Al Grover's Epic Atlantic Adventure

In a 26-foot, outboard-powered skiff 

- Mary South

Al Grover was having a midlife crisis. It was 1985, and the affable 58-year-old family man with a marina business in Freeport, New York, had developed an itch.

“I’d been going to work for 30, 40 years,” he says. “I wanted something a little different.”

His hankering had developed a distinctly Norwegian flavor. As an Evinrude dealer, Grover had learned a lot about the company’s founder, Ole Evinrude, who was born Ole Olsen in Norway and immigrated as a child to the United States. Promotional videos and marketing materials about its founder got Grover thinking: Why not cross the Atlantic and voyage to the Evinrud farm — the site of Ole’s birthplace and his namesake — powered only by outboards?

Grover thought this radical plan would be good for business, but he didn’t stop there.

At age 10, Grover had started fishing offshore and worked his way up to mate, making $2 a day. In the 1930s, fishing was a different business. Electronics were scarce to nonexistent, and success was largely based on a sea kindly boat, good seamanship skills and local knowledge. A fishing boat running an unprotected inlet with 4,000 pounds of mackerel had to be able to take a following sea without broaching. It was this kind of boat Grover had in mind as he designed his Groverbuilt 26, a long, narrow vessel with good fuel efficiency. The build found a strong following with Long Island fishermen, with 130 Groverbuilts sold in the ‘70s and early ‘80s.