The profession of crab fishing is one of the most dangerous in the world: not a single season, no matter how short it may be, is without injury. For the fifth season in a row, Discovery Channel has been closely following this titanic work, and the channel's operators have settled down on crab ships like real sailors.
Being a crab fisherman is no easy task. What these guys are doing is the real heroism and at the same time the most regular work, which crab anglers do not consider something outstanding.
Paradox? Paradox. To solve it, we interviewed Captain Sig Hansen and found out how long a crab fisher can go without sleep, how to earn half a million in four days, and why there are no suitcases on a crab boat. Looking at Sig, it is easy to believe that he is a real sea dog, although Sig usually wears a baseball cap instead of a cap, and we never noticed him with a pipe in his mouth.
Meanwhile, this is one of the most successful captains, who every year is included in the race for the king crab. Exactly two weeks in the Bering Sea there is a real hunt - with a stormy wind, breaking through the ice, crab boats are striving for prey. You can see with your own eyes the most dangerous and most exciting work, surpassing the Hollywood thriller in intensity of passions, in the Deadly Catch program from the Ordinary Heroes series on the Discovery Channel. In the meantime, the floor is given to Sig Hansen.
Sig, tell us how you got to such a life and became the captain of the Northwest? Don't you have a desire to throw everything to hell, to settle on the shore, not to risk your life anymore?
- “North-West” is a family ship, my father built it in 1977, and I worked on it every summer from the age of 14, and at 22 I became a captain. I was the youngest captain in Alaska - and just because the former captain was fed up with his work. The team just sent me to the captain's cabin, without really asking. And I don't think I'm going to go ashore yet. The Deadly Catch program is incredibly popular, although at first glance it shows the most ordinary working life - only very dangerous.
What do you think is the secret of such popularity?
Ordinary, they are ordinary, but most people have little idea of \u200b\u200bwhat the everyday life of a crab fisher looks like. For most, the usual job is staying warm and cozy office 9 to 5 where they feel safe. At sea, there is no sense of security at all. Just imagine - we went to sea for two months, we need to pay three thousand dollars for the ship, but we didn’t earn money, because we burned all our fuel and spent our profit, but we still couldn’t catch a single crab ...
But it may happen that we will catch crabs for four days without a break and earn half a million dollars. Such a risk is incomprehensible to many, yet usually people prefer more reliable earnings. But it's very interesting to work this way - it's a risk, excitement, adrenaline, and when people watch the program, they live our lives. Sailors, as you know, people are accustomed to bad weather.
And how was it for the film crew on board, because the operators, as a rule, are not such sea wolves as you are?
Deadly Catch is on air for the fifth season in a row, and many of the operators are no strangers to crab boats. Now they are doing much better than at the very beginning - and those times, yes, it’s scary to remember. The poor fellows suffered from seasickness, did not know where to stand on the deck, and where it was too risky - the team saved their lives more than once. But those who returned, having experienced all this, received a real hardening.
Tell me, are you sick of crabs yet? After some work?
Which of course you don't! I just love crabs. After all, we catch them only once a year, and there is no time for delicacies on the ship. But when I return home, I do not mind treating myself to crab meat.
It is believed that a woman on board brings bad luck. Are there any women among the crab catchers?
You know, sailors have a lot of superstitions in general. Yes, there is one old omen about women, but personally I don't believe in it. I know teams that don't have a single male, and you should see how they work! You can envy! So it seems to me that this is nonsense.
What other superstitions do you have at sea?
Well, you can't count them all. For example, when the operators first came on the ship, they brought suitcases and huge boxes of equipment, and I immediately told them to remove everything from the ship, because I don't want any suitcases on the ship. It is considered to be very Bad sign.
You know, sailors take a special bag with them, not a suitcase. So the operators lowered their equipment onto the pier, unpacked the cameras and all other equipment, and left their suitcases on the pier. Only then did we hit the road.
Tell me, how long does it take for a green newcomer who just came on board to become a real sea wolf? And in general, what is it like for newcomers to the sea?
Well, everyone is different, but sometimes it can be very funny. Sometimes beginners can't get used to life on a ship. In my hometown, in Seattle, there was a bartender who begged me for two years to take him crab fishing with us. And I said, okay, okay. Two years later we had a place and we took it. I said fly to Alaska, you can catch crabs with us. The bartender was only on board for two days and then asked to get off.
He didn't understand anything. He kept asking, “When are we going to eat? When will we sleep? When will we have a break? We didn't eat, we didn't sleep, we didn't take breaks. He could not work like that, although he was physically very developed, the work was within his power. In any case, to be a fisherman, you need to have a special spark in your soul. You don't have to be cool, you just have to love it.
Are you afraid to go out to sea?
Yes, sometimes it's scary. And the older I get, the more it happens. It's not even fear - it seems as if luck is slipping out of your hands, an unpleasant feeling. Or one day our ship collapsed 90 degrees. There were footprints on the wall, it was scary. We also had icing when the ship was covered with ice so that it almost capsized, and I was so stupid and greedy that I didn’t want to stop and break the ice and that was also scary.
What is the most difficult part of your job? For you personally?
For me, as a captain, the most difficult thing is to organize the actions of the team. We have five guys on our team who work 24 hours a day and it is very difficult to gain their trust and find crabs, although even if things are not going well, you need the sailors to believe in you. When it seems that everything is bad, that there is no crab, and you ask them to wait one more day, you say that tomorrow there will certainly be a catch, you need them to believe you, and not hang them on a yardarm. This is the hardest thing to earn this trust.
What was the best catch? And how is your typical day?
Once in 80 hours we managed to catch almost 50 thousand kg of king crab, then it cost 500 thousand dollars. Each member of the team earned about 40 thousand dollars - it was cool. And the most ordinary day is a wind of more than 130 knots, waves happen at three meters - here also keep in mind that the length of the vessel is about 40 meters in total.
If this is the most ordinary day, then what is the danger at sea? When do you risk the most?
Captain Sig Hansen: The most dangerous time is winter. Usually, when you go out to sea, you pull all the containers to the surface, about 200 containers. Each - 300 kilograms of weight. And then all this is covered with ice, and the cargo becomes even heavier, and the ship can capsize at any moment.
I think the Russians have a great idea of what winter is. One day we were sailing with the ship “Northern Fjord”, it set off just a few hours ahead of us, and they just disappeared - we didn’t hear anything about them anymore. I regret that I didn't go out earlier, perhaps we could help them, but, on the other hand, our ship could have been in their place - no one is safe.
In general, the concept of “ordinary day” does not exist for us. For example, everyone can go to sleep for 3-4 hours, and then wake up and see that the ship is covered with ice. Then everyone just takes a sledgehammer and goes to break the ice - and it's a normal day. When we do not sleep for days and the day turns into two - this is also an ordinary day. And at the same time, such days, with all the desire, cannot be called ordinary.
And do you like this kind of work? Or do you just have no choice? Why are you doing this?
We are simply too stupid to do anything else.
Honestly. Either in the sea, or fry burgers in a diner. No, I'm kidding, of course. It's actually kind of an addiction. Get hooked on it and really enjoy it. When you go to the port with holds full of crabs, you feel that this is a huge achievement, you know what I mean? You realize that you have done something important when you succeed.
Aren't your wives driving you out of the house with such and such a job?
Well, my wife is from Norway, from a fishing family, and it's quite normal for her to wait for her husband. I don't know about others, maybe I just got lucky.
And how do you live with such dependence from Putin to Putin? Isn't it boring on the beach?
Interest Ask. It's hard to answer. When I am at home for a long time, yes, I understand that I want to return, but my wife and children see this and, in general, they let me go. They understand that in my thoughts I am no longer at home, and then I begin to prepare for the next season, patch up the ship and so on. Still, this occupation is addictive, whatever one may say.
Do not pull home?
This back side, you understand, when you are at sea - you want to be at home, but at the same time you really miss the sea, when you are at home - you live with two different lives. It's like you have two people inside you, you know, and when you're on a ship, you want to go home, but you have to do your job. And when things are going well, you forget about home. When things go wrong, you start to miss home. Such are the things.
How American Crab Fishers WorkCrab fishing is called the gold rush of the Far Eastern seas. Kamchatka crab is found in the cold Seas of Okhotsk and Bering and fishermen, risking their lives in stormy conditions, go to this fishery, because gourmets from all over the world are ready to shell out big money for white tender crab meat. Crab fishing is one of the most dangerous professions in the world.
Jill Periman, captain of a crab boat: “Some people envy us, thinking that our work is a kind of entertainment. They are not even aware of the incessant rain for a minute, the waves of three human heights and the hellish wind that knocks a person down. In thirty years of my career, there has not been a single case of fishermen going ashore unharmed. In one of the sailing days, my ship lost four guys, - continues Periman. - They were never found, because they sank at a distance of 150 - 200 miles from the coast. Marine Predators gnawed their bodies in a few hours.”
The most common cause of death among fishermen is falling overboard. Even if a person is a super swimmer, he is unable to cope with giant waves.
Despite the fact that the earnings of fishermen in Alaska reach $ 100 thousand a year, there are not so many who want to fish. “Our job is like riding a roller coaster,” says fisherman Neil DeBary. - The first twenty minutes you enjoy, and then you want to get out of there as soon as possible. Real fishing is three days on a roller coaster without a minute break. Death for professional fishermen has long become commonplace. In terms of risk, the work of these specialists is comparable only to the activities of the military in hot spots.
Crab - valuable biological resource. V industrial scale its catch is quota, and all the seas are divided into different fishing zones, geographically clearly defined. Scientists constantly monitor the percentage of females, the growth of young animals, the state of the food supply, and so on. If there is a threat to the population, then the crab catch is forcibly limited. For a long time The king crab was practically banned from being caught in the Sea of Okhotsk due to barbaric prey in the late 90s. In those years, poaching (ours and others) flourished in the Far East. In the end, the Far Eastern fishing zone was closed, realizing that they simply could not physically control this process. Mining has now resumed. All decisions on the permitted amount of fishing in Russia are made by the Ministry of Agriculture (Rosrybolovstvo), since crab fishing is the same fishing, and fishing is agriculture.
Kamchatka crab - one of the largest representatives of craboids Far East. Its weight ranges from 3 to 5 kg (the largest female and male caught weighed 5.25 and 12 kg, respectively. The length of the male's legs reached 1.5 m). The king crab fishing season starts in October, but due to biological features this type of crustacean and the needs of the market, fishermen often have to wait until January to start fishing. Crab fishing ships go to sea with a license and a list of areas of possible extraction. This industrial fishery differs from coastal fishing, which is allowed to fishermen for their own consumption in the same way as fishing.
The size of a crab boat can range from 17.5 to 50 meters in length (most are 36.5 meters long). The onboard crew consists of a captain and 3-9 sailors. The captain is responsible for everything, including the catch. But sailors catch crabs, technologists manage processing, and the boatswain coordinates the process. The main part of the crab processing takes place on the ship. The limbs are separated from the carapace (dorsal part of the shell), cleaned, washed, boiled, cooled, frozen and packed in large boxes.
Crabs are caught using 400 kg metal traps, using herring, sardines or cod as bait. On small crab fishing vessels, the number of traps does not exceed 40 pieces, but on some large crab fishing ships their number reaches up to 250. Crab fishing takes place at the bottom, at a depth of 120 m.
Crabs cannot be found with radar, and their migration follows different routes each year. Therefore, when catching crabs, the captain can only rely on his own intuition and experience. Entering the fishing area, crabs are caught until the vessel is completely filled. This can usually take three days. With bad fishing, it can drag on for eight or nine days.
In fact, there are few ways to catch crabs. One of them is when the trap is placed on the drop pan. A bait is hung inside it, the trap is closed and thrown into the sea. A rope with a buoy is attached to the trap. Cages are exposed on the area to 100 sq.m. kilometers in the so-called order of several tens.
Another way to catch crabs is radio fishing. Several ships unite in an alliance and diverge to different points, setting up orders of traps. Then the captains transmit to each other by radio the necessary data on the reconnaissance of the crab, using code words, without naming the names of the vessels and coordinates.
After a while, the crab fishermen raise their traps. To do this, team members throw a cat anchor with a cable attached to it in the direction of a buoy floating on the surface of the sea. A trap is attached to the buoy, which is in free float. Having hooked the cable with an anchor, the buoy is pulled up to the lifting device. A cable is thrown onto the drum, which, when wound, raises the trap. Then the trap is lowered onto the pallet, where the catch is selected.
Fishermen are allowed to catch only adult male crabs. Young crabs and females should be released back into the sea. Adult male crabs rarely live near females, even if their habitats overlap.
If a crab dies in a ship's storage, the toxins that are released from its body after death can poison other crabs. One dead crab can cause the loss of the entire catch. Causes of death of crabs can be fresh, warm or polluted water. At the same time, being in stagnant water, the crab dies faster than if it remained on the surface without water at all.
Not less than important task is the delivery of live crabs to the processing plant, which goes out to sea to meet the crab flotilla. Crabs are shipped by several representatives of the crab processor, immersing them in a basket containing about 1 ton of crabs. By hand, they fill such baskets one by one and send them on board the processor.
After raising the last trap, the results are summed up. One vessel can earn about 180 thousand dollars per season, but for some fishing vessels accustomed to solid earnings, the season may be unsuccessful. A successful catch of crabs is considered when catching about 400 crabs in one trap, so crab anglers earn $ 1,000 for one climb.
During the sea fishing season, fishermen are exposed to sub-zero temperatures, winds reaching 100 km/h, and storms with waves the height of a 4-storey building. At the same time, they manage to sleep only three to four hours a day.
In addition to the nightmarish weather, thousands of liters of water fall on the ship every minute, which instantly freezes as soon as it touches the side. To keep the ship from capsizing, sailors have to stop fishing and carefully clear the ice from the deck. Under such conditions, seafarers often suffer from hypothermia, which is accompanied by chills, impaired coordination, slurred speech and impaired attention.
When catching crabs from 35 tons, each deck sailor will receive 16 thousand US dollars. Crabs, for which people risked their lives, are processed and end up on dinner table in various countries of the world. But only a few of those who will enjoy the taste of king crab will know about the severe struggle that a few brave people enter into to deliver this delicacy to them.
King crab or red crab costs 11 US dollars per 1 kg. The quota is 7,000 tons, meaning the entire catch will be worth $70 million. Opilio crabs and snow crabs are priced at $4 per kilo, with a catch of $36 million at stake.
Crab fishing is called the gold rush of the Far Eastern seas. Kamchatka crab is found in the cold Seas of Okhotsk and Bering and fishermen, risking their lives in stormy conditions, go to this fishery, because gourmets from all over the world are ready to shell out big money for white tender crab meat. Crab fishing is one of the most dangerous professions in the world.
Jill Periman, captain of a crab boat: “Some people envy us, thinking that our work is a kind of entertainment. They are not even aware of the incessant rain for a minute, the waves of three human heights and the hellish wind that knocks a person down. In thirty years of my career, there has not been a single case of fishermen going ashore unharmed. In one of the sailing days, my ship lost four guys, - continues Periman. - They were never found, because they sank at a distance of 150 - 200 miles from the coast. Marine predators ate their bodies in a few hours.”
The most common cause of death among fishermen is falling overboard. Even if a person is a super swimmer, he is unable to cope with giant waves.
Despite the fact that the earnings of fishermen in Alaska reach $ 100 thousand a year, there are not so many who want to fish. “Our job is like riding a roller coaster,” says fisherman Neil DeBary. - The first twenty minutes you enjoy, and then you want to get out of there as soon as possible. Real fishing is three days on a roller coaster without a minute break. Death for professional fishermen has long become commonplace. In terms of risk, the work of these specialists is comparable only to the activities of the military in hot spots. 
The crab is a valuable biological resource. On an industrial scale, its catch is quota, and all the seas are divided into various fishing zones, geographically clearly limited. Scientists constantly monitor the percentage of females, the growth of young animals, the state of the food supply, and so on. If there is a threat to the population, then the crab catch is forcibly limited. For a long time, the king crab was practically forbidden to be caught in the Sea of Okhotsk due to barbaric production in the late 90s. In those years, poaching (ours and others) flourished in the Far East. In the end, the Far Eastern fishing zone was closed, realizing that they simply could not physically control this process. Mining has now resumed. All decisions on the permitted amount of fishing in Russia are made by the Ministry of Agriculture (Rosrybolovstvo), since crab fishing is the same fishing, and fishing is agriculture. 
The Kamchatka crab is one of the largest representatives of the craboids of the Far East. Its weight ranges from 3 to 5 kg (the largest female and male caught weighed 5.25 and 12 kg, respectively. The length of the male's legs reached 1.5 m). The king crab fishing season starts in October, but due to the biological characteristics of this type of crustacean and the needs of the market, fishermen often have to wait until January to start fishing. Crab fishing ships go to sea with a license and a list of areas of possible extraction. This industrial fishery differs from coastal fishing, which is allowed to fishermen for their own consumption in the same way as fishing. 
The size of a crab boat can range from 17.5 to 50 meters in length (most are 36.5 meters long). The onboard crew consists of a captain and 3-9 sailors. The captain is responsible for everything, including the catch. But sailors catch crabs, technologists manage processing, and the boatswain coordinates the process. The main part of the crab processing takes place on the ship. The limbs are separated from the carapace (dorsal part of the shell), cleaned, washed, boiled, cooled, frozen and packed in large boxes. 
Crabs are caught using 400 kg metal traps, using herring, sardines or cod as bait. On small crab fishing vessels, the number of traps does not exceed 40 pieces, but on some large crab fishing ships their number reaches up to 250. Crab fishing takes place at the bottom, at a depth of 120 m.
Crabs cannot be found with radar, and their migration follows different routes each year. Therefore, when catching crabs, the captain can only rely on his own intuition and experience. Entering the fishing area, crabs are caught until the vessel is completely filled. This can usually take three days. With bad fishing, it can drag on for eight or nine days. 
In fact, there are few ways to catch crabs. One of them is when the trap is placed on the drop pan. A bait is hung inside it, the trap is closed and thrown into the sea. A rope with a buoy is attached to the trap. Cages are exposed on the area to 100 sq.m. kilometers in the so-called order of several tens.
Another way to catch crabs is radio fishing. Several ships unite in an alliance and diverge to different points, setting up orders of traps. Then the captains transmit to each other by radio the necessary data on the reconnaissance of the crab, using code words, without naming the names of the vessels and coordinates. 
After a while, the crab fishermen raise their traps. To do this, team members throw a cat anchor with a cable attached to it in the direction of a buoy floating on the surface of the sea. A trap is attached to the buoy, which is in free float. Having hooked the cable with an anchor, the buoy is pulled up to the lifting device. A cable is thrown onto the drum, which, when wound, raises the trap. Then the trap is lowered onto the pallet, where the catch is selected. 
Fishermen are allowed to catch only adult male crabs. Young crabs and females should be released back into the sea. Adult male crabs rarely live near females, even if their habitats overlap. 
If a crab dies in a ship's storage, the toxins that are released from its body after death can poison other crabs. One dead crab can cause the loss of the entire catch. Causes of death of crabs can be fresh, warm or polluted water. At the same time, being in stagnant water, the crab dies faster than if it remained on the surface without water at all. 
From the holds of the vessel, crabs are unloaded to fishing floating bases or to fish factories on the shore that receive crabs. Hatches open, and cages descend into the holds. Between such a cage and a crane hook there are scales. The cage is filled manually and weighed when lifting. The calculation is carried out both by the crew of the vessel and by the workers of the plant. Then the king crab gets on the conveyor production line. Spiked giants are flattened on a tape, fixing the limbs with metal clamps. The tape goes to the knives. The life of a crab ends here. 
During the sea fishing season, fishermen are exposed to sub-zero temperatures, winds reaching 100 km/h, and storms with waves the height of a 4-storey building. At the same time, they manage to sleep only three to four hours a day.
In addition to the nightmarish weather, thousands of liters of water fall on the ship every minute, which instantly freezes as soon as it touches the side. To keep the ship from capsizing, sailors have to stop fishing and carefully clear the ice from the deck. Under such conditions, seafarers often suffer from hypothermia, which is accompanied by chills, impaired coordination, slurred speech and impaired attention. 
By the way, the high prices for crab limbs in the world are not due to their exoticism, but to the too laborious process of catching. 
Reality show on Discovery Channel
