Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors

11/19/2025

MBH&H is grateful for the opportunity to support the Rockland Public Library and the Festival of Lights Silent Auction each year along with many other businesses in our community. In addition to the traditional trees and wreaths, beautiful handmade stockings are available to bid on. We've filled one up with some goodies so be sure to check it out!

Join Boats, Homes & Harbors and the Maine Boat & Home Show in supporting the Rockland Public Library. They will be hosting their annual "Festival Of Lights" Silent Auction and Book Sale on Saturday November 29th. Bidding will be open from 1pm-4pm on over 30 trees, wreaths, and stockings from local business, including MBH&H! The book sale runs 11am-4pm and features low cost books, puzzles, and more gifts. All proceeds benefit the Rockland Public Library.

11/18/2025

This vehicle is more than an old pickup truck. It’s one of Larry Oakes’s many “rat rods”—custom cars that he has patched together out of old parts and assorted odds and ends that happen to be lying around.

The body may be a Studebaker, but it’s powered by a 425-cubic-inch Cadillac engine. The headlights come from an old Model A. The sideview mirror says Harley-Davidson on it. The door handles are old toolbox handles, and the sun visor that’s attached to the roof comes from an ancient Coca-Cola machine. An old Coleman stove gas cannister is attached next to the engine just for the hell of it, and an empty Fireball cinnamon whiskey bottle serves as an overflow for the radiator. On the back, Oakes took a pair of kerosene oil lamps from a horse-drawn carriage dating back more than a century and converted them into taillights.

Read more about the rat rods here: https://buff.ly/byP1ads

Photo 1: Larry Oakes has fun patching together old parts and odds and ends to create unique custom-built “rat rods.” This 1941 Studebaker pickup truck has a Cadillac engine, Model A headlights, and an empty Fireball whiskey bottle that serves as an overflow for the radiator.
Photo 2: Oakes’s ’55 GMC pickup truck has more than half a dozen disabled fi****ms or parts of fi****ms that can be found from front bumper to tailgate and points in between.

11/17/2025

Here’s to another 200!

11/14/2025

An exciting revival has been taking place in North Haven. The local dinghy fleet is known as the oldest continuously raced one-design fleet in North America, and some might say the world. But by the early years of this century, many of the boats were showing their age, and despite the introduction of a fiberglass version, fewer and fewer were lining up on the starting line in the Fox Islands Thoroughfare for the local yacht club’s biweekly summer races. A good weekend might have seen four or five boats competing, most sailed by elderly skippers.

Flash forward to this summer, when a whopping 20 North Haven Dinghies, many with parents and their children as crew, competed in the club’s iconic Mill River Race, which these sailors now consider to be their annual championship regatta.

Story at the link for how this historical fleet gained new life: https://buff.ly/fvMZ66K

Photo: North Haven Dinghies have been offering close, exciting racing for more than 100 years. Here boats that have rounded the windward mark pass by two still headed upwind during a blustery August race.

11/13/2025

Boats of the Year 2025: Expert Propulsion & Generator Safety Tips -

The 2025 edition of Boats of the Year includes in-depth articles from experts in the marine industry on a range of topics, designed to help readers know what products are available and the right questions to ask when buying. These two stories touch upon power—the first about propulsion options, an...

11/11/2025

The latest ferry to hit the waters of Penobscot Bay honors a member of the Penobscot Nation, who also is a highly decorated veteran. The Charles Norman Shay, now serving Matinicus Island, is the first Maine State Ferry Service vessel named for a Native American. Matinicus residents consider the gesture an important step in strengthening ties with the island’s first inhabitants. As we pause to salute veterans everywhere, you can read about Shay's many contributions and the boat named in his honor here: https://buff.ly/larMOEx

11/09/2025

Island life, and vacations, aren't for everyone... but for those of us who enjoy the extra challenge of remote living, they're worth every hardship. The author of our current story, "To Islands, and those who get us there", Letitia Baldwin, describes her island-loving life with a strong preference for that chain of islands we call the Cranberries.

Read her story at the link: https://buff.ly/N4ZaXZz

Photo by Rosalie Kell- Beal & Bunker’s Sea Queen departs Great Cranberry Island for Northeast Harbor.

11/06/2025

Meet Ripsnorter, the lobster boat with some serious pick up and go. The racer is crisp, glossy, and all the things you'd expect from a Brooklin Boatyard build. Not only does it look stunning, but it has proven itself capable of ripping and snorting ahead of the pack. All us Mainers think of lobsterboats as sturdy, reliable seagoing machines, built to handle any weather. Ripsnorter is a different animal.

Read the story of how this beast came to be thanks to three talented men who met by chance, and only briefly, later in life. But each, in their own way, brought their skills into play.

Link: https://buff.ly/v7vF0FN

Photo: Jon Johansen- With three passengers sitting near the transom for trim, Ripsnorter roars toward a first-place finish in Stonington in 2024. The boat clinched a repeat this past summer.

11/04/2025

Our continuing photographic series "The Maine I Love" features Rex Burgamy this month.

"As someone who has a love of the ocean and wildlife photography, I can’t imagine a more perfect place to live than Maine. From its rocky coast to the vast lush green forests that stretch to the mountains, there is something very special about this place. One of my favorite things to do in Maine is to hike the trails that lead to the coast. I enjoy wandering through the canopy of trees, filled with the excitement of seeing the ocean. Long before you glimpse the rocky shoreline you can smell the sea and feel a change in the air. With every path you take to the water here in Maine, you experience something new and amazing. It could be humpback whales breaching off the coast, or a playful harbor seal basking in the sun on the rocks, or the majestic bald eagle soaring high above in search of his next meal. In the fall I love the sound of the geese as they make their way south to warmer places. Their crazy honks signal the coming of days of white blankets of snow and warm fireplaces. If it is possible for a place to teach us something, then Maine teaches us respect and appreciation for the land and sea."

Link: https://buff.ly/anso5ko

11/03/2025

Another good reason to visit Searsport!

10/31/2025

On this Halloween, we invite you to hear the spooky tale of the... haunted brook trout. Actually, you'll have to visit the Outdoor Sporting Heritage Museum in the village of Oquossoc to read "Ode to White Nose Pete"—a poem of a brook trout, who some say has haunted Upper Dam for more than 100 years. You can also see the mount of Shang’s “Salmo Polaris.” This 6 lb. 9 oz. brook trout was mounted using red fox fur instead of scales. It was caught with a fly pattern called Aurora Borealis, a feat that was witnessed by a number of Rangeley regulars who could be called “the usual suspects” of that time.

🔗 https://buff.ly/BftYYZq