Discovery Channel - Deadliest Catch-Inside the Catch

More Desperate Hours

Read the rest of Deadliest Catch Creator Thom Beers’ account aboard the F/V Fierce Allegiance from the forthcoming book, Deadliest Catch: Desperate Hours.
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After several days of picking crab, I started to develop what crabbers call “the claw,” which meant my hands wouldn’t open completely. My heavy rubber gloves couldn’t keep the frigid water from numbing my hands. They throbbed and wouldn’t open. Captain Rick and his deck boss, Tony, had seen this many times before and offered up a rather unusual cure: Ureic acid would make the pain go away. They told me to go out on deck and pee on my hands. This was the tonic. So I followed the prescription, and as I finished I looked up in the wheelhouse and caught a quick glimpse of the skipper and his deck boss having a great laugh at my expense. I was a greenhorn on their ship and I paid my dues.

There was also sadness that season. Several boats sank in the heavy seas, and seven men didn’t return home to their loved ones. This is the baggage carried by anyone who’s worked the Bering Sea. We all know someone who hasn’t returned, and it lays heavy in our souls.

Something changes in a person once he’s spent time at sea and I’m no exception. When I returned to Dutch Harbor after the journey, I saw a different man in the mirror. A heavy growth of face fuzz wasn’t the only thing different. I could see it in my eyes. I’d survived and even thrived on this adventure. I spent the day walking around Dutch and grunting like a feral beast. Words didn’t come to me till the second day on land. I felt like I’d spit in the eye of the devil and returned from hell to tell my story.

This spirit carries over to the 100 or so men and women that help create Deadliest Catch. Each November our teams of producers and cinematographers start the adventure again in the tiny town of Dutch Harbor on a small island called Unalaska, stranded in the middle of the Aleutians. Once there our film crews will again set sight on the dented sturdy steel ships that make up the crab fishing fleet. With their hearts in their throats and their hands on their duffels, they’ll bravely board and head out of port for another season. The vast Bering Sea will be waiting for them.

They’ll work under brutal conditions. Freezing cold winds will whip through their constantly damp slicks, bringing chill to the bone. Black ice will creep and thicken on the deck below their nearly frostbitten feet. Giant waves will breach their workspace, threatening to sweep them into oblivion. The constant churn of the sea and the rhythm of the workers will test even the finest of our storytellers. These brave producers and cinematographers will have to keep one ear open for story and the other for the warning buzzer. They’ll keep one eye on the frame, while the other eye scans the deck for danger. All of this will question their purpose and remind them how fragile their very
existence is.

I am proud of all our teams who continue to go to sea, who put themselves in harm’s way to follow the stories and witness the dreams fulfilled by the men and women who venture out on crab boats and together create this magically compelling never-ending drama called Deadliest Catch.
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One of the adventurous producers and cinematographers Beers describes returns to share his behind-the-scenes insights. Look out for Doug Stanley’s production diary on our site with the return of the new season of Deadliest Catch on April 15.

An Epic Journey Begins

The first season of Deadliest Catch premiered April 12, 2005, but the story of how Deadliest Catch began starts in 1998, when Thom Beers, creator and executive producer of the series, stepped aboard the F/V Fierce Allegiance. It was an adventure he wouldn’t soon forget and inspiration for the Emmy-nominated show. His experience and the series have also inspired a new book — Deadliest Catch: Desperate Hours— to be released on discoverystore.com April 8. The following is an excerpt from Thom Beers’ forward to the book.
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In 1998, I was asked by the Discovery Channel to produce a TV special called Extreme Alaska. It would be an anthology of all things dangerous in our 49th state. I spent the next six months filming winter rescue teams, the brutal head-banging battles of mating musk ox, volcano chasers, shipwrecks and salvage companies, bush pilots, and the mystery of a body found after five years in a glacier. I filmed it all and thought I had seen it all until I went to shoot the final segment: crab fishing. I had read the great Spike Walker book, Working on the Edge, about surviving in the Alaskan crab fishing industry on the frigid black waters of the Bering Sea. I thought I was well prepared for my journey. Unbeknownst to my wife, who knew nothing of my plans, I doubled my life insurance policy and quietly slipped out the door for the adventure of a lifetime.

I had secured three spots on the Fierce Allegiance from Capt. Rick Mezich. Two cameramen and I jumped aboard the 183-foot vessel, a refitted Mississippi mud boat built to ferry drilling mud and pipe to the offshore oil fields south of the New Orleans Delta. It was a great choice of boat. It was big and it had a couple of extra berths and a great crew.

Heading out to sea made me think of Gilligan’s expectations for his life-changing three-hour cruise. I suspected that it was going to be a hard slog for a three- or four-day adventure filled with unique visuals and great characters working in a dangerous environment. What I didn’t expect was the storm that moved in quickly when we were 200 miles at sea. Within 48 hours of my departure, the Fierce Allegiance was facing 70-knot winds and 40-foot seas. My short adventure turned into eight long hellish days of massive weather, huge waves and bone-chilling gusts of frigid cold. Through it all, Rick and his crew refused to stand down and worked the heavy chop. The weather doubled the days of fishing, and my crew and I continued to videotape it all. Massive waves crashing over the deck knocked the crew around like bags of potatoes in a wash cycle.

The boat went up mountainous seas and crashed down five-story slides. Full waves called “green water” rolled over the wheelhouse on several occasions, threatening to blow the windows out and send us all to the bottom. But the crew kept fishing over those long January nights, the cameras catching every move. The heavy yellow from the sodium lights bouncing off the crews’ orange Grundens created a near-surreal image.

The Bering Sea was relentless, pounding the boat and the crew, but the powerful deck lights couldn’t cut into the water. The sea was liquid ice, 32 degrees, as cold, black and heartless as a shark’s stare. If you went overboard, your life expectancy would be only four minutes. But the brave crew ignored it all. Pot after pot, the crab kept coming. Fishing was good and the holds filled with a bounty of “bugs.” There was a lot of money to be made and I witnessed men — some barely out of high school, some seldom out of trouble and a few mostly out of luck — earn a good chunk of cash in that week.

It wasn’t all hard work. There was time for fun. I spent several days working on the deck sorting crabs between camera reloads. Pushing the “keepers” into the holding tanks and the undersized to the “shit chute.” I was getting pretty good at it, but the fatigue of 20-hour workdays, little appetite and a constant dose of Asian flu slowed me down just enough for a crab to get his crusher claw around my thumb. Seventy pounds of pressure doesn’t sound like much till it’s clamped onto your appendage. It was like a 70-pound steel crowbar dropped on your thumb. It hurt like hell and after a single yelp I spun the crab in a circle, which made his claw leg come loose from both his body and my thumb.

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We’ll continue with another excerpt from the book in our next post. While you await the arrival of our Deadliest Catch book, you should also anticipate your own Deadliest Catch adventure with the new game inspired by Sig Hansen — Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm. In this 3-D extravaganza, you’ll be able to captain the Northwestern and the Cornelia Marie with their actual crews and simulate barreling through realistic-looking Bering Sea waves. The game for Xbox 360 and PC will be available in stores April 8th, and you’ll be able to preview the game on our site, too.

See what Sig had to say about the game. Watch now.

Dawn of Another Captain

You may not have seen much of the Early Dawn last season, but that may change in Season 4. The 108-foot house forward vessel was captained by Allen Oakley last year, but his deck boss, Rick Fehst, steps into the wheelhouse this season.

Oakley, co-owner of the Early Dawn, can rest easy as Fehst has captained in the past. He’ll be full time this year. Fehst loves to fish and would spend 12 months of the year fishing if he could. He knows this crew well, and he’ll be working them to their full potential to reach their 325,000-pot quota.

In other news, our marketing team went to Dutch last month to do a photo shoot with the captains and interview them for the new season. In the middle of the shoot, the Unalaskan winds took hold of Keith Colburn’s lucky hat, depositing it into the frigid harbor below. Like most crab fishermen, Keith is superstitious. He never fishes without his well-worn baseball hat. Shooting had to stop as he rushed to fish his hat out of the sea with a hook. But make no mistake -- Keith would have jumped into the beastly cold water to get that hat back. Luckily, that hook was handy. Hopefully, it’ll be a good season from the Wizard.

VIDEO EXTRAS
*Check out video of Early Dawn deckhand Mike Fish from last season.
*Wizard captain Keith Colburn talks about controlling chaos.

The Real Dutch

All the boats have left the docks with captains and crew aboard, in the hunt for their biggest pots yet. But who’s left behind? What happens in Dutch Harbor when the crab boats are away? Well, it seems the Unalaskans come out to play as our digital media team uncovered during their recent trip. It was their first time traveling to Dutch, and the people and the weather left quite an impression. Get some insights on this wild Alaskan outpost from Will Johnson, digital media podcast host, and Vanessa Serrao, digital media producer and editor. In March they will be sharing more behind-the-scenes insights in weekly, hosted Deadliest Catch video podcasts called The Real Dutch.

Vanessa writes:
What I never realized before this project is that Dutch Harbor is part of the much larger community of Unalaska, Alaska.  Unalaska is a community with a rich cultural history.  Many of its inhabitants are Aleuts, ancestors of some of the original native settlers.  In spite of the way it sounds, the name Unalaska doesn’t mean “not Alaska.”  Instead, it is derived from the Unangan word “Ounalashka,” which means “near the peninsula.”  I’m guessing this refers to the fact that the island is pretty far out along the Aleutian island chain.  The island was also attacked by Japan during World War II, the only other attack on U.S. soil besides Pearl Harbor.  Driving around the island, you’ll still see many of the old WWII barracks.  Now, people come from as far away as East Africa and the Philippines to work in the island's fishing industry.  When I visited, I found an incredibly diverse and hardworking group of people who seem to have a lot of fun, whether they’re fishing in the bay or jamming at the local bar. 

Will writes:
We just got back last week from shooting video of life in Dutch Harbor and Unalaska.  Our goal is to bring viewers inside the town and let them experience what it's really like  -- up close and personal.  We talk to bartenders, musicians, crabbers, fish processors, you name it.  This is a town that has a population of around 4,000 people, but during fishing season it explodes to more than 10,000 people.  And they come from all over the world to strike it rich in the fishing business.

What Deadliest Catch viewers might not know is how hard it can be to get to Dutch Harbor.  The weather and the flight route into the airport make it one of the toughest places to fly into in Alaska, and you can get stranded for days trying to fly in or out.  This can be especially tough on boat captains who are waiting for their crews to fly in from far-flung locations, but everyone in the business expects delays and it's the cost of doing in business in the Bering Sea.    

Anyone trying to fly into Dutch will go through Anchorage.  From Anchorage, 30-person PenAir planes fly west to Dutch Harbor.  But it's not that easy.  Going against the wind, planes stop for gas at airports along the way, in places like King Salmon and Cold Bay.  Speaking from experience, Cold Bay is not a place you want to get stuck.  There's really not much there other than a small airport and a room for passengers to wait for their flights.  I think there's a store, but it was closed during our stay.

Cold Bay is 45 minutes from Dutch Harbor, and planes will land there and wait for the weather to clear in Dutch.  As soon as they get the go-ahead, they'll go on to Dutch Harbor but the weather can get ugly again and then you have to turn around and head back to Anchorage.  That's a few more hours east.  Then, you have to try to re-book for the next day or fly stand-by and hope for better weather.  But with so many people from all over the world heading into Dutch, the flights are packed and you might be spending a few days in the airport.

So, you finally make it to Dutch.  Hopefully the wind is not blowing snow sideways.  It's incredible how fast conditions can deteriorate even on land.  The sun might come out and you'll catch a peak of distant mountains along the Aleutian chain, but then it's back to wind, snow, sleet and rain in a matter of minutes. 

So, for a greenhorn and even experienced crabbers, it can be an adventure just getting to Dutch Harbor.  And it's only the beginning.

Photos: Jenny Lim/DCL

A Captain Returns to the Deck

You got to know Eric Nyhammer, 46, as the captain of the Rollo during Season 2 of Deadliest Catch. He led an eclectic and somewhat artsy mix of crew members aboard the 107-foot house forward vessel owned by his father Siven. Like the Skaars and the Hansens, Eric has strong Norwegian fishing roots and knows how to run a boat in the Bering. He once said, “It's still man against Mother Nature out there, so you can't get too over-cocky. You gotta know just how smart you are.”

After skippering the Rollo for king crab season, Eric joined the crew of the North American to work the deck, working both boats for king crab. In his spare time, Eric is an artist working in oils and pastels, and comes off as mellow and laid-back; however, he shouldn’t be underestimated. From what folks say, he really likes to lead and doesn’t have a problem speaking his mind, so we’ll see how he does as a deckhand taking orders.

Beyond the deck, Eric is the father of three children and says he does the show so they can see him at work and in his element.

Davin Ness, 39, joins Eric on the deck of the North American. He’s a third-generation fisherman from Seattle who’s been fishing since the age of 12. His first crab outing was in 1984 with his father and he’s been hooked since. Davin has known the Skaars all his life and looks forward to being a part of the crew that brings the North American back to the waters of the Bering Sea.  He’s tried jobs on land but always finds himself drawn back to the sea.  “The money used to be better, but there’s just something about being out there.  It always draws you back.”

What do you think of Eric’s return? Do you think he’ll be able to take orders from the Skaars? Post your comments below.

Coming up: More from Dutch and another new boat with a familiar face.

The Green Boat

The North American is Deadliest Catch’s first “green” fishing vessel. It is on the cutting edge of maritime technology with its Gen-Tech engine, designed by the Skaars to use hydraulics to power a backup engine, allowing greater fuel efficiency.  On its trips between Seattle and Dutch Harbor the hydraulic-driven generator can prevent nearly 12 tons of carbon emissions.

As deck boss and engineer, John Skaar, 38, is the man behind the day-to-day upkeep of the North American and its experimental technology. Even in his spare time, he works on the system, hoping it can be used on a larger scale one day. John will be working closely on his green dream boat with Greenhorn Travis Arket, 24, a computer programmer with a taste for adventure. While he has little fishing experience, Travis has worked with the Skaars on their Gen-Tech system and was invited to join the crew because of his computer expertise. But will his smarts help with the crabbing? The well-traveled greenhorn is up for the challenge.

The word from Dutch is the boats are back and preparing for opilio season. The Bering gets rougher and it only gets colder …

Up Next: A familiar face returns.

Meet Captain Sten

Age: 41
Hometown: Seattle, Wash.
Years Fishing: 20
Fishing Vessel: North American

As you learned from our previous post, Sten Skaar comes from a very proud fishing tradition.  He learned the business from his dad, Erling, who fished with Sverre Hansen, Sig Hansen’s father. It’s made for an interesting rivalry between the Skaars and the Hansens. In his 20 years of fishing, Sten most enjoys the camaraderie with his crew and working closely with his brother John, the ship’s engineer.  He is extremely proud that he is among a few that can provide a delicacy that is in high demand around the world, and he loves the freedom that fishing affords to pursue his other interests: golf, soccer and travel.

Before king crab season, Sten planned on fishing 100 pots and placing prospect pots at varying depths from 35 – 45 fathoms. We’ll see how this strategy worked for him.

In other news, the pranks just don’t stop aboard the Time Bandit. Andy Hillstrand read that you can make a taser out of a disposable camera, so becoming their own MythBusters, the Time Bandit captains decided to find out. This myth turned out to be confirmed and Johnathan has been tasering his crew ever since.

Next: Deck boss John and the North American’s Gentech Technology

Introducing the North American

Vessel: 110-foot house forward
Pots: 100
Quota: 90,000 pounds

One of the new boats taking on the Bering Sea in this season of Deadliest Catch is the North American. It’s a 110-foot house forward fishing vessel, built in 1975, and bought new by Erling Skaar. And, here is where the long fishing rivalry between the North American and the Northwestern begins. Skaar was an engineer aboard the F/V Foremost, owned by Sig Hansen’s father, Sverre. By all accounts, Sig’s father taught the Skaars how to fish, then they struck out on their own, competing with the Hansens for the Bering’s crab bounty and the biggest catch. The Skaars have been out of the game for a while, using their boat as a research vessel to track global warming in the Arctic Circle. But Erling's sons, Sten and John, are back and bringing a fierce fishing rivalry with them. They say they can outfish the Hansens any day. Both of Norwegian descent, the two families run the same style Marco boats. But who will be the top producer? We’ll just see, won’t we?

We’ll introduce Capt. Sten in our next posting. In the meantime, the guys are on their way back to Dutch Harbor with the close of king crab season. The Wizard was the first boat to return. In a recent conversation with Capt. Keith Colburn, we learned that the fishing wasn't as challenging as dealing with all the personalities onboard. First, there was tension in the wheelhouse. Keith and his brother Monty don’t always see eye to eye when catching crab. But they’re brothers, and isn't there always a rivalry between brothers? Keith is also keeping a close eye on his greenhorns this season. One is a young 21-year-old, the other is 10 years older, but both are being tested by the Bering in their own ways …

Are you curious about the Hansen/Skaar rivalry? Who do you think will catch more crab? Interested in seeing the rivalry between the Colburn brothers? Post your comments.

And, We're Off!

Questions are swirling in the message boards. Does anyone know when the new season starts? What’s the future of Deadliest Catch? Well, we’ve got the answers and this new blog is the place to find out everything you need to know before Season 4 starts, which, by the way, is April 2008. We are still firming the exact date, but you’ll know when it is finalized because you’ll be reading this blog.

So here’s the latest. King crab season is well underway and filming has begun. The boats will be out until around Thanksgiving.  Then back out to the Bering Sea in January for opilio season. But some of you die-hard fans knew that already. But what you may not know is that Time Bandit's Capt. Johnathan Hillstrand, while trying to board his boat, fell between the boat and the dock into the freezing cold water.  His fellow crewmates pulled him out of the water and he’s OK. But that just shows you that there was drama before the boats even left Dutch Harbor! Also, we get to meet Johnathan’s son Scotty this season. Good stuff, right? Are you getting excited?

Returning this season, along with Johnathan and the Time Bandit, are Sig and the Northwestern; Phil and the Cornelia Marie; and Keith and the Wizard. Of course, there are new boats and crews, too, and we’ll be introducing you to them over the next few months. Check back every couple of weeks or so for the latest.

We look forward to keeping you knee-deep in the latest crab-fishing gossip. Tell us what you are most looking forward to this season. Post a comment below.

The Deadliest Catch Production Crew