2020 Lobster Boat Race Schedule

as of 3/18/2020

All towns planning to have lobster boat races in 2020 have scheduled dates for their events.

Contact information, names, telephone numbers and email addresses have all been updated. All the towns have settled on racing dates. There were a few more hurdles getting to a final schedule this year. In a break with convention, there will be two races on the same day, August 16th, at Pemaquid and Bass Harbor. What was the MT Festival in Portland will now be the Portland Harbor Boat Races and the Long Island Lobster Boat Races on separate dates.

The wild card concern has been how the Covid-19 unfolds over the next month, both internationally and in Maine. With all the planning required by the towns and preparations required of those racing, some in multiple towns over the summer, waiting until June for Covid-19 news was not an option.

Genevieve McDonald, who helps organize the Stonington lobster boat races, said they were planning for an all-on race day in July. If Covid19 interferes with that, they will have some kind of race adjusted to the scale of that interference. The contact person for the Portland Harbor Boat Races, L.B.J., said she was uncertain how the racing schedule would work out if the June races were delayed by the Covid-19 restrictions like social distancing. If delayed by the Coast Guard not issuing a permit, for example, there would be no time to reschedule them at the end of August.

All the towns with races scheduled a race day because they couldn’t wait until June to decide. Everything is on for the Maine lobster boat racing season as though it is and ultimately will be as it has been for the last 64 years.