Where is the National Hard Crab Derby held?

The National Hard Crab Derby is held annually at Somers Cove Marina in Crisfield, MD over the Labor Day weekend. This year, 2017, will be the 70th celebration of this once local, and now regional, festivity. Activities featured during the festival include crab races, crab cooking and picking contests, live entertainment, beauty pageants, a parade, fireworks and assorted other distractions including carnival rides.

Crisfield is the southern-most municipality on Maryland's Eastern Shore. it has a long history of being a community based on the natural offerings of the Chesapeake Bay and its history is deeply rooted in the seafood industry. The bounty of the sea presents itself in many forms in the vicinity of Crisfield, namely; the Blue Crab (Callinectes sapidus), oysters and numerous varieties of salt-water fish including such specimens as Striped Bass (Rockfish), Flounder, Red Drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) and Black Drum (Pogonias cromis), Sea Trout and Cobia. In spite of the wide range of seafood harvested in the area, the crab industry has been the foundation of the community's seafood industry and financial success.