[suspenseful music playing]
[metal clanking]
[reporter over radio]
[telephone ringing]
[seagulls squawking]
[Sophia] Hey, big brother, how are you?
[John speaking]
With the storm coming and stuff,
you know, I really do feel the pressure.
[waves splashing]
[narrator] Five weeks into the fall season...
[Sophia] Tomorrow is gonna get really nasty.
[narrator] ...a 200-mile-wide behemoth
barreling down from Siberia's Chukchi Sea
treks towards the king and bairdi crab grounds.
You know, everybody's, uh, nervous about it here.
This is the calm before the storm
and then bam.
But once this weather changes, we're in trouble.
[Jake] As you can see, here it comes.
It's coming all the way from the Arctic
and it's coming in hard and coming in fast.
[Sophia] I don't really think I'm, like, ready for it.
[man speaking]
[Clark speaking]
We got two feet in the middle tank.
[woman] Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
[man] Whoa.
-[Marc] Water tank. -Whatever.
I'm gonna lose my [bleep].
Watch out!
Let's see if you can find some crab.
-No pressure. -No pressure.
-Yeah. -[Mac] Loaded!
[Clark] There we go.
[Sig] Watch that rail.
-[man 1] Whoa! -[Clark] Oh, [bleep].
Are you okay?
[water splashes]
[narrator] 210 miles north of Dutch Harbor
inside the southern edge of the Siberian storm...
[wind howling]
[Clark] Whoo.
[narrator] ...on the Northwestern.
[Sig] They're calling for 50 gust,
so right now we got a good 40 plus
and these swells are 25-foot plus.
We're setting up against it
but I think it's the best way to go
because...
I don't wanna dive in to a wave, you know?
I don't wanna break these windows.
I got to control the speed. I got to feather it.
When I see it simmer down, then I try to set the plot.
Like now.
Are you guys ready?
-Yeah. -Under!
[narrator] First to make contact
with the cyclonic winds,
Captain Sig Hansen sets at half his normal speed,
fighting to keep his bow above water
as he hunts for the bairdi biomass
on the 166 meridian.
Argh!
[Clark] What are you doing back there?
I think we can get these over okay.
We get them soaking.
When they're hot, you got to get them.
We can really put a dent in that tank,
so we can make our delivery.
This is not the time to lose the send.
[Lauritz speaking]
-There's water on the tank. -You got a what?
-[Clark] What? -[Lauritz speaking]
[Clark over radio] We've got a hole in the panel.
[Lauritz speaking]
Sig.
[Clark speaking]
Got like two feet in the middle tank.
Bin board's loose.
Don't touch it. Let me turn the boat around.
Standby. Hang on.
[Sig speaking]
Argh!
All that water sloshing
from one side of the tank to the other.
And that's when they capsize.
The only thing that matters right now
is to keep the boat stable.
I got to get downwind.
[narrator] Amid 25-foot waves,
seawater floods the Northwestern's mid tank,
but fails to drain.
The sloshing action breaks loose
a 1,000-pound divider called a bin board,
threatening to destabilize and capsize the vessel.
[water splashes]
-[bleep] -[suspenseful music playing]
Oh, my God.
[Sig speaking]
[Clark speaking]
[Lauritz] Right.
[man] How much water?
[Lauritz speaking]
[Clark speaking]
Oh.
[Lauritz speaking]
[Clark] All right.
-[man] Grab the crane? -Yeah.
[suspenseful music playing]
[bleep]
[Clark] Good.
-[Lauritz speaking] -[Clark] Good?
-Oh, [bleep]. -[Clark speaking]
Easy.
Watch the ladder.
Keep coming.
Hang on. Hang on. Hang on.
Oh, my God.
[Clark speaking]
You gotta let me know what's going on.
Are you okay?
[Lauritz] [bleep]
[Clark] Good?
Attaboy, Lauritz.
[Lauritz speaking]
Can you get the water out?
Oh, my God.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Clark speaking]
[man speaking]
[Clark speaking]
We're doing an airlock.
So we got the pump running, water's 100% out
of the middle tank.
Copy.
All right. Standby.
I'm gonna turn back around, go up against it.
We're gonna get the pots off the boat.
Roger.
[Sig] Argh.
I just hate taking risks like this,
but for right now we can do this.
[Clark] Roll over.
[Sig] Hopefully, we can, uh,
find some crab out of this one here.
[narrator] 90 miles southeast,
below the southern edge of the storm...
[Marc] All right. Here we go.
[Rolando speaking]
[Mac speaking]
[bleep] blank...
[bleep]
[narrator] Aboard the Titan Explorer.
I'm throwing the females over.
I've caught more crab in my pants than I ever have on the string.
I have no [bleep] idea where to go.
What?
If I'm gonna beat this storm,
I have to stay out here.
To the south.
[narrator] With his final red king offload
in three days...
[Felipe] What is this?
[narrator] ...Captain Jake Anderson
races to move his 120 pots
onto half a million dollars of migrating crab
before the incoming low pressure system
collides with his position.
I've got 25,000 pounds of king crab left to catch.
[Rolando] Nothing. Starfish.
The offload's coming and along with that,
I've got new bosses,
so if I can't catch crab efficiently on this boat,
I'll be out of a job pretty quickly.
Right there.
Get up.
[Rolando] Keep out. Keep it. Keep it.
[Rolando speaking]
Money. No money, no honey, man.
[Marc] Time is of the essence.
You know, we got the weather coming in,
we got a delivery date,
and we got to get back to paradise, so...
[Marc speaking]
[Jake] It's the problem for getting a new boat
with a new crew.
Everybody's questioning the leadership.
You wanna slide the next one in there, grab there bar, then tie that one.
-[thuds] -Watch out!
[Felipe screams]
[Marc] [bleep]
What the [bleep] happened?
[Mac] Hey.
[Marc screams]
[seagulls squawking]
[narrator] On the Titan Explorer...
-[thuds] -Watch out!
[thuds]
-[Felipe screams] -[Marc] [bleep]
What the [bleep] happened?
-[Mac] Hey. -[Marc] [bleep]
[Marc speaking]
[Marc over radio]
Oh, God. [bleep]
[Jake] Everybody okay?
[Mac] Yeah, luckily no one was standing
underneath that pot, man.
That would've [bleep] their day up.
They would've been flown home today.
[narrator] While the crews stacked on the gear,
a steel cable on the crane sheared off...
[Mac] Watch out!
[narrator] ...dropping a 1,000-pound pot
18 feet to the deck,
missing deck boss Felipe Bobadilla
by mere inches.
Marc, I bought that...
There's a 70-foot
piece of spectra that I bought.
Just unspool the cable
and then put on the new spectra.
[Felipe] I got it. I got it.
Yeah, we can.
Spectra is typically three times stronger than cable
and this is a lot better and a lot safer.
You know, if I put [bleep] cable on,
it's a whole lot faster.
No, it's not.
Just put the spectra on there, Marc.
If we put the [bleep] cable, it'll be faster, Jake.
If I gotta put the spectra on,
I gotta put a splice
in and everything else, man.
It's too [bleep] waste of time.
[Jake] Not if you quick splice it,
just put the [bleep] spectra on.
Dude, it'll be [bleep] faster if I do the cable.
Oh, my God.
I'm gonna lose my [bleep].
Just put the [bleep] spectra on.
Fine, dude. Fine [bleep] whatever, Jake.
Whatever.
It's not like I don't [bleep] know [bleep]
what I'm talking about.
Thirty [bleep] years I've been doing this.
Thirty [bleep] years.
It's like, I'm not [bleep] stupid, I'm [bleep].
I get it's the system, but I'm not [bleep] dumb.
Coming up!
[Jake] Marc's a captain too,
just not on this [bleep] boat.
It's just like anything else.
When you have a transition of power,
everybody wants to contest the [bleep] leadership.
[Mac] Yeah.
[Jake] Right now I have deadlines I have to deal with
and I can't have insubordination.
That's gonna be, uh,
something we'll keep an eye on here.
[Marc] Yeah, that'll work, man. Perfect.
We're back in business.
[Jake over radio] All right, let's stack the rest of this one on...
and then, uh...
we'll go figure out where we go.
[Jake speaking]
[Felipe] Coming up.
[bleep] better be.
[waves crashing]
[Jake] I'm fighting the clock.
[seagulls squawking]
[narrator] Inside the Siberian storm's southern front,
on the western bairdi crab grounds...
-[waves crashing] -[woman] Woo-hoo.
[woman speaking]
[man] Whoo!
[narrator] Aboard the Seabrooke...
You ready?
[eerie music playing]
Whoa!
[John] Look out!
[Sophia] Whoa!
[Greg] You guys be safe.
-Yeah. -Yeah. Roger.
[sighs] We're already taking spray on the windows.
Ooh.
[Greg] Okay.
-You on auto now? -Yup.
I'm on my line already.
-Okay. Go on. -I think...
-I think I'm-- -Okay. Just keep it safe.
Well, you're in charge, so you gotta be the boss.
You gotta be the leader and you--
Okay. Roger that, boss.
[machine whirring]
[Greg] You're setting it.
So just trust your gear and trust your gut.
Now, let's see if you can find some crabs.
[narrator] Tap to set 20 pots
in her first official
Bering Sea storm at the helm,
skipper in training, Sophia "Bob" Nielsen
hunts eight and a half tons of bairdi...
in building 18-foot seas.
[Greg] All right.
Good luck.
Be safe.
[Sophia] Aye, aye.
I think Greg is putting more responsibility
on my shoulders
and hopefully I can show him that I can read gear
and find crab,
scoop 'em up and go to town and offload.
So it looks like based off of that gear,
the further west we went and the shallower we went,
the more promising the sign of crab was.
I'm gonna kind of shuffle this next string
and shallow it up,
and try to follow the crab there.
[waves crashing]
All righty, guys. Let her rip.
[John] Going over.
One.
[Sophia] I think I'm taking a little bit
of a risk here,
but based off the numbers,
I think I'm making the best decision.
[man 1] Woo-hoo.
[man 2] Good job.
Come on, get it there. Let's go.
[man 3] Knock her over!
[machine whirring]
[man 1] Watch out.
[man 2] Yeah.
[men whooping]
[man 1] Going over.
[Sophia] Oh, [bleep].
[man] Whoa!
[Sophia over radio] Look out!
[indistinct chatter]
[seagulls cawing]
Everything okay out there?
[intense music playing]
[Sophia] I've never had to set for weather like that.
I just don't want anybody to get hurt.
[woman] Going over.
[man] Over.
[Sophia] Scary stuff.
Maybe they'll actually start catching some serious crab
and get them out of here
before everybody else shows up.
Hell yeah!
[Sophia] Now, I just have to see
if I could actually put crab in the pot.
If not, I don't know how many more chances
I'm gonna get in this chair.
[seagulls cawing]
[narrator] 220 miles northeast of Dutch Harbor...
[Rolando speaking]
[bleep]
[narrator] ...on the Titan Explorer.
[Rolando speaking]
Blank, blank, blank.
It doesn't get any blanker than that.
[Rolando] [bleep] everything, huh?
Definitely.
Let's stack it.
[Mac] Roger.
[Marc] So I get it Jake's captain,
but I myself though, look at the big picture...
[Marc speaking]
[Jake] Marc is my really close friend,
but the engineer arguing with me, that's not good.
I don't want my crew to get confused
who is in charge here.
[Marc] Nothing, man, but starfish,
flying fish, and [bleep].
[Rolando] Hard bottom here.
[Marc] Starfish grow on hard bottom.
Yup...
[Marc speaking]
[Mac] We set where we shouldn't have.
Crab like mud.
It's like me liking Arby's.
[Marc] Jake.
[Jake speaking]
[Marc speaking]
[Jake speaking]
[Marc] Roger.
So this is what we got, man.
You can see how that bottom of that pot's pretty shiny.
There's a second pot, same thing, polished up.
-So it looks-- -Yeah.
-That's hard bottom. -Yeah.
[Jake] I've got them here before on the duck's feet.
Up there on the canyon?
[Jake] Right next to it.
Out west and north.
That's soft bottom.
I'll stack on the rest of these
and then we'll just turn around
and just dump them.
I'll jam this one right in there.
[Marc] Sweet. Sounds good to me.
[Jake] Marc, it's easy to get heated
when we both have differences of opinion,
but if I ask for something, don't argue with me.
All right.
No, I get it, man.
But, you know, I was out of line.
It won't happen again.
-Yeah, it's all good. -All right.
-Thanks, Jake. -Yeah.
One mile.
I don't want my crew to get confused
who is in charge here, and it's me...
[Jake speaking]
[men cheering]
[Mac] [bleep] yeah!
[Jake] Offloads coming.
If this string doesn't come up big,
I'm gonna really be put on the spot.
So this is one of my last chances.
Pressure's all on me.
[intense music playing]
[narrator] 84 miles west,
inside the 31,000 square mile
Siberian storm...
[waves crashing]
[man laughs]
[Sig] I'm sorry.
[narrator] ...on the Northwestern.
[Clark] The weather's just picking up all the time.
Wind's getting bigger. Waves are getting bigger.
[Sig] Bering Sea true to form.
I'm seeing about 30-knot winds
to 15-foot seas.
I think after that little shake up with the tank...
Well, the guys are on their toes,
but for right now, I'm just glad
I got those in the water fishing for me.
Bottom line, I need a 23 average
through our pots
and we can make our delivery.
Hoping that we hit something here.
We're gonna just push through this one.
Today is not gonna be fun, that's for sure.
The pot is under the boat.
The tide is pushing it this way.
It's a lot of strain.
We have to turn on every one carefully.
The guys are exposed and we come around.
Now, I'm following the line and I'm gonna make
a slow circle back
and I'll close up that exposure to the rail.
All right. First pot coming up.
So when I turn, now I'm starboard side too.
Watch the rail.
[man] Whoo!
When I come around, I can see the line.
That means the pot's coming more straight
up and down instead of from over here.
[waves crashing]
[Clark] Here we go. Oh, yeah.
[machine whirring]
[man] All good.
[cheering]
[man] There we go.
That's a good one.
Whoo!
How many?
-Fifty. -[Sig] All right.
Fifty is a good number.
[waves crashing]
Oh.
[machine whirring]
Yeah.
Big life.
That good?
[man] Yeah, 100.
You guys are off the rail and then we come around.
[Clark] They're all going in.
That's beautiful.
[Clark speaking]
[machine whirring]
Oh, yeah.
[men cheering]
Yeah. That's good, good, good, good, good.
[man] Whoo!
[Sig] One-sixty-two.
That adds up fast.
Watch that rail.
[Lauritz] Argh!
Ugh.
Gotta be so careful with the size of these waves.
They're 20, 25 foot now.
And at the same time,
when there's tide against the wind,
the way the string is sitting,
I got the line under the boat.
I can hear the strain on the block now.
We need to really pay attention.
Get the pots on safely.
[line snapping]
[bleep]
[grunts]
Are you okay?
Clark.
[narrator] On the Northwestern...
[Sig] I can hear the strain on the block now.
We need to really pay attention.
Get the pots on safely.
[line snapping]
-[bleep] -[bleep]
[Clark grunts]
Are you okay?
[bleep]
[Clark speaking]
[bleep] I can't see.
It's the strain.
I'm coming around on it
and it's the strain on the block.
[Clark] Knot popped out.
Hit me right in the...
right in the bridge of the nose.
[narrator] As the 125-foot Marco
rolled in two-story high swells,
tension on the line surged
causing the shot to snap out of the block
and straight across Clark Pederson's face.
[Sig] The bigger the waves, the more the strain.
Every time the boat surges like that,
you're adding all that strain to the pot in weight.
Just like getting punched in the face.
That's what it feels like, right in the nose.
I'm trying to be as safe as I can, but,
you know, that is costly and it's costing us time.
Set them back.
[Clark] Okay.
[Sig] These crab are, kind of, on the move.
We need to be aggressive.
Set it right back on the same spot.
Was it a one-hit wonder
or is there more volume down there?
[Lauritz] Yeah, buddy.
[Sig] See what happens tomorrow
when I go through it.
Hopefully, we will get what we need.
[narrator] 78 miles southwest
on the western edge
of the low pressure system...
[waves crashing]
All righty, guys, let's get the deck ready
half a mile until we haul the string.
Let's get her done.
[man] Roger.
[narrator] Aboard the Seabrooke...
[waves crashing]
[Greg] You're in that seat.
They know you're in the seat, so just make sure
that there's real communication.
Just make sure they hear you.
Let's go, baby.
Whoo!
[Sophia] This is the one I set the other night.
It was, uh, about a quarter mile west of your string,
just parallel to what I seen in your pots
and your numbers.
Let's try to shallow up a little bit.
[Greg] Hopefully you were right here.
[narrator] Her latest salvo of pots
shelled off in her first
Bering Sea storm at the helm.
Skipper in training Bob approaches gear
set at 68 fathoms,
eyeing her final 1,500 crab before delivery.
[man] Woo-hoo!
[Greg] Now, let's see if you can find some crab.
-No pressure. -[Greg] No pressure.
None, none.
[man] Come on, baby. Come to papa.
Coming up.
Here we go.
Let's see what's in there.
[man] Up.
[man 2] What do we got? What do we got?
[man] Let's go up high!
Woo-hoo!
[gasps]
It's a good pot.
[man] All right. Woo-hoo!
-[man 2] Yeah. -[man] Whoo!
Good pot.
[man 2] Whoo!
That pot looks so good.
Let's get some crab!
A lot of keepers in this one.
[man] Okay. Let's go. Let's go!
Sixty, sixty keepers.
-Hell, yeah. -[man] Woo-hoo!
[man 2] Now, we're back on the [bleep] crab,
let's go!
[man] Yeah!
[Sophia] That was a good pot.
I better drive this string. That's too much crab.
-Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. -[Greg laughs]
You come in here and steal all the glory.
[man] Uh-oh.
Oh, no.
Watch out.
It looks like it's hung up on the bulb.
[Sophia] Oh, yeah, it's coming around the bow.
Tell 'em to slow down.
[Sophia speaking]
[John] Roger.
[John] [bleep] No.
Stop!
[man speaking]
[Sophia] Whoa.
-What? -[man speaking]
[man 2] Turn up! Turn up!
Can you just [bleep] fix this [bleep].
[narrator] With the pot line already stretched
to the breaking point around the bow...
The dog fell off.
[narrator] ...the crew flags a second danger
when a hydraulic ram breaks off the launcher.
Now, with no way to tackle both deadly situations
at once, the young captain in training
faces a Sophia's choice of bad options.
-[man] Well. -[man 2] Yeah, you know.
Hey, guys, how about you get that pot out of the block.
Throw the bags over.
[Sophia speaking]
Throw it out.
[John] Yeah, take it out.
Game on.
[suspenseful music playing]
I don't feel comfortable hauling any more pots
with a dog like that.
[Sophia speaking]
-[man] Yeah. -[man 2] Yeah, roger.
[Greg] There you go.
Good job, Sophia.
That was the right move.
You know what I mean?
If that weld breaks again, you know,
one of those dogs don't work and can drop
that pot on the table and somebody can get hurt.
We gotta hop back to it, so we can get back in business.
Yeah.
[Sophia] You're gonna make money.
[narrator] 154 miles east,
on the edge
of the low pressure system...
[Marc] Hopefully, we can get it back on the crab.
That's what we're here for.
[narrator] ...aboard the Titan Explorer.
[Jake] Storm's just building right now.
The crew's taking a pounding down there,
but if I don't keep going then we lose all our money.
I get fired.
I've got a lot of pressure on me.
I've got deadlines and it's good
that me and Marc talk
because then I can't have insubordination,
because then the crew will follow suit.
I'm the one that's responsible.
My choice is to trust my crew.
First try.
[Jake speaking]
[sighs]
[Mac] Come on, crab.
Okay, here it comes.
[Felipe] What do we got?
[Sig yawns]
Why am I tired?
Maybe I'm sick.
[narrator] When you've been fishing
through a storm for 48 hours straight...
-[Clark] Ready? -[man] The button thing?
[yawns]
[Clark] Bairdi!
[siren sounds]
Oh!
What was that?
-Bairdi! -[siren sounds]
[narrator] What better way to stay awake
than a bairdi remix?
[laughs]
[Clark] Bairdi! Whoo!
[all laughing]
[narrator] 12,000 pounds of bairdi
right out of the gate.
Music to Sig's ears,
assuming he can still hear.
On the Titan Explorer.
[Felipe] Come on, crab!
[Rolando] Yeah. Hey, come up. Come up.
Okay, here it comes.
[Rolando] What do we got?
Oh, yeah, baby!
[Mac] Yeah!
There we go.
[Rolando] Whoo!
Loaded!
[crew cheering]
[Mac] Gargantuan!
[Rolando] Yeah!
Whoo!
[Marc speaking]
Three-zero.
That is [bleep] awesome, Marc.
[Jake speaking]
[Mac] Whoo-hoo! Whoo!
[laughs]
This rider right here.
They're still trying to get in.
Yeah!
[Felipe] Money, money, money, money.
-Whoo! -[Mac] Whoo!
Sixty-five, man.
Sixty-five?
Yeah, 65, six-five.
[Jake] I've got a really, really fantastic crew
and at the end of the day,
basically everybody just communicates with me.
[Mac] Woo-hoo!
We're getting clogged up.
If it keeps up like this, I'm gonna be that much closer
to hitting my target goal for this off-road.
[narrator] 160 miles west aboard the Seabrooke.
I'm almost back on the pot right now
and hopefully they'll be ready
by the time I get there because my clock is ticking.
[John speaking]
[laughs]
Yeah, the dogs are working.
Yeah.
Let's go kill some crab.
Whoo!
We are a Kodiak boat.
She's a Kodiak girl. I knew her dad.
I had a lot of respect for Gary, so I know.
I'd like to think that he's happy she's here learning
'cause none of these stuff is in books.
It's all taught generation to generation.
[intense music playing]
[man] Come on!
-[John] Yeah. -[gasps]
Whoo!
[woman] Whoo!
[man] [bleep] yeah!
That was so good.
[Greg] You know, we get a little break
in the weather.
I needed to see some progress
and she did that today.
She didn't crack under pressure
and that's what being a captain is about,
and so onward and upward from here.
[man] Whoo!
[man 2] Now we're back on the [bleep] crab.
Let's go!
That pot looks so good.
Good numbers.
Let's hope that it holds up.
[narrator] As the storm barrels south
of the Aleutian island chain...
[Sig] The good news is the weather
does seem to be coming down.
[man] Yup.
[narrator] Across the grounds?
[Felipe] Oh, yeah, baby!
Oh! [bleep] Holy [bleep].
[Mac] Whoo-hoo!
[bleep] yeah!
Wow. Let's see what the number is.
Forty.
We'll be done.
[Sig] The weather's starting to calm down.
That's nice.
This is exactly what we need to fill up for our offload.
[Clark] Yeah! Whoo!
[man 2] Yeah, baby, 36.
[man speaking]
[laughs]
Let's do it.
Okay.
Hopefully we'll get what we need.
Head to town and offload...
and get out of here.
You did it. You got our quota.
[whistles]
$50,000 with 308, man, we killed it.
[Jake] Thank God, dude.
[bleep] stressed, but I'm so glad that's over.
[metal clangs]
[Jake] Nice job, Marc. Thank you so much.
[Marc] Good job for you, brother.
[Jake] All right, let's throw up and go, dude.
And now the work's gonna start
'cause bairdi is not easy.
Once you're done with one seriously
stressful situation, you're onto the next one
with crab fishing.
[dramatic music playing]
That's the last one.
[Greg] One more?
[Sophia] This is the last one right here, boss.
[man] Whoo!
-[Greg] There you go. -I don't know what to say.
Whoo!
[barks]
[laughs]
[man] All together, we got 50.
You're doing good, Sophia.
I mean, these are the numbers we need
to finish the trip or so we'll take these.
Hopefully come back out
when the red crab fleet gets here.
You trusted yourself, you set that string,
you did fine, you know,
so just do what your gut and your gear tell you.
I did it and I didn't even get yelled at once, yet.
[Greg] Oh, all right.
-Good job. -[Sophia] Thanks, boss.
[Greg] Thank you.
[seagulls squawking]
It's just one lesson after another after another.
I'm still learning a lot about, you know,
the gear and the equipment and the crew management,
things like that.
But I'm up here trying to gain more experience
and become a great captain like my father was.
I'm trying to follow in his footsteps.
[dramatic music playing]