PENOBSCOT BAY — With horn blasts and a shot from a starting gun, the third annual Penobscot Bay Rendezvous — a regatta of yachts, the boat business and the beauty of the region — kicked off Friday at high noon just outside the Rockland Breakwater. More than 45 sailboats, including the elegant, the high-performance, and the sensible cruisers, were there to join the first day of friendly competition.

The Rendezvous is a three-day celebration of power and sail, hosted by two local boatbuilding and boat service yards, Wayfarer Marine, in Camden, and Lyman-Morse Boatbuilding, in Thomaston. (See below for full list of race participants)

“This is our shop window to the world,” said Dan Bookham, a volunteer with the Rendezvous, who was on the water Friday afternoon for the start of the first race, and one of three that marks the weekend. Stretching around him for 360 degrees was a horizon of blue on blue, Penobscot Bay in August, with a clear sky overhead and a steady breeze blowing out of the southwest: perfect conditions for a regatta in what are considered to be among the best northern hemisphere summer sailing waters.

Boats from England, Caribbean, even one registered in Minnesota, as well as Maine and New England, were readying their sails and setting strategies for a course that would take them from the Breakwater, over to a marker off Owls Head, and back up the bay to end in Camden for the evening.

On Saturday, Aug. 17, the race course would be around Islesboro, and on Sunday, a to-be-determined Olympic sailing course. Race divisions covered cruising boats, those sailing double- or singlehanded, multihulls, and one-designs. Essentially, race organizers were willing to set up a division if there were three or more boats of any given class that were registering for the weekend.

The goal of the Rendezvous is multi-fold: to honor the maritime trades of Maine, and Penobscot Bay; to strengthen the local boatbuilding and service industry; and to further position this region as competitive with other Atlantic yachting areas.

“This will become a premiere regatta that sailors will climb over each other to become part of,” said Bookham. “Let’s stack ourselve up alongside the Caribbean, Cape Cod and Rhode Island. And, let’s get the local community to rally around this economic and emotional value.”

The Rendezvous is the collaborative brainchild of Wayfarer owner Shane Flynn and Lyman-Morse owner Cabot Lyman.

“Both are romantic guys, who are enamored and taken with the level of skill of those in the boat industry here,” said Bookham. “They want to show that this is a viable way of making a living, and, they want to feature the beauty of Penobscot Bay.”

The three days are filled with other activities beside races, including evening cocktail parties, dinners and dances, and fireworks. An awards ceremony rounds out the weekend on Sunday, Aug. 18.

The same weekend, the New York Yacht Club, with its fleet of yachts, is also sailing through Penobscot Bay, with a few racers participating in the Rendezvous competition.

Owls Head Transportation Museum joined in the regatta from the air, conducting a Friday noon fly-over. The planes included a 1933 Waco, a 1941 Stearman biplane, and a 1946 Piper Super Club.

According to Rendezvous organizers: “The Penobscot Bay Rendezvous welcomes both the hard-core sailor as well as the recreational sailor who is not so competitive or concerned with getting around the marks first but would like to join in a new activity on the water. Last year’s fleet featured many first time racers and they are all coming back this year for more.

”Ted Smith the Rendezvous’ Primary Racing Officer is once again in charge of assigning everyone to his or her desired class so that everyone participates at his or her level of intensity. In other words, super yachts to daysailers are encouraged to participate. Bucket Rules will apply to the super yachts, and skippers can recruit rock stars and pile on the rail meat or you can spend the day in the cruising class, leisurely going from mark to mark and join in the festivities each evening.”