Listen up, kids: If you want to strike it rich, stay away from the harbor. Not only will owning your own boat gobble up whatever few dollars you might be able to cobble together, but the swabbies who most captains hire on as crew will not be the sorts of fellows or ladies that mom and dad will appreciate you bringing home for dinner. Take it from me — I’ve been both a deckhand and a captain (and now a dad), so I know whereof I speak.

But if you won’t heed my advice and insist upon scanning the horizon for a party on Labor Day weekend, set a course for Camden Harbor. For anyone who enjoyed either Pirates of the Caribbean or Master and Commander, the Camden Windjammer Festival offers it all: singing (sea chanties, of course, with enough Jimmy Buffett for a taste of Margaritaville), a swordfight or two (hey, Johnny Depp doesn’t get to do all the swashbuckling), and a dash of exhibitionism (Camden’s sea dogs know how to strut their stuff). A weekend spent among the tall rigs of Maine’s windjammer fleet will be one to remember.

“Last year, despite the non-arrival of Hurricane Earl, we saw about five thousand people over a day and a half in Camden,” says Dan Bookham, executive director of the Camden-Rockport-Lincolnville Chamber of Commerce, which helps organize the Camden Windjammer Festival. “In 2009 the festival drew about eight thousand folks, and we had sixteen vessels in. This year coincides with the seventy-fifth anniversary of commercial windjamming in Maine — begun by Frank Swift in Camden in 1936 — and the festival is one of the few occasions one can see and get aboard to explore so many historic vessels for free in one place in the state.”

On most summer days, Camden Harbor seems chockablock with schooners and yachts. But if on Friday, September 2, you watch crews maneuver the 132-foot, three-masted Victory Chimes into a berth in front of the Waterfront Restaurant on Bay View Street, you’ll see that there is always space for a few more traditional vessels in this gorgeous pocket harbor.

The tall ships keep coming all afternoon, as the head of the harbor literally becomes a solid mass of schooners, all rafted up together. There’s Stephen Taber, the oldest U.S.-documented commercial ship in continuous service, rafted alongside Mary Day, one of the newest (and, captain and crew are quick to point out, fastest) windjammers in the fleet.

Nathaniel Bowditch, up for the weekend from her homeport in Rockland, looks far too lovely to have ever been a navy submarine chaser, and yet her crew is happy to inform passersby of the ship’s history doing just that during World War II.

On-deck tours are only one of the highlights of the weekend, and Bookham points out that those who prefer some terra firma will enjoy the concerts in Harbor Park — don’t miss the Dave Rowe Trio with special guest Denny Breau on Sunday night — as well as the nautical crafts demonstrations at the Public Landing. The sea dogs show on Sunday morning is always a howl for both pets and owners, and the local day-sailing fleet offers the chance to venture out on the high seas for as little as an hour or two. If you’re particularly taken in by all this seafaring stuff, you can even take part in the build-a-boat contest that sees teams construct and race (if they stay afloat) rowboats around the inner harbor.

But if at the end of the weekend, you find yourself or your loved ones casting off the mooring lines and heading off to the West Indies (or maybe just Bar Harbor), remember —

I warned you.

IF YOU GO: The Camden Windjammer Festival will be held September 2-4 in Camden. 207-236-4404, camdenwindjammerfestival.com