Race #3 in Maine’s 2025 lobster boat racing season was in Bass Harbor on Sunday, June 23. Sometime early that morning or the evening before, depending on where they started from, 56 lobstermen untied from their local docks to make the run to Bass Harbor, coming from as far away as Cutler to the north and Yarmouth to the south, which for a few boats would have been a trip of 100 miles or more.
Weather conditions initially weren’t favorable. It was foggy but cleared in time for the afternoon races. “The fog didn’t hamper the races. It was more of an issue trying to get to the races and back,” said Jon Johansen, scorer for Maine Lobster Boat Racing. The 56 lobster boats that lined up for Sunday’s races were 12 more than in 2024. “Every race this year the numbers have been up,” said Johansen.
Continuing the trend of previous races, only nine gasoline-powered vessels showed up to race at Bass Harbor – seven skiffs and two lobster boats. The lobster boats were Mark Freeman’s Foolish Pleasure (30’ Custom Riley Beal, 800-hp 550 Chevy), and Josh Linscott’s Black Diamond (Holland 32, 672 Chevy).
Usually, they race in separate gasoline classes, but with no other gas-powered lobster boats, the two came down the 1-mile course together. Foolish Pleasure won that race. Speeds were not recorded at the Bass Harbor races, but at the June 14 Boothbay Harbor races, Foolish Pleasure won the Gasoline Free-For-All race hitting 47.7 mph
At the end of the day there was a complete turnaround when the same two boats went at it again in the Gasoline Free-For-All and “it was all Black Diamond”, said Johansen.
A surprise was how well Travis Otis’ First Team (Northern Bay 36, 410-hp Sisu 645) performed when it got second in Diesel Class H (436 to 550-hp, 36 feet and over). “First Team surprised everyone,” said Johansen. The engine has recently been rebuilt, but “he beats the hell out of that thing. The engine has been through hell. That’ll tell you how tough the (Sisu 645) engine is.”
Johansen said a “A big one was in class N (A)” (40 feet and over, 751 to 1,000 hp) That was the 23rd race of the day and featured Dana Beal’s Natalie E. (Libby 41, 1,000-hp FPT) and Ryan Lemieux’s Obsession (Young Brothers 40, 1,000-hp Caterpillar). For these two boats “all it comes down to is who gets the jump at the start is the winner,” said Johansen. “They are normally so close, within half a boat length; this race was less. It was close from the beginning of the race.” Natalie E. took command at the start and got the win.
Another race that almost always garners a lot of attention is the Diesel Free-For-All. That was race 29 and featured Jeff Eaton’s LaBella Vita (Northern Bay 38, 815-hp FPT) and Mariena Beal’s My Turn (Wayne Beal 32, 500-hp Cummins). They ran down the course nearly bow-to-bow and within a few feet of each other. Eaton’s LaBella Vita was the winner. In the following race, Fastest Lobster Boat, My Turn was the winner and LaBella Vita got runner up.
A new boat that continues to dominate the Diesel Class M(A) race (40 feet and over, up to 500 hp) is Gramp’s Legacy (Libby 41, 500-hp FPT). At the Bass Harbor races it was matched against three other lobster boats and had “an easy win,” said Johansen. Gramp’s Legacy also won this season’s previous two races.
