Last weekend was a good one for Maine’s lobster boat races. Ninety-six boats came to Winter Harbor on Saturday and 80 to Pemaquid on Sunday. It was at Pemaquid that Wild Wild West suffered her first defeat of the season to Little Girl in the final race of the day. Little Girl won at 55.6 mph.

However, the most memorable of all the races was at Winter Harbor. That was Randy’s Race. Randy Johnson is the manager of the Winter Harbor Lobster Co-op. He is also suffering from throat cancer.

Three lobster buyers agreed to pool their resources and collectively give $200 for every boat in the race. Forty boats came to the line. That $8,000 “went to Randy to help pay for the costs” of his cancer treatment, says the Co-op’s Susan Soper.

Then idea of the race started at a meeting of the Winter Harbor race committee when they were trying to figure out how to get more local boats to take part in the race. “We were brainstorming,” says Soper, “and then said why don’t we do a race for Randy. It just took off from there.”

Most of the boats were from the Winter Harbor area, but then others “jumped in because they heard what was going on.” Soper adds, “It was something to see.”