Deadliest Catch

With only six days left in the Opilio crab season the race is on to fill the boats and meet the deadlines.  After pulling up an entire sting of blanks, Capt. Keith on the Wizard has managed to move his pots and after a twenty seven our soak, they are at least managing mediocre numbers.  The relentless work of pot hauling is also now combined with the responsibility of clearing the boat of ice.  As the freezing spray continues to build on the boat forming more and more ice the danger of the already dangerous job becomes much greater.  Even a few inches of ice can add thousands of pounds of ice to a boat making it unstable and a threat to roll over in the Bering Sea.  The task is not one that the crew enjoys, that is except for the greenhorn Crosby who seems to be enjoying everything about the trip so far.  After clearing the ice it’s time to get back to the pots and with three out of the four holds already full it seems like it won’t be long before the trip is over.  However, pulling up pots only half full of crab makes the filling of the last tank a much longer process than anyone imagined and this only lead to more tension on deck between the weary deckhands.

The Northwestern is also faced with the problem of freezing spray causing Captain Sig to refer to his boat as an “Ice Magnet”.  Hauling pots only a mile away from the approaching ice pack, the crew is forced once again to stack the pots on deck and try to keep up the good numbers in an area further south.  The entire process takes 36 hours and as much as the crew would like to keep fishing the same area, they realize losing the pots to the approaching ice would cost them thousands of dollars.

There’s lots more crab need to be caught aboard the Time Bandit where the Hillstrand brothers and their crew need to put close to two hundred thousand more pounds of crab on board in just 36 hours.  The tired crew is also up against building seas as well as fatigue when a large wave hits the boat and knocks the rope dangerously out of the block ending up around the greenhorn Shea.  Reacting quickly, however, he is able to escape and quickly return the rope back to the block narrowly missing an almost certain death as the weight of the pot falling would have easily taken him overboard as well.  As the tired crew continues to grind away without break it becomes apparent that the youngest Hillstrand, has been taking his own share of breaks as a perk of being the Captain’s son.

For the North American the season is finally winding down, and by all means has been a successful return into fishing after the boat’s three year hiatus.  Not nearly as successful as the crew had been hoping for, was the greenhorn nicknamed D-BO, who Captain Sten gracefully has to explain that he just wasn’t fit for crab fishing.  Regardless, there is no shame as D-Bo is well aware he was able to at least in part hold his own out on the Bering Sea.  While returning back to St. Paul to offload they also pause to reflect on the life of the brother of greenhorn Davin Nes, who was killed as the season started.  Jeff Nes had fallen from a stack of crab pots stacked four high on the deck of the Sea Warrior and perished.   Davin and his other brother Jonathan had flown home for the funeral just before the start of their season.   Sadly the world’s most dangerous occupation had claimed another life far before his time.

The Northwestern arrives at St. Paul harbor to offload only to find the freezing temperatures have quickly begun to turn the port in to a field of ice. Unwilling to risk becoming stuck in the ever thickening ice, Captain Sig attempts to leave as quickly as possible. With the ice surrounding the boat, even at full throttle the boat barely moves. Sig continues to alternate between forward and reverse trying to free up enough space to work the boat around towards the open ocean when a combination of strong winds pushing onto the ice pack towards the aft section of the boat begins to slowly spin the bow out to sea. Although the going is tough through the first thousand feet, once they clear the ice then can begin to attempt to rescue their gear from the rest of the ice pack which is drifting slowly southward and soon will be on top of the pots. Not willing to risk losing the gear which is worth aroung one hundred thousand dollars, Captain Sig manages to race back and the crew takes turns clearing ice and then hauling pots. To further frustrate the Norwegian captain the pots are full of crab, a good sign nonetheless, but with the ice pack descending on their location they will all have to be hauled and stacked to be moves to another area.

Over on the Wizard, tensions boil over between Captain Keith and brother Monty. Keith goes so far as to get in the face of an unsuspecting cameraman who attempts to continue recording long after the Captain orders the equipment off. This is far from the first time tempers have ignited in the Wizard’s wheelhouse. A while later and they call a truce putting family in front of fishing and begin turning their attentions to the hope that their new greenhorn is much more successful then the last. However their mood soon turns sour when the first seven crab pots come up with barely a crab.

Life on board the Time Bandit also shows tension between members of the same family. With Neil now retired from his duties on the deck, the brothers turn to Jonathan’s son to run the hydraulic crane. Fatigue and inexperience take it’s toll on the 25 year old Scotty Hillstrand and soon his sloppiness causes a 1000 pound pot to come off the launcher and almost injure one of the other deckhands. Luck also turns around the wrong way for the fishing as well as full pots are coming up loaded with only females and juveniles and have to be dumped at the rail. No sense wasting time sorting crabs that cannot be kept. AT the same time a wave sends the boat on a roll and the youngest Hillstrand loses control of the pot with the crane and it almost takes off the head of the boats greenhorn.

Lastly on the Cornelia Marie, Captain Phil checks in with his son Josh and lets him know he won’t be returning to the boat this season and more dramatically may not even be able to fish again. For a proud son who thought his father was invincible and would continue to fish into his seventies the news is heart wrenching. The blood thinners he is currently on to protect him from a life threatening complication also would make it unsafe to fish as even the slightest injury or wound would be too risky.

With the Cornelia Marie still on Dutch Harbor, trying to at least make a quick fix on one of her engines, time becomes of the essence. When the repairs are made, and the boat begins to steam back towards the fishing grounds, it’s all hands on deck to get the gear prepared and baited. However, it doesn’t take long for Capt. Phil to notice his son Jake has taken one to many breaks and questions his work ethic as well as threatening to cut some of his pay. At 22, Jake still lacks a bit of the majority of most seasoned deck hands, and regardless off being the Captain’s son or not, needs to keep up with his share of the work, especially while cashing in on around $100,000 annually.

Nobody’s getting a break over on the Northwestern however, as a call from the processor increases their quota and at the same time they have asked for the catch two days earlier. The already fatigued crew will need to work all through the night again, after already working 24 hours straight. But a tired crew on the Bearing Sea can be a recipe for disaster and it isn’t long before a pot is left unsecured on the launcher. Coming off the roll of a wave the put is knocked loose and slides towards the sorting table, catching deck hand Jake in between. The rest of the crew immediately frees him, pulling him from harm. But it’s another reminder that no one can afford to overlook safety no matter how much the Captain has pushed them. After a few more grueling hours all of the tanks are full and Captain Sig turns the boat towards port to make the journey back to offload.

Over on the Time Bandit, the crew continues pulling up strong numbers of crabs per pot, in a race to beat the approaching weather. The help out as an extra man on deck, Captain Jonathan Hillstrand head down on deck to lend a helping hand. Trying to add more flair to the task at hand, his attempt at an underhand throw of the grappling hook comes back to smack him right on the nose. With a bloodied face he returns back to the wheelhouse to consult with brother Andy and clean up his wounds before returning for the final pot. Now with all of their holds filled with opilio crab it’s time to head back to offload. However it won’t be an easy time for any of the boats as a hurricane is pounding the entire fleet with 40 foot seas and 100 knot winds. The Bearing Sea has begun to unleash it’s fury in pure Opilio season tradition.

It’s a fight for bragging rights between the Time Bandit and the Wizard on who will win the weekly Captain’s challenge.  Each boat was allowed to designate one string of 25 pots as the Captains string and the winner would be chosen based on the most crabs during those strings.  Although the Wizard pulls up many pots with over 100 crabs, the last few have small numbers of crabs which brings their average on the string down to a 62.  The Time Bandit continues the lucky streak and ends up with a 75 keeper average on the string.

For the crew of the Northwestern this season has bee anything but easy.  Lacking the high number of crabs per pot they have had to work long hours pulling up low numbers of crabs to fish their quota.  To add insult to injury (Or may the other way around) the picking hook gets thrown about in the heavy seas and ends up whacking Edgar on the forehead, leaving a battle scar of the toil of this year’s season.  Things are even worse on the Early Dawn where it’s almost a mutiny as the crew goes behind the back of the Captain to suggest the owner lease out the boat’s remaining quota,  Obviously the crew has lost of all of their faith in their Captain.

On board the North American a test pot comes up with decent numbers, so Captain Sten decide to try a Haily Mary and “Carpet Bomb” the surrounding area with all of his remaining pots.  In order for his short two week season to be successful he will need those pots to produce strong numbers and his bet pays off.  Capt. Sten previously had never had a pot with more than 100 keepers and soon his numbers are easily exceeding that.  Over on the Cornelia Marie a hydraulic fitting on the crane ruptures and begins leaking hydraulic fluid, while leaving the crippled crane lifeless on deck.  Another daring repair at sea, 30 feet above deck in heavy seas, seems like just another days work to these guys.

Over on the Time Bandit we had another family reunion when Jonathan’s son returned to take the place of his brother Andy who needed to attend to some family business.  We also get a glimpse into the memory of their father (And Grandfather) as the boat is brought in close to the beach to pay respect to his final resting place, facing north and overlooking the approach to the harbor, buried halfway up a mountain.  When it’s all said an done it’s been another profitable season for everyone.  More importantly everyone returned home safe.

The crew aboard the North American continues to struggle as obsolete or missing equipment provides setbacks.  The buoys are hard to find as the boat travels at night without being properly outfitted with high powered sodium lights.  After three of years leasing their quota, rather than fishing, they have no sorting table.  This leaves the hard working crew to have to be constantly bending over and sorting the crabs in the totes.  Another dangerous issue is the fact that in heavy seas the filled totes are constantly sliding all over the deck and could easily take out an unsuspecting crew member as they weight several hundred pounds each.  The lack of proper provisioning isn’t the only obstacle facing the North American as the deck boss is already butting heads with this more experienced crew.  Of course hauling good numbers of crab can easily solve all but the most complicated personality problems.

Meanwhile, aboard the Wizard, Captain Keith goes out on a gamble and attempts to fish an area known as the “Slime Bank”.  This area held record numbers of crab back in the eighties but since has seen little fishing as the crabs seemed to all but disappear.  The aptly named area yields slightly more than large jellyfish as the crew pulls up 19 empty pots.  The hard work of pulling the pots comes without the reward of earnings and before long the Wizard is off to another area to drop it’s pots and try for some late season magic.  After a short soak the numbers look good in an single test pot which came over the rail with around 50 keepers.  However, their new found luck is short lived when a weld on their coiler breaks off, meaning the line on the rest of the pots will need to be hand coiled.  This extra work can be very tedious as well as time consuming but there is no possibility to make the repair while at sea.

Over on the Time Bandit we find Capt Jonathan taking care of an injured bird that found it’s way on the boat while out at sea.  “Squawky” as the bird is named, is treated to a short rest in the captains quarters before being returned to the deck where he disappears a few hours later.  Aside from that, it’s all business pulling pots as an approaching storm front starts to bear down on boat and crew.  Not fairing much better that the bird, we find Capt. Phil aboard the Cornelia Marie continuing his ritual of coffee, Red Bulls, and cigarettes.  To help keep his strength up, his son delivers him a sandwich stuffed with egg and sausage.  How’s that for a healthy diet?  To make matters worse he seems to be coming down with a cold and after 26 hours straight at the wheel decides to take a bit of well earned rest.  Good news is he has finally found the crab.  After a mediocre start his crew has been pulling up large numbers, and even while under pressure from his processor to get back in a few short days to offload, it looks like another very successful season for the Cornelia Marie and her crew.

On the latest episode of Deadliest Catch, we continue to see some boats struggle to find the crab while others are reaping the reward of the Bering Sea and banking on large numbers of crab on every string. Captain Sig makes a decision to move the pots of the Northwestern off of decent crab in an attempt to find bigger and better numbers. The move is not received very well by his crew, but this is Sig’s boat and he is willing to go out on his own. In the end the numbers he finds in his other spot are much lower than what he where he was fishing, which again hurts the morale on deck, especially deck boss Edgar.

Bad luck seems to continue to follow the Time Bandit this season (Didn’t Jonathan talk about a premonition his mother shared before the season started?). This time while pulling pots in 25 foot seas and 40 knot winds, a pin inside a pulley snaps off the boom sending a heavy cable dangerously snapping to deck. Had a pot been attached to the cable, the tension would have forced the cable down on deck with such force that a crew member would have been easily sawed in half. Neal Hillstrand volunteers to climb the boom and repair the pulley and reattach the safety chain in high seas and heavy winds, and it isn’t long before the Time Bandit is back in business narrowly avoiding another catastrophe.

We finally get a glimpse of the North American who will fish for king crab using borrowed pots in a short two week season. The boat is on the cutting edge of “green” technology using it’s patent pending Gen-Tech system to reduce emissions and conserve fuel. The system uses he extra wasted horsepower of the boats main engine to power it’s generator rather than relying on an auxiliary engine. The resulting system saves fuel, maintenance, as well as lowering overall carbon emissions. In the wheelhouse we meet Captain Sten who comes from a long family fishing tradition as well. His father had fished alongside Sig’s father many years ago which I’m sure creates a bit of a rivalry. After leasing their quota to the Wizard the last few years, the North American is back to prove themselves on the Bering Sea. Captain Keith makes sure to gives them a proper welcome as well by tying an outhouse onto one of their pots of them to pull up later. Captain Sten takes the joke rather well then continues to press his crew as time is of the essence.

Tempers flare onboard Wizard and Northwestern. Time Bandit has a dangerous electrical short. On Cornelia Marie, Phil’s health deteriorates. Early Dawn runs headlong into high seas when its greenhorn falls asleep at the wheel.

Long strenuous hours and the harsh working conditions endured by the crews start to take their toll and tempers start to flare up.  We first get a glimpse of this on the Wizard where brothers and fellow captains Keith and Monte get into it after Keith complains about Monte’s attitude after being forced out on deck.   Apparently Monte  doesn’t like to start out on deck after waking up and the last thing Keith wants from his crew at this point is a lowering of morale.  The Wizard isn’t the only boat to see some blood pressures rise as Matt on the Northwestern had had enough of greenhorn Jake showing him up and lunges at him going for his throat.  Edgar and Sig both make it clear that the Bering Sea is no such place to handle their differences as there are just too many dangers that need to be concentrated on.

The Time Bandit also suffers a setback on it’s way back to the crabbing grounds after being unloaded.  A large ballast shorts out causing the entire boat to lose power under the darkness of night while traveling in heavy seas.  The crew is able to quickly repair the damage and get the power and lights restored.  All this while being a man down and a man injured with an empty hold needed to be filled.  We are also introduced to another greenhorn aboard the under performing Early Dawn, Bryan, whose father happens to own the company who owns the boat.  Needless to say this already has made it tough for him to earn respect on the deck, but when he falls asleep during his watch in the wheelhouse it only makes him less popular with is captain and crew.

Finally the luck on board the Cornelia Marie has seems to finally improve as Capt. Phil gets back to his pots and starts pulling up nice numbers of crab.  It might be the lucky hair cuts that his son Josh started with or maybe its was the superstition that made him stay in port an extra day to avoid leaving on a Friday but the Cornelia Marie definitely seems to be on the crab, which takes some of the stress off everyone.

Discovery Channel’s Emmy-nominated series Deadliest Catch takes voyage on to the Bering Sea and follows the brave captains Phil Harris of the Cornelia Marie, and Johnathan Hillstrand of the Time Bandit seeking Alaskan and King crab. Phil and Johnathon join Jack Harris, Sharon Taylor and Tedd Webb on NewsRadio 970 WFLA / AM Tampa Bay.

Two prayers for you to say tonight:

One, that you never have to learn, the way Josh White did, that the Bering Sea can change in a heartbeat — its mood, its behavior, its unforgiving manner.

And two, that if you ever do learn that lesson first-hand, someone like Johnathan Hillstrand is close by to help pluck you out of icy water that can kill a person in minutes.

“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today,” said White, whose 31st birthday last November was almost his final day on Earth. If you didn’t see White’s rescue on Discovery Channel’s hit series “Deadliest Catch,” no worries: A midocean near-tragedy with action, color, emotion and two manly men hugging isn’t the kind of thing TV producers like to keep tucked away in a vault.

On TV

“After the Catch,” a four-part series on the Discovery Channel, 10 p.m. Tuesdays beginning May 29 (following “Deadliest Catch” at 9 p.m.)

The rescue, and the recollections of those involved, will be among a boatload of fish stories covered in a four-part spinoff series, “After the Catch,” beginning at 10 p.m. Tuesday immediately after “Deadliest Catch.”

Skippers and crewmen from this season’s “Deadliest Catch” crab-fishing boats were in Seattle last week to hoist a few cool ones and share salty tales in front of Discovery Channel cameras at the Lockspot Café in Ballard.

“Man overboard!”

Bering Sea rescues, both successful and failed — Hillstrand has been part of both — provide the fodder for much of the first “After the Catch” installment.

“Deadliest Catch” viewers first saw White, an Alaska fisherman for five years, as a small orange speck on the side of a tower of crab pots aboard the 134-foot Trailblazer, 266 miles northeast of Dutch Harbor. The boat’s hold was filled with a handsome catch of king crab, and it was time to chain down the pots and head to port.

But within minutes, White said, the wind picked up 15 knots, and five-foot swells became 15-foot rollers, rocking the Trailblazer dramatically side to side.

“I knew I was in a bad spot, and I felt myself slipping,” said White. “I tried to get a good grip, but I couldn’t. Before I knew it, I was gone.”

A few hundred yards away, White’s precarious position had caught the attention of the crew of the Time Bandit, including captain Hillstrand of Maple Valley at the helm and his brother and co-skipper Andy, who was shooting video with a camera provided by “Deadliest Catch.”

Although the Hillstrands didn’t see the moment White fell, they heard their radio crackle with the words every mariner dreads: “Man overboard!”

“It’s something you never want to hear, and we hear it too much,” said Johnathan Hillstrand, noting that last year’s king-crab season had already claimed three lives at that point. “After five minutes, you figure they’re not going to make it. And after 10, you know they’re gone.”

Every second counts

From his boat’s position alongside and slightly behind the Trailblazer, Hillstrand knew he could get to the bobbing man faster than White’s own boat, which had to completely circle around.

He also knew there was little time to spare: Nine years earlier, his crew pulled aboard the skipper from a vessel that sank in front of their eyes. After only six minutes in the water, the man could not be revived.

Limbs go numb quickly in frigid water. The boots and rain gear that protect a fisherman aboard ship can doom him in the water, pulling him under. Even a man wearing a life vest like White’s can swallow a lot of water as waves break over his head.

“I went under three times,” White said, before he remembered to pull the cord that inflated his vest.

Fortunately, he avoided what Andy Hillstrand said is a common and fatal mistake: the instinctive reaction to swim toward his own boat as it pulled away. “He saved his energy, so when we threw him a life ring (it took two tries), he was able to grab it and hang on.”

About four minutes after he hit the 36-degree water, White was pulled aboard the Time Bandit, but the danger of hypothermia wasn’t over until he was out of his wet gear, wrapped in a dry blanket and led to the warm galley, where he collapsed, totally spent.

Johnathan Hillstrand, 44, came down from the pilothouse, his own legs shaking beneath him as he embraced White, whom he’d never met. “Last time that happened,” he told White, “we pulled a dead guy out of the water.”

Getting back on the boat

Hillstrand, who has fished for 27 years, said rescuing White partly eases the ache he’s felt since that earlier incident. In a sense, he said, the impact of the rescue didn’t entirely hit him until he saw it on the TV show. Even now, viewing the tape makes him emotional. “You know something like that can happen. You never think it’s going to be you.”

Perhaps the good deed of saving White bought the Time Bandit some karma: The boat went on to win a bet among skippers for the season’s highest average number of crabs per pot.

White, in the aftermath of the near-tragedy, “took a little break, just some time to travel, clear my head and think about what I wanted to do.”

He spent three weeks visiting his mother in northern Arizona, where he had a chance to relax, play golf “and put on 10 pounds.”

He won’t forget his dip in the icy water, or the crew who pulled him out. But he doesn’t plan to dwell on it, and can’t afford to let the memory paralyze or distract him the next time he’s at sea.

And there will be a next time, possibly as early as next week, when he expects to join the crew of another Alaskan boat for salmon-fishing season. He’s wiser and more seasoned than last year, but no less enthusiastic about his work.

“There’s the freedom, the time off to travel and just the physical work itself — keeping in shape and feeling like you’re accomplishing something.”

“I’ll never quit,” he said. “I love it to death.”

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