Attention, Maine shoppers: the Hawai'i pilot crackers shipped and are headed your way.

Hawai'i's Diamond Bakery heard the plea of another community with a sea-faring past and on Saturday sent a container of 10,000 boxes of crackers — Saloon Pilot Juniors and soda crackers — to Maine.

Turns out Maine residents feel pretty passionate about their crackers and were partial for years to Crown Pilots, a rectangular hardtack cracker that baked-goods giant Nabisco used to make but discontinued for a second time in 2008.

In a new distribution agreement with Kalihi-based Diamond, Hannaford Bros. has agreed to carry Diamond's round Saloon Pilot Juniors as well as its original soda crackers. At the end of this month, grocery shoppers in 75 Hannaford stores in Maine will find the Hawai'i-made crackers on their shelves.

"This is a major break-through for our company," said Diamond Bakery President-CEO Brent Kunimoto. He just got word that two more shipments have been ordered to distribute to more than 160 stores in five Northeastern states.

"It marks the first time our products are being sold in retail stores beyond Hawai'i and the West Coast. It is a significant market expansion that we hope will eventually cover the entire Eastern seaboard."

Diamond marketing manager Maggie Li credits the power of ordinary Maine consumers for the long-distance cracker hook-up.

Nabisco first discontinued Crown Pilots in 1996, prompting an outcry and letter-writing campaign from more than 3,500 East Coast residents. "The local people in Maine just went crazy," Li said.

Nabisco brought the crackers back, but a decade later discontinued them again. "This time they didn't save the line," she said.

Li got a call from a self-described "regular guy" who had heard about Hawai'i crackers and asked for a sample at the end of last year. She sent several boxes: "They tried it, and they loved it. 'Oh, this is even much better than Crown Pilots.' "

The customer wrote a letter to the CEO of Hannaford Bros., and the retailer proceeded to work out an agreement with Diamond.

Family-run Diamond Bakery, established in Hawai'i in 1921, has kept the legacy of these crackers alive in the Islands and is the only remaining local bakery making the crackers since Hilo Macaroni Factory shut down in 2003.

They are a childhood touchpoint memory for many local folks: The only food your parents would let you eat on a sick day; the staple your grandmother always kept on the kitchen table with butter and jelly; or the classic plantation snack: dipped in canned condensed milk.

Pilot crackers have a long history in both Hawai'i and Maine. Also known as sea biscuits or hardtack, the crackers are made from unleavened bread, which gave them the ability to survive rough handling and long voyages on the high seas.

At Diamond Bakery they are baked in an oven that carries the cracker through three phases, drawing out the moisture to create a cracker that will last.

Kunimoto speculates that Diamond Bakery's founders got a recipe for these crackers from merchant seamen from Maine who settled in Hawai'i. And now, nearly nine decades later, the crackers are making a return voyage to Maine, where they are a favorite in chowders and stews.

"It's a sentimental journey that underscores our company's mission to spread heart-warming aloha with people throughout the world," Kunimoto said. "It's almost like a cracker in a bottle."

To celebrate the product launch, Hannaford stores will have in-store sampling of the Hawai'i-made crackers along with Hawaiian-themed fanfare including a sweepstakes contest to win a trip to the Islands with a six-night stay at the Outrigger Reef on Waikiki Beach.

That prize includes a plane trip and better lodging than those early sailors got.