Al Sanford
My Life After La Salle
After leaving La Salle I went to Providence College and graduated in 1965. I worked in sales for International Silver in Meridian CT and at American Hospital Supply. One day, while at the Stonebridge Inn in Tiverton, I met the captain of a lobster boat who invited me to join him for a trip out to sea. It was a five-day trip and we went about 150 – 200 miles off-shore. It was hard work but when I saw that the captain made as much money in a week as I made in the first year out of college, I decided I wanted to become a lobster boat owner.
I had my first boat built in Massachusetts which was 56 feet long. I was fishing out of Newport RI. After a couple of years, I realized that I needed a bigger boat so I had a 72-foot off-shore lobster boat built in Brewster MA. It took me six months to come up with a name for the boat but I finally decided on FREEDOM because that is what I felt with owning the boat.
I was the boat owner and I would go out to sea on it 6 – 8 times per year but I had a crew and a captain for the boat that operated it day-to-day. I bought a piece of land on Quonset Point and built a building to use for shipping lobsters, many of them were shipped to Europe.
In 1998 a man approached me about buying my business. He made an offer I could not refuse so I sold it all to him for an amount of money that allowed me to retire for the rest of my life.
My wife Debbie and I moved to Florida and enjoyed our life there until we decided it was getting too crowded so we moved to Hayesville NC.
In my life I have owned 23 boats that ranged in size from 17 ft. – 72 ft. I don’t plan on ever owning a boat again.
Al Sanford <Albertm1943@gmail.com >
Hayesville , NC Thursday, September 09, 2021 at 16:45:06 (EDT)