For 64 years, Boothbay Harbor has kicked off summer with the Windjammer Days festival, a week-long celebration of the powerful wooden ships that drove the early economy of mid-coast Maine.
This year, festival organizers decided to extend waterfront festivities and have planned another celebration, this one to be held in mid July, to salute the nation’s 250th birthday. It should be an impressive show, built around a day of tall ships and a super-sized drone show that will light up the night sky.
The Friends of Windjammer Days, a non-profit group of volunteers that organizes the late June windjammer gathering, are behind the semiquincentennial festivities, set for July 17 and 18, that will coincide with the Boothbay Yacht Club Regatta and Shipyard Classics Challenge. The annual regatta is the first of a number of marquee races across the midcoast and Penobscot bay.
Mark Gimbel, one of six Friends of Windjammer Days directors, says the committee heeds a “rising tide raises all ships” philosophy. His goal is to ensure that local nonprofits and businesses remain at the heart of waterfront celebrations that attract a big crowd to the small coastal town. This year, Gimbel saw an opportunity to extend that spirit toward a historic national milestone.
The Vision: Wooden Ships and Carbon Drones
The inspiration for a secondary event began when Gimbel realized the town had no formal plans to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States. “I’m a town selectman as well,” Gimbel said, “and the Select Board wanted to do something, but a new event hadn’t been budgeted. I thought, ‘This is crazy. We should be doing something.’”
Drawing on his deep connections within the maritime community, Gimbel undertook fundraising and organized a mid-July celebration to follow the Sail Boston Tall Ship event. By coordinating directly with the captains of iconic vessels—skipping the bureaucratic middlemen—Gimbel says he secured commitments from six schooners to travel to Boothbay for a Gathering of the Fleet.
The centerpiece of Gimbel’s vision to mark the 250th anniversary of our country wasn’t limited to just the water—it aimed to bridge the gap between the sailing traditions of yesterday and the innovative technology of today. Toward that end, Gimbel signed a $50,000 contract for a massive, state-of-the-art drone light show.
“Instead of doing fireworks, we’re presenting a nighttime spectacle produced with 650 synchronized drone aircraft,” Gimbel said. “Big cities do these drone events from time to time, but I don’t think any town the size of Boothbay Harbor has ever attempted a show of this magnitude.”
The Boothbay Harbor Celebration 250 is set to begin on Friday, July 17, as the tall ships arrive and parade around the harbor. Gimbel is particularly excited about the visit of the Lynx. “They’ll be blowing those deck cannons off when they arrive,” he said. “We’ll have them right in the middle of the harbor at Brown’s Wharf where they will offer tours.” The six ships will be docked around the harbor.
The festivities culminate on Saturday, July 18, at approximately 9:15 p.m., when the fleet of drones rises from the Department of Marine Resources parking lot. For 17 minutes, the drones will form 3D images filling the sky above the harbor, choreographed to a synchronized soundtrack.
Drone Technology: Behind the Curtain
To execute this ambitious vision, the committee partnered with Northern Lights Drone Shows, a Milwaukee-based firm that employs drone technology manufactured and programmed entirely within the United States. Nathan Godfrey, a technical sales expert for the company, said that while many see the show as a simple entertainment piece, it is a high-stakes engineering feat.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Boothbay Harbor Celebration 250 is the sheer size of the drone display. It’s a huge show for a small community to produce. To put it in perspective, Godfrey noted that their median-sized show for most communities typically ranges between 200 and 300 drones.
At 650 drones, Boothbay Harbor’s display is more than double the size of a standard municipal show—a scale usually reserved for major metropolitan conventions or large cities like Miami Beach. For a community of Boothbay’s size to host a display of this magnitude is a testament to Gimbel’s “rising tide” philosophy. “The drone show is certain to draw thousands of people to the waterfront, an event that will benefit Boothbay Harbor restaurants, shops, and hotels,” Gimbel said.
Godfrey emphasizes the importance of using American-made technology. “There are three major drone manufacturers competing for the market in the U.S.,” Godfrey noted. “We’re running the only equipment that’s actually manufactured here in the United States on all three levels—the physical drones, the firmware, and the software that makes everything run.”
The technology, designed by Verge Aero, is world-class according to Godfrey. Each drone is a specialized quadcopter weighing approximately 1.5 pounds, with nearly half of that weight dedicated to the battery. “The drone is just a delivery vehicle for a powerful, 2,000-lumen, variable color LED light,” Godfrey explained. “The carbon fiber drones are about the size of a dinner plate and maybe a coffee mug-and-a-half tall.”
“The show isn’t off the shelf,” Godfrey said. “The process begins with a discovery meeting where our company’s designers and technicians—many from the University of Wisconsin’s Multidisciplinary Visual Arts program—interview the town’s team to understand the area’s history and character, and to serve as the foundation for custom visuals, themes, and music.”
“People hear ‘custom’ and think they’re just picking images from a catalog. No, we design and render these intricate aerial displays from scratch for each client,” Godfrey said. “We create a storyboard that might begin as hand-drawn doodles. We don’t start the heavy lifting of final rendering until the client gives the OK, because that rendering is a five-to-six-week process requiring between 250 and 480 man-hours of labor. It is a multi-computer, multi-day, iterative process that determines the flight paths for all 650 drones simultaneously.”
Godfrey noted the logistical challenge: “To stage the lift-off site, we need roughly 80 square feet for every 100 drones. For this show, that’s about 520 square feet of launch area. We’ve run computer simulations of the parking lot on the east side of the harbor to make sure everything plays nice.”
The precision required is staggering. The drones maintain a margin of error of just one centimeter for their GPS lock. If a drone loses its “GPS bubble,” it doesn’t fall; it performs a “land in place” maneuver.
“The software is designed to ensure no drones are within a foot and a half of each other at any point during flight,” Godfrey said. “We’ve never had a drone just lose power in seven years of flying. Mostly, it’s curious night birds that get too close and freak out the sensors. Usually, the bird is fine, and the drone just decides to land.”
Complete show data is sent to the drones via radio signals from a ground control station operated by FAA Part 107-certified drone pilots. When the pilots are satisfied that everything is safe and ready to go, the drones are launched into the night sky.
It is a fitting tribute to a nation’s 250th year: honoring the wooden ships that built our history with the soaring technology of our future. For the people of Boothbay Harbor, it is more than just a show—it is a reminder that even the smallest communities can cast the brightest lights.
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Ted Hugger is a freelance writer living in Damariscotta. Come summer, he cruises out of Southport Island with his wife and a very spirited Cardigan Welsh corgi aboard their Grand Banks 42.
Profiles of the Fleet
A Living Timeline
While the drones represent the future, the wooden vessels arriving on July 17 represent the essence of Maine’s maritime history. Through his contacts, Mark Gimbel has recruited six schooners to attend the Boothbay Harbor Celebration 250.
The Tall Ship Lynx:
A copy of a War of 1812 privateer, the Lynx is a “sharp-built” schooner designed for speed and precision. During the War of 1812, privateers were essentially legal pirates, authorized by the U.S. government to harass British merchant ships. The Lynx serves as a roving ambassador for that era of American defiance. When she enters the harbor, the sound of her two broadside cannons will serve as the official starter’s pistol for the weekend’s festivities.
The Schooner Bowdoin:
Perhaps no ship better embodies the rugged spirit of the Maine coast than the Bowdoin. Built in 1921 at the Hodgdon Brothers Yard in East Boothbay, she is the only American schooner designed specifically for Arctic exploration. Under the legendary Admiral Donald MacMillan, she made 26 voyages to the Arctic. Today, she serves as the flagship for Maine Maritime Academy, training the next generation of merchant mariners. Her presence in the Boothbay Harbor Celebration 250 is a homecoming, marking over a
century of local craftsmanship and global exploration.
Local Mainstays:
Rounding out the fleet are the ships that define the local skyline: the schooners Eastwind, Applejack, True North, and Sycamore. These vessels represent the enduring popularity of the windjammers, a segment of tourism that Gimbel said is vital to the region’s economic health.
A Busy Midcoast Summer
In addition to the many fairs and festivals that crowd Maine’s summer calendar, there are a number of nautical events along the midcoast and across Penobscot Bay. Here is a schedule of upcoming maritime gatherings:
Boothbay Harbor Celebration 250
Friday, July 17 • 1 p.m.—Tall Ships begin to arrive
Saturday, July 18 • 6 p.m—Tall Ship Gathering & Parade
9:15 p.m.—Drone Light Show
Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club Regatta and Shipyard Classics Challenge
Friday, July 17 • TBA—Registration, skippers dinner
Saturday, July 18 • 11:30—Racing begins, evening party
Sunday, July 19 • Noon—Racing begins
4:30 p.m.—Awards ceremony
Camden Classics Cup
Thursday, July 23 • 4-6 p.m.—Registration at Lyman-Morse Camden Operations Tent, reception
5-7 p.m.—Bands on the Wharf
Friday, July 24 • 9 a.m.—Skippers meeting
Noon—Youth Regatta
4:30 p.m.—Youth Regatta awards
Saturday, July 25 • 8:30-noon Mid-Maine Sports Car Club Classic Car Show
10 a.m.—Parade of Sail
Noon Racing begins
6-10 p.m.—Post Race Party
Castine Classic Yacht Race
Thursday, July 30 • 8:30 a.m.—Skippers Meeting, Castine Yacht Club
11:45 Anticipated start time
Camden-Brooklin Wooden Boat Race
Thursday, July 30 • 5 p.m.—Wooden Boat Welcome Party
Friday, July 31 • 9 a.m.—Skippers meeting, Camden Yacht Club
11 a.m.—Racing begins
Eggemoggin Reach Regatta
Saturday, August 1 • 9 a.m. Skippers meeting, pole barn, WoodenBoat
11 a.m.—Start
5:30 p.m.—Barbeque
8 p.m.—Awards
