-[man] whoo! -[man] yeah.
Woo-hoo! Hot diddy damn.
-[josh] oh, dude. -[casey] yeah.
We're moving 'em into the forward tank, brother.
[man] moving in.
[casey] yeah.
That is really, really cool.
Yeah. [laughs]
the front tanks pulls about 90,000,
and if we wrap that out,
-you can call this a trip. -Dude.
The first full trip
since josh and I've had this thing.
Wow. My dad would be so happy.
[phone ringing]
cornelia marie, this is casey.
Shutdown?
[bleep] 200,000 lbs.
Where does it have to go?
Okay.
Yeah. Roger, roger.
You, too. Bye.
Wow. A plant down in akutan shutdown.
We might have a problem here.
[woman] in our top story of the week,
a plant in alaska shutdown to a covid-19 outbreak.
About 700 workers are said to be quarantined.
[man] from captain to cannery worker,
a shutdown could mean financial devastation.
[sig] damn it. It's really [bleep] sucks.
For us as crab fishermen, you know, we rely on them
to stay open so we can deliver our product.
But, you have a little outbreak,
it just takes one guy and one gal and,
next thing you know, it's a snowball.
So it's a big problem.
-[man] help! -Oh, is he okay?
-Last one coming up. -[woman] we did it.
-[man] yay! -[woman] whoo!
It's a big long line at the cannery.
We'll see if we can make it or not.
[man] oh, my god.
[keith] I've never seen anything like it.
But, we'll see how much we get on here.
-What is going on now? -[man] no! Oh, god.
The hits just keep on coming.
[birds chirping]
[narrator] 529 mi northwest of dutch harbor...
-[man] whoo! -[man] yeah!
[narrator] ...On the cornelia marie...
[man laughing]
[man] yeah!
They closed the cannery, so...
Hopefully, before anything else shuts down,
we get all of our crab off the boat.
Because if we get a boat with a crab on
but nowhere to deliver it, all the crab die.
We don't know what's gonna happen.
Nobody knows.
-[man] oh, yeah. -[man] yeah!
We have more quota this year, than we've ever had before.
By a longshot, by almost double,
and now we could be told that we can't deliver it.
[man] yeah!
[narrator] 500 mi from the fishing grounds
in akutan, alaska, one of the four major
opilio crab canneries suspends its operations
after a surge in covid-19 cases.
If the bering seas remaining processing plants
follow suit, captains, josh harris
and casey mcmanus, won't be able to offload
their time sensitive cargo,
saddling them with hundreds of thousands of dollars
in losses.
[casey] but we're on good fish and what happens
we come back out and we got nothing all on the pots?
It's a very real possibility.
[josh] we're right on that cusp of being able
to end this.
Just got to keep fishing, man.
[man] yeah, baby.
I just wanna get as much of crab as we can right now
because when we go in and deliver,
it's gonna take a while.
We're kind of at their mercy.
-[man] whoo! -[man] oh, yeah!
Decisions, decisions.
[josh] to stay on fishing like this,
we'll have this done by tomorrow.
Get this puppy offloaded.
Taylor, uh... Can you go ahead
and flood the front tanks?
We're gonna have to...
[casey speaking]
[narrator] the skippers' call, stay on the hunt
to fill their tanks, betting that their numbers
and the remaining canneries stay healthy.
Roger, roger.
Good day for it.
[josh] we'll feed the beast.
The hungry one.
And hopefully the plant stays open to offload the crab.
[narrator] 52 mi southwest,
on the northwestern.
Uh, what I do know is we've seen the crab
on the bite, maybe on this latitude.
Maybe there's something here and even farther out west.
Here, I'm in over 120 fathoms,
but at the same time, things are changing so fast.
If that trident plant closes down,
we're in big trouble,
because they do the majority of the crab.
[narrator] with canneries threatening to close
at the first sign of a covid outbreak.
Captain sig hansen races to catch his final
110,000 lbs. In the western depths.
[man] here we go, the first pot of the day.
[tense music playing]
plus a 122 fathoms...
Fingers crossed.
Show me a sign of life.
Here we go, come on. Come on. Yeah.
Oh!
[man] yeah. Oh, no.
Yeah!
Yeah! Yes.
That's big.
[man] ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.
Money.
[man speaking]
-[laughs] -[mandy laughs]
you see what this one does,
if this one comes up gangbusters, well,
that'll just tell us we could probably just
play 'em where they're at.
[man] let's keep that going.
Come on.
Hmm.
-Oh, no. -[sig] [groans]
-oh. -Back to my seat.
-Nope. -Nope.
-Not a one. -[sig] damn it.
Uh, so I didn't expect that.
This is a 123 fathoms,
that other one was a 122.
Maybe that's just where the pile is, I don't know.
Blank on that one, too.
Wow, wow, wow.
I don't get it.
This is just bizarre,
122, 121.
That's six-feet.
Oh, my heart.
My heart.
Wow.
Well, this is super.
[karl speaking]
you can definitely see that
crab are coming through here.
[sig] maybe karl's right.
Maybe it is a highway.
[narrator] as opilio crab navigate the contours
of the sea floor, they sometimes fall
into a line at a single depth,
forming an opilio highway.
No more than a fathom wide.
[sig] it's like a dream come true for fishermen.
[narrator] if found, it can be a one way street
to filling your tank and heading in for offload.
But I hate to hope for things like that
because I have seen so many letdowns in my career.
But...
We're gonna set it back.
It's a highway, we gotta go.
This is 122,
122 I'm just hitting 121.
Get ready to put this right on the...
You know what? Right here.
Okay.
I was told bedtime stories about opilio highways.
-Shh, go to sleep. -[man] opilio highways.
So hopefully, they all hit, fill the boat,
and then bang we're right to the dock.
[narrator] 289 mi southeast.
Outside of st. Paul harbor.
[man] whoa!
Oh, we're heading down.
Brings my blood pressure up and I'm a healthy person.
And it plans out, good to harbor entrance here.
[narrator] on the southern wind...
[man] yeah. We'll get... Uh, two or three,
uh, whitecap in waves and then it'll lay down
and, uh, two or three more.
Okay. We'll get in there slow, and see how it looks okay.
[man speaking]
[man] whoo!
Think if we go near we go finally is on a rock
where all [bleep].
Think there's six or seven boats anchored up in here
that are scheduled to come in but didn't feel good about it.
A little chance we might be able
to get into the harbor here.
That would save me at least two days.
[narrator] still open for offload,
the cannery at st. Paul island
racks up a line of ships
waiting for calmer seas
before attempting the harbors precarious entrance,
leaving an opening
for captain steve "harley" davidson
to bank his final 170,000 lbs.
It's a little shoal there and you got to...
It's gonna be some whitewater there I'm sure but,
then you got to get in, and take a sharp turn,
that's where you get scared, because that whitewater
is gonna be pushing me.
You don't wanna do that turn right
when those big ones are there.
And you got to get into the rhythm of it here
while you're coming in.
You see, there's a set of big ones there,
and we're gonna set a big ones here,
right after the big set,
then you know you can kinda go.
Freaking hell.
-Are you guys all ready? -[man] yeah. Oh, holy [bleep].
So we're in inbound in st. Paul harbor.
We're straight in the channel here,
and a big one there.
Whoo, yeah.
Hawaii five-0.
Bring me in here, big boy.
Take me into the breakwater.
[mandy] oh, my god.
Yeah.
[alarm beeping]
what's beeping?
Damn thing I need is a [bleep] alarm right now.
[narrator] on the southern wind...
[alarm beeping]
what's beeping?
Damn thing I need is a [bleep] alarm right now
[bleep] oil pressure? Are you [bleep] kidding me?
I got to get this thing in here.
It's a big [bleep] damn it.
[mandy] there it is. Here it comes.
-[man] what's going on? -Push, push, push, push, push.
-[man] push it, push it. -[man] [bleep] whoa!
[metal creaking]
[man] whoo! [laughs]
[man] that's a big wave.
-[alarm beeping] -[man] oh.
Woo.
[man] whoo!
I really wanna get inside that freaking breakwater,
you know what I mean?
Come on, come on. Bring it back.
There you are.
Now, that's gonna push it.
That's gonna push it.
[waves crashing]
[harley] okay, we got this.
Say hallelujah.
[man laughing]
[cheering]
[man] more beautiful windy st. Paul.
We're breaking over the break wall already.
That was not the right time for my oil pressure alarm
to go off.
I think what it was is I jammed back too fast
and if I do that, it will do that.
[man] yeah!
[harley] a little nerve-racking.
We made it into the island a day early
and now look at them, getting to jump ahead of the guy here
to get to the offload.
We won, we won the freaking lotto here.
But only get paid for it if we deliver it alive.
I don't know what to expect.
We'll find out.
[narrator] 286 mi northwest,
on the wizard.
[man] going over.
All right. First one in the water.
Bang. Let's do this.
[man] all right, man, let's go. Let's go!
Because of the process of closures,
we're under the gun to get this boat loaded here.
So we gotta jam this gear in here as quick as possible.
[waves crashing]
[keith] as you can see from the water,
from the 2014 season,
this is a small, small little tiny spot.
Not 8x8-mile area.
[narrator] targeting his final 260,000 lbs of opilio quota,
captain keith colburn taps into his arsenal
of crabbing history and aims his 200-pot load
at what was in past years, a high-value target.
[man] going over.
[keith] hopefully, we're off to the races.
[man] and up!
[man] it's open. It's open.
[gear creaking]
um...
There's something funky going on.
My throttle controls are not responsive
the way they should be.
Normally, it starts at 600 in idle.
And then it slowly goes up as you go through it.
Now, it's not even engaging until I get halfway down.
Or when I'm doing 9 knots right now.
Pretty soon, you don't even have a throttle.
It doesn't get any more dangerous than that.
Oh [bleep].
I don't need to waste any time
doing this [bleep] right now.
Um, more than likely
the problem is these old valves are shot.
[narrator] the wizard's four decade-old throttle system
uses air valves to run the propeller.
[keith speaking]
okay. So we know they're all off.
[narrator] with no control over propulsion,
keith depressurizes the entire system
to attempt to repair.
[birds chirping]
[monte] so you got the air turned off?
-What? -[laughs]
I'm only wearing 'em
so I don't have to listen to you, okay?
Oh, good, good.
Okay you get the washer.
Now, the problem valve should just pop straight up
and out of there,
just drops into that slot.
I turn there, we tighten this up,
and then we tighten the cable up,
and we're fine.
Give that thing a test, would you?
[keith] come on, old gal.
[air hisses]
-[keith] 940, 970, 980. -[monte] nice.
-[keith] 990. -[monte] nice.
[keith] okay, we're back in business.
Right, let's get this boat on course
and get the [bleep] water.
All right. Here it comes.
[horn blares]
[keith] I'm happy when we get this gear in the water,
we go fill this boat as fast as possible.
Clock is definitely ticking.
[woman] a plant in alaska shutdown this week
after a cluster of positive cases,
resulting in the two largest processing plant
shutting down all essential work
after begin massive testing procedure on employees.
[sig] now, there's two of them?
Processing plants that have had, uh,
cases of covid and they've shut them down completely.
And, um, you know, if we don't have a plant to,
uh, deliver to, there's...
Then we're putting crab on and we got no place to go.
[josh] second cannery shutdown.
But, uh, I don't... I don't know. Yeah.
I don't know what's going on.
All I know is that we fill this boat,
it's what I do know.
And we don't know fill this boat,
and we're in a heap of trouble.
[narrator] on the cornelia marie...
[casey] all right, guys. Just get ready to set.
And we're gonna set these off kinda close together.
About 5-8 miles.
You know, our pots in the water
just north of our hotspot here.
The crab are going that way.
It's a race to the docks.
[narrator] with half of the major opilio processing
plants shutdown, captains, josh and casey,
aim to fill their final tanks,
shuffling their gear ahead of the crabs' suspected path.
Hopefully, it'll pay half the dividends.
[horn blows]
-[beeping] -[alarm ringing]
-sounds like a generator. -[man] yeah.
A generator died, it sounds like.
[man speaking]
[casey] this is [bleep] up.
We have no power,
we got pump running, we got no pump running
the crab die.
[casey speaking]
[narrator] on the cornelia marie...
[josh speaking]
[casey] we have no power.
We got no pump running, we got no pump running,
the crab die.
We see no water coming out of the top of the tank.
It's unbelievable.
Really be devastating.
No water on those crab are good for about 10 minutes.
We gotta keep water running through there
and get it through their gills.
You don't have that, they die.
We're in deep trouble.
Happens real fast.
Real fast.
[engine sputtering]
[man speaking]
come on. What the hell's taking so long?
I thought 2021 was supposed to be better?
What's going on?
[taylor speaking]
[casey] it won't fire up at all?
[bleep].
[casey] tay, I think the fuel pump
is the primary problem.
I don't think... We don't have another low-pressure
-fuel pump, do we, tay? -[taylor speaking]
so we don't have a backup fuel pump for it,
which means the biggest of our generators is out of line,
so we're gonna drop down to our second generator,
run the dog piss out of it and finish the [bleep] job.
[taylor] okay.
Man, the hits just keep on coming.
If that one goes out,
spread your legs about shoulder with the part,
bend over and kiss your ass goodbye
because I'm getting fired.
[tense music playing]
[engine sputtering]
[engine starts]
[taylor speaking]
okay, good, thank you. Whew.
It scared the [bleep] out of me.
-Very good. -We got another backup
generator online right now,
so that's fine. We got power right now,
we got water going to the crab,
these are going right here.
I'll tell you that much right now.
It's too risky.
[narrator] down to a single generator
keeping their crab pumps operational.
All right, guys, start setting them over.
[narrator] the skippers sets where they stand,
rather than risk going any farther north
away from the safety of port.
-[water splashes] -[josh] yeah.
It's time to start getting back
into fishing mode, you know?
And get ready to fill this boat.
[narrator] 53 mi southwest...
[sig] all right, mandy.
Let's hope this string is the highway.
[narrator] ...On the northwestern.
Problem with this spot is when you're fishing here,
the strip consist of about
two pot lengths, something like that.
It's not very wide.
Or you can just go like a fathom too deep
and then you're off the crab.
I mean, it'd be right there, spitting distance, nothing.
So is this a possible waste of time?
Oh, heck, yes.
But if we hit the right depths and fathom,
maybe, just maybe, we can do steady
400, 500, 600s.
And then we can button up this trip.
But we got some work ahead of us.
I wanna get the hell outta here.
And hopefully these are just it.
[narrator] with just two of the four major opilio canneries
left standing, captain sig approaches pots
sets on a narrow range of depths
to see if the opie highway is a fast lane to success
or a quick road to nowhere.
[man speaking]
whoa!
[birds chirping]
[waves crashing]
[man speaking]
[waves crashing]
[sig speaking]
first pot.
Come on now.
-That's a good pot. -[man] oh, yeah!
[laughs]
that is up to the halfway point on a 7x8 pot.
That's how we like to start the game.
[mandy] a lot of good crab out of the gate.
[sig] yeah, right out of the gate.
Oh, yeah.
[man] oh, yeah. That goes the highway.
That's a full table.
Whew, all right. Breathe.
Yeah, that's about 500, a lot of crabs.
Maybe a little more.
Opie highway.
[metal clanging]
oh, yeah. That was a good 500 plus in there.
That's pretty doable.
[man speaking]
[sig] that's what we wanted to see.
Got a full table, it's nice big clean crab.
You know, that's a good sign for us to be able to go in
and offload.
If she starting stocking up then uh,
I think we, we're right there.
-[man] yeah! -In this highway,
it's a lot of fun.
[waves crashing]
[sig] oh.
Camera guy just took a blow.
Are you okay?
Is he okay?
[waves crashing]
[narrator] on the northwestern...
[waves crashing]
[sig] oh.
Oh.
Camera guy just took a blow.
Are you okay?
[sig speaking]
-he's getting up. -Oh, man.
Our camera guy, jack,
who's standing right on the starboard side,
camera up,
just got took clean off his feet,
he got blasted.
[sig] he shouldn't have been standing there.
I'm just glad there was no pot behind there
that would've knocked him into in, you know?
You don't wanna be standing there when we're charging up
to the next pot.
Can you go see if he's all right?
Live and learn, I guess.
[narrator] this camera operator, jack runnel,
reels from his run end with a 35-degree bering sea.
[man] oh, my.
[sig] oh, my god.
[narrator] sig merges with the opie highway.
-[man laughing] -that's what makes it fun
-out here. -[man] oh, yeah!
[man speaking]
-[man] open holes. -[sig] fill the tanks
and get what we need before, uh, they shutdown.
[narrator] 52 mi northeast...
I hope there's crab in this one otherwise
we move that other string in the wrong direction.
[narrator] ...On the cornelia marie.
[casey] in case they have an outbreak,
we wanna get as much delivered to st. Paul's
as we possibly can for this season.
Keep us afloat to fish another year.
-[man] whoa! -[man] come on.
I pray, okay,
that we see a 400 or better.
We'll see.
-[man] here we go. -[man] up!
[man] woo-hoo!
[man] okay, okay. Nice, nice.
That's something.
[upbeat music playing]
-[sig] we get the number? -190.
[sig] it's an in pot.
It's only gonna get better from here.
-[man] oh, here we go. -[man] oh, yeah.
-[cheering] -[man] yeah.
[sig] oh, yeah.
-Keep this train rolling. -Stellar.
-[casey] look at that. -[man] yeah.
-[man] allright cowboy. -[man] yeah.
[man] whoo! Let's go.
[man] get a line.
[man] yeah. I'm ready.
[man] yeah.
[casey] bring on the crabbies.
[josh] that was dandy.
[cheering]
[josh] 590 smoking it.
This should pop off the thing.
Get ready for the finish line.
It does not get any better than this.
[man] hey, pot, pot, pot.
[man] oh, crab. Come on back.
[man] oh.
[man] ouch.
[josh] maybe not. That is a terrible pot.
[man speaking]
yeah.
[metal clanging]
[man] oh. Oh, no.
Zero.
[man speaking]
[man] yeah.
One.
Yeah, not looking good.
These are our last few strings, right here,
and we are so close to our number.
[man speaking]
[man] yeah.
[metal clanging]
[man] man, where's our crab at?
[metal clanging]
[man] oh, no.
Ugh.
[casey] we're gonna be so close on this.
It's not even funny.
Yeah.
I definitely think we have enough but, um,
if we see dead loss it's not good,
well, I'd pay for it.
It cuts into our profit.
Well, I think it's 50/50 but if you got confidence,
screw it, let's go in.
[narrator] rather than go back on the hunt
risking dead loss in the tank...
[josh] nice job way to bust your asses today guys.
[narrator] the skippers hightail it
to the still open processor at st. Paul.
[josh] last pot coming up.
[man] yeah.
I think we're gonna be okay.
[casey] pray that we got enough.
[narrator] 97 mi southwest,
on the wizard.
[man speaking]
let's get this show on the road, right now.
I'm ready to haul.
Coming up.
I've got every part I've got in the smallest
area I've ever fished.
[man] I don't care for all or nothing sets,
but right now another set wrong is all or nothing.
[narrator] after moving his entire 200 pot load
to a hotspot from years past,
captain keith colburn looks to this northern terrain
to fill his tanks before more canneries shutdown.
Here it is.
[suspenseful music playing]
[keith] come on crabbies.
Come on crabbies, crabbies.
[cheering]
[keith laughing]
[makes sound]
[man] crabbies, crabbies, crabbies. You got this.
[cheering]
the sound that we look forward to
every trip right here.
Well, that is a 600 if I ever saw one.
[man speaking]
-pow, pow pow. -[keith] I know.
[man] let's go, let's go, let's go.
[cheering]
-bang. -[cheering]
[keith] and now, we start having bigger dreams.
Come on. Give it to me.
-Give it to me. -[man speaking]
yes. [laughing]
oh, what? 730?
[bleep] right on, man.
[cheering]
730 crab,
that's amazing.
Huge, isn't it?
[suspenseful music playing]
oh, man, what is going on now?
[alarm beeping]
I think [bleep] I've been thinking.
[alarm beeping]
all right. Dead ship.
Dead ship.
[siren wailing]
[narrator] on the northwestern...
[man] jack, this season is of you.
This is season one.
My second camera down.
The second lens flooded.
Three monitors, two receivers,
and, a partridge in a pear tree
but anything for the shot, right?
[laughs] you still have them?
[laughing]
are you gonna rewind it for me?
Oh.
Oh, my god. [laughs]
it slipped them like a little feather.
[narrator] on sig's opilio highway,
opies in mirror are larger than they appear.
On the wizard.
[bleep] everything's here,
what the hell is going on?
Warning. Dead ship, dead ship.
[siren wailing]
[man speaking]
let me tell you it is dark out here
with no lights on.
All right. We need to start shutting
these alarms off, what the hell have we got here?
Gyro, radars, plotter,
everything went down.
So I have... I have no idea what the problem is.
Well, we'll find out here shortly.
[keith speaking]
I just looked through my manual here.
And the first sentence
in the troubleshooting section
reads, "troubleshooting engine problems
can be difficult."
[laughs]
[laughing]
well, thanks for the disclaimer
right out of the gate.
[roger] previous times when I've seen a code,
it's been on the screen displayed as soon as I go up
-to the engine. -No code came up?
No codes.
-I just let it be for now. -Okay.
We'll do... We'll do it while we go to town.
Got to get this trip wrapped up.
Get the hell out of here.
We're out of time.
[narrator] at the still open processor in st. Paul...
[casey] look at these guys, it's coming up,
look how full this tank is, beautiful.
Six full tanks offload today.
Look at the size of this guy.
I hope the size of my head damn near.
[narrator] aboard the cornelia marie...
[josh] this is our biggest offload we've ever had
as being owners in this boat together.
And, uh, right now we really need this.
The old man would be proud.
These crab have been banging around,
yeah, we had a little bit of dark on here.
Only time would tell till we hit the bottom.
[tense music playing]
[man] casey, josh, we got the total,
3,871.
Oh, man that's a lot of death loss.
That's a lot of money.
We're quite a bit under.
[narrator] due to violent weather,
josh and casey suffered thousands of dollars
of unexpected death loss.
I'm [bleep] pissed.
We got to head back up north.
No breaks.
Okay, boys, let's throw the lines.
Roger, roger.
[sig] gonna go in and offload here.
We still got a trip to go.
That's the last one here.
[man] oh!
-[cheering] -[man] [bleep].
Oh, my god. Oh, my goodness.
[cheering]
oh, my.
-Oh, my god. -[man] that's [bleep]
-right there. -Oh, my god.
[laughs]
that's so [bleep].
[shouts]
-oh. -Shall we dance.
Oh, wow.
[man speaking]
940 crab. [laughing]
[woman speaking]
[sig] we lose another processing plant,
that's a problem. But, uh,
I'm not so worried about that as much as I am
that ice that's up ahead.
Dad, are you not seeing this?
[man] hey, we got this long way...
How am I supposed to get a read on my pot now?
[woman speaking]
once the ice comes down,
water temperature starts to drop
and then you can now add excitement
to the bering sea just freeze over.
Now, that's no ice mirage, that's ice.
Yes.
[keith] we're in deep, deep trouble.
[woman speaking]
back in the surge mode once again
but the ice is gonna be coming down
at a massively fast rate.
We're living to fight another day this season.
[narrator] coming up on the season finale,
-deadliest catch. -[men shouting]
-[man] look out. -Look out.
Out of the block, out of the block.
Take three [bleep] this fine.
[man] uh, no.
-[man laughing] -[man] holy [bleep].
-[man] let it go. -[man] let it drop.
-[man] let it go. -Cut the line.
It's pretty gnarly, that's like eight-inch thick
ice right there.
No pots left behind.
-[man] yeah, baby! -[cheering]
[singer] ♪ on the second time... ♪
we got pots.
[man] yeah.
[man] break will be traffic coast driver, 6041 intact,
on our way 338
charlie for departure, heading north.
What do we, uh, hear about the patient?
[man] uh, still a lot of pain like that?
[man] oh, my god, man.