[suspenseful music playing]
[sig] I'm scared and I can't help it.
It's a lot of risk playing close to the ice.
[clark] let's go!
[man] woo!
[sig] we're on our furthest northern string,
the ice cap is already moving down
because of that polar vortex.
The ice comes down and hits you,
you know, you're out.
They might wipe out a hundred pots right there.
[clark] here we go.
[sig] with that being said, I wanna see what's going on.
Oh, yeah!
[clark] woo!
[sig] that looks amazing.
We made the right move for sure.
Let's see if we can't make this pay off.
-[man] stop! Stop! -What is it?
[clark] turn it off, turn it off.
-Turn it off. -[sig] what is it?
[man speaking]
no!
Are you serious?
Are you [bleep] serious?
[birds cawing]
[narrator] five hundred fifteen miles northwest
of dutch harbor,
on the northwestern.
[sig] well, we're out of business.
The crane is absolutely destroyed!
[clark speaking]
looks like right at the bottom of the boom that pin
that holds the boom on just snapped.
I've never seen that, it was scary.
Swung it all over the rail, it took it right off the pins.
[bleep]
[narrator] a crucial pin in the crane's main joint fails,
grinding captain sig hansen's good haul in the far north
to a screeching halt.
Why the hell did they have my brother on there?
[screams]
why wasn't the best guy on the crane?
[bleep] roaming around.
You put the best guy on the crane, not the worst.
[sig speaking]
I wanna talk to you right away.
Don't touch anything, nobody [bleep] move.
[screams]
I thought... I thought it was carl.
No.
I'm... God, I'm so sorry norman,
I'm so sorry. I...
I'm sorry I get so excited like that, I... I'm...
I apologize, I'm so sorry.
[norman talks]
[narrator] on the controls, sig's brother
and northwestern co-owner, norman hansen.
I know you know what you're doing.
I thought it was like the new guy.
I'm sorry.
Dammit.
All right, tell you what,
that crane right now wants to fall.
-You got the pot back there right? -[norman] right.
[sig] we'll jam it underneath, prop it up, tie it up.
Okay?
[narrator] the skipper's plan lash the $100,000 crane
to the boat before the building seas
send it overboard.
[mandy speaking]
[sig] yes. Yes.
That's not a dumb question. Actually, that's brilliant.
If you just throw a picking hook over the top,
put that in the picking boom, then you wedge the pots.
[norman] we need the picking hook
and pull the pot for it.
[carl] just swing it?
[sig] get some pot ties on it.
And then you put the chain on.
[carl] roger.
[sig] you'll get a chain on the top,
pull it forward, and work back...
[carl] it'll just lock the clamps [bleep].
[sig] it's pretty secure.
It just doesn't end.
[norman] you work for my girl.
[sig] hey, norman, paul, come up here.
All right. We got to go town, right?
Yeah.
This is not how you start a morning.
We've had good fishing,
bang...
Right in your face.
I know I've got a $300,000, $400,000 average
sitting in that gear.
This is gonna take forever to fix that crane
and then you got to get back out here.
Plus you got the ice that's right there.
[narrator] threatening sig's $200,000 of pots,
the polar vortex, a frigid arctic air mass
now fueling a 200,000 square mile
southbound ice pack.
[sig] if that ice hits those pots
and all of my gear, number one,
we'll probably lose 'em
or we're gonna be running around
for a couple of weeks looking for 'em.
Number two, anything that's in those pots
will be dead.
Once the pots start getting drug,
game over.
So we got to figure this out.
[narrator] thirty-nine miles northwest,
on the summer bay.
[wild bill] further north than I've ever fished out to
in my life trying to get this gear in the water
and we're all iced up and the pots are all iced up.
Lower!
[wild bill] this brown line right here,
it's the ice that's currently,
essentially 50 miles away right now.
[narrator] joining the far north fleet,
captain wild bill wichrowski plays a game of chicken
with the ice, betting he can get in and get out
before the hulking frozen mass
overruns his gear.
Our gear is somewhat in harm's way.
But might come on to a big pick.
Going over.
[beeping]
[bleep]
[man] no, no.
-[man] hooked up? -[man2] yeah.
Oh, hey, hold on.
[beeping]
[bleep] coming out.
[narrator] running over a buoy 500 miles from town,
the summer bay snares a line in the starboard propeller.
[wild bill] put a shackle maybe 10 pounds of that,
once you get enough slack, you put it back in the block
-and retrieve the pot. -Roger.
[narrator] now with one of his two main engines seized,
bill orders the crew to hoist the pot,
pulling the attached line out of the prop.
We're gonna need somebody on deck to pass 'em down to.
[man speaking]
get the chain rope through the bottom.
All right. Hey, somebody coil this, right here.
-[man] yeah. -[man2] we got it.
Woo!
[beeping]
[bleep] me.
[narrator] the pot's free, but the line isn't,
leaving bill one engine away
from being stranded at sea.
[david] if we don't get the line out of the prop,
we'll be dead in the water.
You don't wanna be dead in the water
especially with all this ice and cold rough seas.
We got to get the line out of the prop.
-[wild bill speaking] -[david] okay.
Let's try to get the shaft to move, maybe that...
That might be the key.
[david speaking]
[wild bill] we have precautions
when you get a line in the welders,
called line cutters.
Take it out. But this time it doesn't wanna come out.
So landon's down there with a gigantic pipe wrench,
trying to get the shaft to move.
And if we can get it to move then those line cutters
will do their job.
[landon speaking]
[wild bill speaking]
we can't seem to get it cleared with normal methods,
we've tried everything. So we're gonna have to just
try to stick it to town,
get a diver to clear this thing up.
And in the meantime, the ice is coming down
the hill as we speak towards the gear
that's all in the water.
Those pots will be underneath the ice flow
and we wouldn't be able to get to 'em and we lose 'em,
I can't see going to [bleep] dutch harbor,
it would take us seven days driving at this speed.
I gotta be smarter than this.
I gotta come up with a plan better than this one.
[narrator] four hundred fifty-five miles northwest
of dutch harbor.
[jake] I'm getting the crab knocked out of me.
[narrator] on the saga.
[jake] I wanna be south a little bit,
68 to 72 fathoms,
is where all the crab have been.
[narrator] armed with over 50,000 pounds of pots,
captain jake anderson tracks a herd
in the depths of the lower latitudes.
Look at this wave right here,
20-some odd feet.
[narrator] but just because he's clear of the ice flows,
doesn't mean the skipper is clear of the storm.
[jake] I don't like the way she's rolling around.
The more weight you have
on the top of the boat like ice,
the slower your roll is gonna be
which is dangerous.
I mean, like that, boom, boom, boom, big wave, done.
Game over.
[dramatic music playing]
[jake] oh, yeah, she is not nice tonight.
[bleep]
half full in the tank,
a slack tank and...
I have to set.
[narrator] still 80 miles shy
of his chosen fishing grounds.
[jake] we're gonna start setting here pretty quick,
I've collected too much ice.
[narrator] captain jake sheds his pots
in a desperate bid to reduce weight
above the waterline.
[jake] this top layer is making me highly unstable.
Let me know when you guys are ready.
Once I can get this top layer off,
the second layer off, and the third layer off,
I'll be a lot less stressed out.
[man] that's a solid brick right there bro.
Look at that pot that's getting put into the rack,
that pot weighs about 1,500 pounds.
I can't see but just...
[man] shake the rack.
Moving in.
Going over!
Come on.
[matt] okay, clear.
I mean it takes ten minutes to get the pot ready,
it's crazy.
Usually we're setting a pot every two minutes.
[jake] I have about two to four inches now
and it's just gathering quickly.
-[man] there we go. -[man2 speaking]
[man speaking]
[matt] watch the boom.
[jake] it feels better now that my pots
are getting taken off.
You can feel the vessel that she's stabilized now.
But I'm setting in an area I don't want to,
so I'm setting for survival, not setting to fish.
I'm gonna head to st. Paul if I can.
I can weather for a few days.
Not a good day for the saga.
[narrator] one hundred ninety-two miles southeast,
and two hundred fifty-four miles southwest
of the descending ice pack...
On the northwestern.
Right there, it moves a little.
[sig] everything is going backwards right now,
that's for damn sure.
If that ice is coming down the way they're predicted,
I know we're in harm's way and I don't wanna leave
a couple hundred thousand dollars of pots right there either.
[sig] the problem is everybody's got their own pots
to babysit, by the time they move their gear,
I don't even know if they'll have time to move ours.
[mandy] well, it's just a simple question,
to call and ask them.
-[man] oh! -[man2] woo!
Oh, wow!
Wow, wow, wow, huh?
[indistinct chatter]
[narrator] on the southern wind.
[harley] two-fifty,
two-fifty is what they got that last one?
Okay, that's not bad.
We got some meat.
[sig speaking]
[harley] yo, yo, how about it?
How are things going?
[sig] I can't believe it man, the crane, it was almost...
We almost lost the damn thing over the side.
That's how bad it is.
It looks like the pin gave way,
that's what we could tell.
No kidding.
[sig] I don't know when we'll be back
so I don't know if the gear is gonna be safe.
You follow me?
Okay, I got you.
We moved up. We found really good fishing up above,
but if that ice does come down like they're predicting,
I know you got to take care of your guys first
and your gear but maybe you could take a whack at 'em
and move what you can, uh, is that possible?
[men cheering]
oh, I'd be happy to help you, pal.
You got all the coordinates?
[sig] I'll get you that stuff as soon as I can.
Sounds good. Good luck to your deck.
Appreciate it. I'm out.
[harley] he had to run to dutch
and I don't know what to expect here.
It could be doing a chore,
or it could be hitting home run.
I have no idea.
[narrator] responsible for twice the gear,
captain steve harley davidson stands to double his crab
if he can keep the combined 300 pots safe
from the advancing ice pack.
[harley] this kind of storm is gonna be crazy.
The wind's blowing 40 or 50.
It's gonna keep building throughout the night.
We don't know what to expect,
I'm just curious as hell, huh, try one out and see.
[narrator] on the summer bay.
[wild bill] we got a lot riding on getting this line out of the wheel.
Like all of our gear.
[narrator] with his starboard engine seized up
thanks to the line and his propeller,
captain wild bill abandons his 110 pots
in the path of the incoming ice pack.
Now just three days away.
[wild bill] we got to limp into st. Paul,
hopefully there's a diver
or we got a long-ass limp to dutch harbor.
[narrator] but before committing
to the four day journey south...
[wild bill] hey, I'm kind of in a tough way here,
we ended up wrapping one up pretty good
in our starboard wheel and the line cutters won't take it.
[narrator] the skipper tries to find a diver
who will meet him in the closer,
more spartan port of st. Paul.
[wild bill] all right. Really good news, man.
Appreciate you. Thanks.
I think I'm gonna give jake a call here.
Rumor has it he's got a diver on board.
[phone ringing]
[jake] hey, bill, you got me?
[wild bill] hey, we're trying to get this gear
in the water, and one of them got in the wheel
and I hear you might have a diver onboard?
I actually have two.
I got matt, matt's a diver
and then I have another guy winston.
We just don't... We don't have any scuba gear.
[wild bill] so if I can scrounge up some gear,
your guy... One of your guys will dive for me?
Oh yeah, for sure.
That's no problem.
We're just pulling up to st. Paul now.
[wild bill] all right, we'll give you a call when we get in
and hopefully this will all work out.
[jake speaking]
all right, brother. Thank you.
That's pretty cool.
Now we have to see if we can round up enough equipment,
the proper equipment that a guy is willing
to go over the side and cut this line up. So...
I guess we'll see what we get when we get in there.
[narrator] in dutch harbor...
On the northwestern.
[sig] are we on this end or that end?
Here?
They're gonna take the crane off here
and then drive it away, the way it looks.
They can dismantle and start to work on this thing.
So for now, we're trying to see what caused all that.
[carl] I got that bolt here sig,
that was hanging off the side.
That's the only thing that was holding that pin in.
-[sig] that's it? -[carl] that's it.
-A $10 bolt. -That's it?
Yeah.
It was hanging out of the side
of the top of the pedestal.
[sig] there... There's not even a lock washer on this.
No.
[narrator] the root cause of captain sig's
crane collapse,
a missing $2 washer
that let the arm bolt wiggle loose.
Now saddling him with $50,000
of season-halting repairs.
We gotta get this fixed, I mean, period.
It's... The... I don't know how long
that's gonna take.
I just know we don't have time for this right now.
We don't know if they have to buy parts
and ship 'em up.
We don't know whatever they have to fabricate,
how long that's gonna take.
I know that the ice is around my gear.
If I lose my pots, it's too late to order
a new batch to have them sent up.
It's like a no-win situation right now.
Hopefully we can get out of here.
[waves crashing]
[narrator] 511 miles northwest,
in the clutches of the polar vortex.
[metal rumbles]
[man] woo!
[harley] I'm going right into this [bleep]
but we got hungry tanks.
We're gonna haul some gear here.
I'm just at the top end of the string.
He's got some stuff he's dealing with.
Told him I'd help him out.
[narrator] charged with rescuing six pots,
captain harley raises the advancing ice pack,
to help a friend and feed his tank.
[harley] no idea if this is a good thing
or a bad thing.
[narrator] but to succeed the crew must outmaneuver
the teeth of the storm.
[harley] nice to be in a big boat
when people are in crisis
and know you can help.
Hopefully start putting some crab in the tank.
[munsey speaking]
I know it sucks, and the weather sucks
but we'll get it done.
That ice is working its way down,
it's blowing real strong today.
[munsey speaking]
[suspenseful music playing]
okay. It's on the bow here.
Pot number one, huh.
Come on, give me some love here.
-[suspenseful music playing] -[waves crashing]
[machine whirring]
[munsey] all right. What?
Yeah! Woo!
Bingo.
Hallelujah.
[munsey speaking]
what do you got for crab?
[munsey] two hundred.
Oh.
[harley speaking]
[munsey] whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa,
put that thing in that thing, I got this thing right here.
[machine whirring]
[harley] okay.
Heavy with crab, too.
[munsey speaking]
[marco speaking]
-[munsey speaking] -[harley] keep tracking
that sig I'm gonna have to maybe go buy you
a bottle of vodka.
[munsey] coming over.
[harley speaking]
come on, you guys. Do not fiddle around here
-with the rail. -[munsey] all right.
[harley speaking]
[marco speaking]
[machine whirs]
[harley speaking]
[marco] watch out!
[munsey] holy [bleep].
Hey there!
[narrator] on the southern wind.
[harley speaking]
[marco speaking]
[harley speaking]
[marco] watch out!
[munsey] holy [bleep].
Hey there!
[machine whirs]
[man speaking]
[harley speaking]
[harley] are you [bleep] with me?
We're gonna have to do a little better
on hooking up the pot.
Maybe put the launcher down
and then hook up the pot.
I don't want him tilting over like that.
That scared the [bleep] out of me.
[munsey speaking]
the pot came like that it's, uh, it's easy for
that big guy leaning way out there like that.
[narrator] while hooking the crane lines to the pot,
hydro operator steven laguino
fails to lower the launcher
leaving deckhand nick torry teetering.
Nearly sending him into the 33 degree bering sea.
[suspenseful music playing]
[harley] hey, keep watching, whoever is the hook guy
pay attention please.
One of those things where you tell your buddy
you're gonna take care of his gear,
that's what you do.
That ice is gonna get moving fast.
We better get this [bleep] done man.
[narrator] 241 miles southeast.
[wild bill speaking]
summer bay.
[harbor master] summer bay.
[harbor master speaking]
[narrator] just outside st. Paul.
[wild bill] we're wrapped on the starboard wheel,
is there a place for us to come in and try to tie up?
[harbor master speaking]
thank you much.
We got all our gear in harm's way
and every day that ice advances
more and more and so
we got a lot riding on getting this line
out of the wheel.
Like, all of our gear.
[jake] there she is.
We're gonna tie it next to wild bill here.
Get some dive gear in the water.
Do you think it's all in there?
[man speaking]
[narrator] captain wild bill calls in a favor,
scrambling a secondhand wet suit
on the remote island of st. Paul,
hoping for a quick fix
and a quicker trip back to his pots.
[man speaking]
any weight belt?
[man speaking]
all right. Hopefully this guy's adventurous.
[horn blaring]
[man speaking]
I'm so sorry.
I don't know, if we got hung up or got...
Or it got set on top of it,
but that's the hardest
I've ever tried to get line out.
We'll see what we can do.
[narrator] the diver for the job.
Oh, my god.
[narrator] eleven-year bering sea veteran
winston crowes.
Looks like this guy is getting suited up.
[jake speaking]
-[winston] yeah. -[jake] winston.
Pretty much he'll get down there with a knife
and just start whacking on it,
cut out what's not supposed to be there.
[jake] you guys ready?
Security, security, this is fishing vessel saga,
I've got a diver going in the water right now.
[jake speaking]
[narrator] to keep the boat weight
from sending the summer bay's haul
into winston's skull,
all harbor traffic must cease
for the duration of the dive.
Just because we're at the dock right now
does not mean that this is safe.
Even on the flattest day,
we're still bound to drown.
Imagine what a 500,000-pound
piece of steel does to your head
if it hits it.
[harbor master] attention all vessels,
st. Paul harbor master, st. Paul harbor
will be temporarily closed for the diver,
reopen after diver's out of the water.
Thank you.
[man] okay. Remember, when we hammer,
one minute, one hammer,
two minutes, two hammers,
we'll go from five, to three, to one.
-Okay. -Hang on, here we go.
[narrator] with a limited oxygen supply,
the crew uses auditory cues
to signal the diver
when his air is reaching dangerously low levels.
It's nerve racking because I have
no communication with them,
I have nothing.
[man] he has, uh, 30 minutes of air.
It was bad. That [bleep] hard.
[wild bill] kind of get the feeling
it's a one-shot deal.
So in the next half hour we're gonna find out
if we are mobile or immobile.
[suspenseful music playing]
[wild bill] I got a sinking feeling on this one
to be honest.
[suspenseful music playing]
[man] I see a lot of air bubbles right now.
He's been down there 15 minutes.
[dj] if he doesn't get it done,
it's gonna be a slow, long trip back to dutch.
Our whole season is at risk.
-So, the... -[man speaking]
[harbor master speaking]
[man speaking]
[harbor master] roger, sorry about the delay.
-[harbor master speaking] -yeah, roger.
[harbor master speaking]
yeah, you got it. I'll be shouting out to you
as soon as he gets pulled out.
[harbor master] okay, roger that.
The last thing bill or I wanna hear
is somebody trying to get into the harbor right now.
[wild bill] I don't need this right now.
[jake] these other boats, they wanna offload,
we get it.
It's really dangerous.
One of these boats bonks him in the head,
knock him out, I got no communication with him.
So give us a break.
[bleep] four minutes, thirty seconds.
[man] I'll just bang it with the tap.
[man] yeah.
[tapping]
[dj] he's tapping the boat to let him know down there
that he's got four minutes left.
Uh, he can get caught up in his work down there
and forget how much time, so we don't want him drowning.
[wild bill] pretty stressful.
I think he's got like three minutes
left in the water.
[man] give him like...
Give him like three swift taps.
[tapping]
[wild bill] I'm kind of anxious.
[man speaking]
[tapping]
[suspenseful music playing]
for all we know he could be unconscious right now,
I don't see a whole lot of bubbles coming up so...
[suspenseful music playing]
this is serious.
[hammer taps]
[man speaking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] this week on salty takes.
[harley] one of my first jobs, I was a chicken picker.
I could go out in the middle of the night
and pick the chickens out of these big barns.
And that's where... [makes chirping sound]
my chirp helped a lot because I can kind of move
the chickens around. When I had one guy,
henry, just reminded me of.
It turns out he ate acid,
he ate acid and he's over there
and he's hallucinating with these chicken
and I go, "oh, man, this ain't good."
the reason henry reminded me because he's sitting there
looking at that crab like that guy was looking
at that chicken.
[narrator] harley's good deed goes rewarded,
while jake's helping hand,
well, the verdict's still out.
[narrator] in st. Paul harbor.
I'm kind of anxious.
For all we know he could be unconscious right now,
I don't see a whole lot of bubbles coming up, so...
[suspenseful music playing]
-[man] there he is. -[man] there he is,
there he is.
-[man] yeah. -You good?
-You got it out? -[winston] got it out.
I got the both sides out. Both sides are clear.
-[man] yeah. -[man] okay.
[man] woo!
[man] yay!
[cheers and applause]
[jake] winston!
Yeah!
[man speaking]
-[wild bill] nice work, buddy. -Thank you.
[jake] harbor master, saga.
[harbor master speaking]
we just, uh, pulled the diver
out of the water.
We're all clear, no more diving.
[harbor master speaking]
[man speaking]
I'm gonna bump to see if we get oil pressure.
There it goes.
Seems like she's working.
We're back in business.
[bleep] [laughing]
[man] oh, my god.
Never a boring moment out here.
Wild bill thank you.
Where is the, where...
He's taking it. He'll take... You guys all helped,
he can take all you guys out to dinner in town or whatever.
Now you guys saved us so big,
it was huge.
And tell him that hat's for next time he dives,
I supposed he wants to keep his head warm.
Yeah, thanks bill.
[wild bill] hey, buddy.
I'm telling you, if we had to go all the way to dutch like this,
I would've lost my mind.
You saved my ass.
I'll never forget this one. Thanks so much, man.
Yeah, anytime.
[narrator] with the summer bay's prop cleared.
[jake] roger, hey, I just wonder if I could, uh,
leave the harbor.
[harbor master] absolutely.
[narrator] captain jake heads back out
to the grounds to see if his blind emergency set
is as lucky as his diver.
Not only did I get to help bill,
but it also helps the business.
There's still hundreds of millions of dollars
sitting in the water outside of us right now.
And now the both of us can go get it.
-It's good for the fleet. -Woo!
Harbor, summer bay,
we'll depart after the saga's clear.
[harbor master speaking]
[wild bill] that's what it's about,
helping guys out.
Hopefully it's not a mad dash
to save it from going under the ice.
On to the next dilemma.
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] two hundred six miles northwest,
on the southern wind.
Keep them close together.
[munsey speaking]
[munsey] got it all four of 'em far away from the ice.
We're here to bring this stuff down.
Last seen was the ice is at star,
this where I took sig's way down here.
So I know it's a long ways away from the ice,
it's a little safe haven.
Ah wee!
[laughs]
there we are, sig,
here you are sig rooney.
[man] the last one, yay!
[harley] secure the deck, good job.
-How we doing, sig? -[sig speaking]
um, we got all your stuff accounted for.
There won't be any chance that that ice pack
is getting it. Uh, I feel good about it.
[sig speaking]
-yeah. -[sig speaking]
[harley speaking]
[sig speaking]
we'll see you.
So that was a nice pay day.
That gives me 20,000 pounds out of sig's pots.
That was a dandy.
[narrator] harley's successfully relocates
sig's pots away from the ice
and in return reaps $63,000
of opilio gold.
[man] nothing!
[man] roger.
I'm just glad we're out here,
with another shot at it.
[wild bill speaking]
[narrator] and while bill speeds back on both engines,
in time to rescue his own gear.
[man] looking good.
Better get clean, man!
[narrator] jake's good deed
brings good luck to his blind set.
[man] really nice clean crab.
[jake] this is our emergency set.
They're big. There's not many of 'em
but it is getting better.
[man] one-two-five.
[jake] I'm pretty lucky.
[machine whirring]
being here right now is not part of the plan.
Trying to keep it positive,
but it's hard to when [bleep] like this happens.
[sig] I'm really grateful that harley managed
to find the time to move our pots,
but this is really, really a touchy time for us,
the reality is we haven't had a lot of luck this season,
you know, and this is fishing.
[man] oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho.
[man] [bleep]
[man] yes, yes, yes.
[dramatic music playing]
[sig] you gotta take the good with the bad.
Bottom line is we gotta work together.
If we fail, the fishery fails
and we could lose everything.
[birds squawking]