers from the rafted lobster boats go up along with hands holding red plastic cups.  The racers circle around and cruise on by the flotilla to get their accolades as sea gulls decide at this very moment to suddenly swoop in and do these crazy zig-zig aerials. At once it is a confetti of birds, like a ticker-tape parade.

The grills are cooking full throttle. “Who wants a meat stick?” The cooler lids open and close.  A couple of girls dive into the bottle green ocean. Some do front flips off the stern. Clayton is bobbing in the water, his vodka grape juice cooler his only personal flotation device. A couple of boats over, where the kids are a little younger, people get yelled at for letting their Jell-O shot cups litter the water, as someone from the older crew dives in to collect debris. These are people who protect their waters fiercely. “You know better!” someone yells.  Then, the mood goes back to playful as another cry rings out: “Survival Suit Contest!” Within moments, five guys are frantically wriggling into full body neon orange immersion suits designed to keep someone warm and protected in the water in case of emergency.  To the crowd’s delight, they don their suits in less than 10 seconds and launch themselves over the side of the boat.

Soon, a recognizable boat comes around the bend.  With a half dozen people on board, the 40-foot lobster boat The Instigator approaches and everyone knows who Ryan Post is. Largely credited for organizing the earliest lobster boat races, Post is a rising voice in the lobstering community. Given the cheeky nickname “Captain Hollywood” by his friends, he is the creator of the educational lobstering DVD Maine Buggin, and is regularly consulted on public lobstering matters in the news. Right now he’s got radio personalities Tom O. and Mr. Mike from WTOS’s The Morning Mountain Show on board and the crowd whoops it up every time The Instigator passes by. Also on board is a video crew. Word is that the Portland marketing company, Aura360, was on board to get footage to turn into a pilot that it can pitch to television networks. The idea is to produce a television series based on the races similar to the hit show “Deadliest Catch.

In the end, Galen Alley, of Beals Island, has won the race, setting a new speed record. He was clocked at 68.1 m.p.h. in his 30-foot fiberglass boat, Foolish Pleasure, breaking his own record of 64.5 m.p.h., which he set last summer.

“This has been such a beautiful day,” said Stacy Campbell, in her bikini and beat-up straw hat gazing out at the water. “Everybody you’d ever want to spend time with is right here.” There is no such thing as a “Perfect Maine.”  But today, living, working and celebrating in a lobster community is about as close as it gets.

To see more pictures of the day, fan "The Ghost Trap" on Facebook and view "Photos"
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photo: K. Stephens
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Captain John Ready
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Captain Brendan Ready
The next few posts are going to be about Maine's people, about lobstermen and sternmen (and by the way those titles encompass both genders) who have a story to tell. The Ghost Trap isn't about lobsters. It's about the characters who work hard, live hard and inspire us not to complain about an 8-hour day.  Summah time is heating up. Let's see who's up on the docket.

Meet cutie pie brothers John and Brendan Ready, owners and operators of Catch A Piece of Maine. Recently featured by US Airways Magazine (which I happened to recently see on my flight home ) the Ready Brothers have come up with a fresh solution to Maine's morass when it comes to marketing the lobster brand. According to the US Airways article, "The Ready brothers graduated with degrees in business from Boston’s Northeastern University and Stonehill College in nearby Easton, Massachusetts. And they both knew they were coming home to Portland. 'You can walk down the street and still see fishing boats, and on the other side, boutiques,' John Ready says. 'It’s the best of both worlds.' " 

What they're doing is they're allowing customers to own and receive their very own “share” of the catch direct from their crew of personal lobsterman. This model is very similar to CSAs, which is a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer.  We're in a global trend where a lot of people want to know local food comes from. We're in a social media culture where we also want to know who butchers it, grows it, farms it, catches it. The Ready Brothers understand this. That's where they bring the "personal" in. For example, they offer a "Premium Partnership, where you actually own a lobster trap in Maine and all of its catch for the entire year to be shipped to any destination of our choice, or a 'Lobster Share' entitling you to a gourmet dinner for four delivered anywhere in the country."  Their promise entails: "Most importantly, we are bringing you closer to the dock allowing us to sell direct so that we as lobsterman earn a premium and effectively preserve the traditional working waterfront."

This more than anything, makes them my heroes. We have a lobstering industry that is breaking its back. There are plenty of lobsters to be caught, but Perfect Storm of a double dip recession, encroaching government regulations, an exorbitant rise in bait/fuel and shockingly low (some say price fixed) boat prices are devastating the livelihood of so many of our lobster fishermen. The rising voices of the lobstering industry have been calling for innovation in terms of branding and marketing and these guys have simply taken what is fascinating (the lives and hard work of lobstermen) and turned it into a viable market.

According to their website:

Catch a Piece of Maine was created, with the help of family, friends, and fellow lobstermen, in part as a response to the financial realities of the lobstering industry and as a means to introduce you to our traditions, trade and the sea. Through Catch a Piece of Maine we have toppled the barriers between lobsterman and consumer, allowing those who love to eat the freshest most delicious lobster a chance to get to know the dedicated lobsterman who harvests their dinner. Bringing the consumer closer to the dock allows us to sell direct so that we as lobsterman earn a premium and effectively preserve the traditional working waterfront.

We as lobsterman are all stewards of the sea; always making sure today’s catch is available for tomorrow’s lobsterman. Our industry exemplifies hard work, tradition, heritage, and sustainability. We pride ourselves on our eco-friendly manner of harvesting, producing little to no by-catch and enforcing strict laws to allow the release of all lobsters too small and too large. Lobstering is hard work and capital intensive, requiring boats that cost as much as a house, on top of equipment, traps and fuel. In the past several years the price of bait and fuel has tripled while we’ve watched our working waterfront slowly disappear.

Stay tuned for more stories of people who exemplify the word True Mainer.
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photo: Dale Landreth
A strategist hired by the Governor's Lobster Task Force Committee (did you even know there was such a thing?) has basically broken down 4 types of people when it comes to eating lobster. Which one are you?
  • Traditionalists—they want steamed lobster, at picnic table with family and are comfortable with the process of cooking, cleaning, eating while enjoying family time This group accounts for 11 percent.
  • Adventurous—total foodies; they love food and will try different foods any way they can get it. This is the marketplace, along with fine fast diners. Charts showed 29 percent for this group.
  • Convenience seekers—those surveyed said they would eat it if it is easy. The lazy lobster eater makes up 30 percent of the survey.
  • Aesthetic and moral protesters—PETA accounts for 11 percent.
Me? I'm a traditionalist all the way. I'll cook it myself. I'll dig right in and yell at my table mates for being squeamish.
 
Study done by Kristen Bailey, vice president of the Moseley Group.
Story can be found here.
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