Belfast Rotary Club’s 17th annual Belfast Harbor Fest, a free three-day event celebrating the city’s maritime history and traditions, starts Friday evening, Aug. 16, with “Evening by the Bay,” a gala with live and silent benefit auctions at the United Farmers Market building on Spring Street in Belfast. It continues all day Saturday, Aug. 17, and ends with the famous Cardboard Boat Race on Sunday morning, Aug. 18.

“Belfast Harbor Fest is back, bigger and better than ever,” said Russell Werkman, Waldo County YMCA’s CEO and the Rotary Club event’s chairperson, in a news release. “From Friday’s gala through Saturday’s 5K race, pancake breakfast, music, food, kids’ activities, shipyard tours, boatbuilding demonstrations, a rowing regatta and Pinewood Derby, and Sunday’s Cardboard Boat Race, Harbor Fest is a celebration for Belfast and everyone who attends.”

Rotary president and Waldo County Sheriff Jason Trundy said, “locals and visitors, kids and adults, all will have a very good time.” 

“Evening By the Bay,” a gala with food, music and live and silent auctions, begins at 5:30 p.m., Friday, at the United Farmers Market. It is sponsored by the Market, City of Belfast, Mathews Brothers, Ducktrap River of Maine, Stanley Chevrolet, Coastwise Realty, Bell the Cat and other local donors.

Proceeds from the auctions will help Rotary build a $200,000 accessible playground at City Park by next summer as a “Legacy Project” to celebrate the Club’s 100 years of community service.

The auctions will feature restaurant and business gift certificates, maritime and other experiences, including a biplane ride from the Owls Head Transportation Museum, an Empanada Picnic Basket Lunch for four people from the Mica Schweitzer-Bluhm, executive director of the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, and four rounds of golf at the Bangor Municipal Golf Course. Crafts, hand-carved wooden toys and art work will include Belfast painter Jerri Finch’s original oil painting “Glow,” the 2024 Harbor Fest’s chosen graphic.

Tickets for the gala are $35 and can be purchased by searching online for “Evening by the Bay 2024.”

Saturday, Aug. 17, activities begin at 7:30 a.m., with Rotary’s famous blueberry pancake breakfast and 5K “Bug Run” road race, and continue through 5 p.m. Jonesville, Anni and the Rainmakers and PenBay Steel Band will perform at the Steamboat Landing gazebo from 10 a.m.to 5 p.m.

More than half a dozen food trucks will serve everything from seafood to ice cream, and Marshall Wharf’s beer garden will serve from noon to 5 p.m. Children’s games, face painting, rope making and a Coast Guard table will be available from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Come Boating!’s rowing regatta on the harbor starts at 11 a.m. Attendees may get to see a tugboat parade, courtesy of Penobscot Bay Tractor Tugs, and a biplane flyover thanks to Owl’s Head Transportation Museum. 

Katahdin Council of Boy Scouts hosts a Pinewood Derby wooden car race competition from noon to 2 p.m., sponsored by The Senior Center and featuring a return match between Stanley Chevrolet and Quirk Ford. Front Street Shipyard offers free tours at 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Exhibitors, vendors, a cardboard boat building workshop and a boatbuilding demonstration by American skiff building champion Cody Keithan of Belfast are among the activities rounding out the day. 

Sunday morning will offer food, Harbor Fest merchandise, vendors and exhibitors, and the popular Cardboard Boat Races, sponsored once again by Front Street Shipyard. Launching from Boat House beach, the races include prizes for youth entries, adult and business boats and the always enjoyable “Best Sinking” award. Belfast Harbor Fest 2024 concludes Sunday afternoon with a lobster bake fund raiser presented by and for Habitat for Humanity.

The Rotary Club’s Werkman thanked the event’s dozens of sponsors, exhibitors, vendors, exhibitors, performers, boatbuilders and more than 60 volunteers. Major Harbor Fest sponsors, part of nearly 50 businesses and organizations, include the City of Belfast, Front Street Shipyard, First National Bank, United Farmers Market, Mathews Brothers, Stanley Chevrolet, Waldo County General Hospital, Bangor Savings Bank, Viking Lumber, Robbins Lumber Company, Hammond Lumber, K Construction,  Cold Mountain Builders, Penobscot Bay Tractor Tug Co., Viking Lumber, J Black Printing, Cornerspring Montessori School, Ducktrap River of Maine, Senior Planning Center, Consumers Fuel, Belfast Community Co-Op  and Waldo County YMCA. For more information about Harbor Fest, go to belfastharborfest.com.

Belfast Rotary Club, founded in 1925, is one of Maine’s largest and most active clubs. Its nearly 70 members meet Wednesdays at noon at Belfast’s Shrine Club. The Club’s funds, raised year-round through activities such as the Belfast Harbor Fest, charitable golf tournament, 5K road races and pancake breakfasts, help generate more than $150,000 in yearly gifts. Rotary supports area food pantries, year-end holiday clothing and toys to 200 children and $80,000 in scholarships for local college-bound high school students. For more information on membership or to make a tax-deductible donation in support of the Club’s year-round service programs, go to belfastrotary.org.