Captain: Wayne Iacono

Home Port: Menemsha

Name: Freedom

The Boat: Thirty-five-foot Bruno & Stillman fiberglass lobster boat. Built 1980 in Newington, New Hampshire.

The Other Boat: Warrior, a twenty-foot fiberglass scallop skiff, makers unknown.

Lobster Season: “Most everybody’s getting started [in early spring]. I go through the winter; I fish year-round. It takes quite a while to get [the gear] in the water. I go out probably about twenty-five miles later in the season. Right now it’s probably about twelve.”

Oh Buoy: “I fish 450 [pots]. I can’t really keep up with more than that alone.”

The Big One: “The biggest one I ever got was fifteen pounds, and that was back in the seventies when I was running the Mayhews’ boat. We’re not allowed to keep them that big anymore. [The carapace, or head to top of tail, can’t be over] five and a quarter inches, which is about five pounds.”

Stormy Weather: “Well, you try not to [go out]. A lot of times you’ll be out there and it’ll turn bad. But not so much now because the weather forecasts are better.”

The Best Part: “It’s economical. It’s kind of small, but it’s inexpensive, and I am attached to it. It’s part of the family.”

Lobsterman’s Holiday: “On occasion, you know, [we go out] just fishing or to the beach. You have to do that every now and again. Summer’s short.”

The Worst Day: “The stern was pretty well burnt up [in the Menemsha fire of 2010]. All of the electronics were gone – the radios, GPS, everything had to be replaced. All the paint burned off up here [on the ceiling]. Every now and then I still find smoke in weird little places....I’ve been bringing it back slowly. It’s just been very expensive. We never got reimbursed.”

Thanks, Chip! “Chip Vanderhoop basically saved it. He towed it out of here on fire. The lines were burning, the stern was on fire. He’s over in Gay Head; he came in and let a lot of boats go and saved them.”

Gift from the Sea: “I lost my good [scallop boat] in the fire...it was a Privateer twenty-one-footer. It just totally burned up. One day I was offshore, I was lobstering, and I came across this other one that I own now. It was just floating; it was half sunk. So I towed it around all day while I hauled my gear, I brought it in and I just put it in the backyard. And it was a good thing I did, because I was able to fix it all up. I did it pretty quickly after the fire so I’d have one for scalloping next season. My son and I did it.”

Welcome Warrior: “It looked like it came up from the Gulf Stream. There were goose barnacles all over it, and it was full of holes. That’s why we named it Warrior – it had been through the mill.”