20 years ago, my dad was out here. He was the engineer on this boat, actually.
I'm just still wrapping my mind around the fact that he's gone.
It's a little strange to me.
Just 'cause, you know, I just spoke with him not even a few weeks ago.
You gotta be really careful when you're grieving on a crab boat.
[crying] Are you serious?
'Cause it's very dangerous out here and you could end up getting killed.
All right, bering sea.
Hey! Hey!
No! No!
Oops.
Oh, my God!
You look like you're in pan.
What is it?
Come on, baby.
Come on, baby. Get back over. Get back over. Frickin' turn!
This is a cold, hard world
because the ocean don't give a [bleep].
That's the ultimate test.
[narrator] 230 miles Northeast of Dutch harbor.
[Sig] You know what,
we didn't bite a head off of a herring, did we?
- Yeah! - [narrator] On the Northwestern.
[crew cheering]
Thank you!
- Lauritz! - [Lauritz retching]
That's when you know you gotta get deep. Thank you.
- [all cheering] Yeah, lord. - [man] Yeah, man!
- Cold, hard floor. - [men laughing]
We're in about 64 fathoms.
I found a spot to work on here.
Way to go, Mandy!
If we got a little pilot crab, you know you gotta attack it.
[narrator] Gunning for an offload in 72 hours.
- Set 'em when you're ready. - Roger.
[narrator] Captain Sig Hansen sets all 120 pots
on a strong sign of life.
Sleuthed out by his daughter, Mandy.
This for Merida right-
We're getting ready to see what's out there.
Good job, Lauritz.
There is a storm coming.
It's less than 48 hours away.
And I'm hoping we have enough time to get through these
pots, find some crab and get this gear moving.
[man] Not all sides need to be tied.
[crashes]
All right?
You all right?
[Sig] Who was that? Who wiped out?
Y'know, you should be careful.
- [Sig] Lauritz went in? - Yeah.
Lauritz has got some pre-existing back problems and
that's starting to rear its ugly head.
Just laying down. Take it easy
for a little bit and then try again.
[Sig] We'll give him a day, see how he does.
But, we'll just have to go find some crab
and make it happen.
See if we can't keep those numbers coming.
[narrator] In Dutch harbor,
But we gotta offload our own crab this time.
[narrator] On the Aleutian Lady.
[Rick] It's a bit of a bummer.
We found crab, but the rest of our gear had nothing in it.
So we gotta move all that gear on where the crab is.
[narrator] With cannery slots booked weeks in advance,
captain Rick Shelford honors his delivery date.
Little embarrassing. We only came in with 11 lbs.
Just a disaster.
[narrator] But saves on costs by offloading in the self checkout line.
All right. Is that all of it?
If there's a will, there's a way.
Trying to get this all fully done in a quick manner.
There's a storm coming in.
Oh, there we go. Time's ticking.
We just gotta get off this dock.
So if you two could get all up in there, I gotta grab my paperwork.
I'm not down.
It's time to turn this around.
[cell phone ringing]
Hey, pops. How you doing?
What the ...
Are you serious?
No...
[sniffles]
Well, at least he's with grandma now.
All right, pops. Keep me posted on it. Let me know what's going on.
My heart is with mom and everybody there.
[sniffles]
[weakly] Bye.
[sobbing]
My grandpa passed.
The hardest part about
being a fisherman,
being a captain,
is being away from loved ones.
Not being there when
stuff happens.
You know all you wanna do is be there for your family, your mom.
Your siblings, your loved ones and...
it's the worst part about this job.
[narrator] 180 miles northwest.
We got about ten minutes or so.
Roger.
[narrator] On the Time Bandit.
You know, Jesse, haven't seen him-- I mean, I don't know if he's been seasick or not.
I think he's going down inter room talking to his dad.
His old man was an engineer.
Probably where he feels closest to him.
His dad used to work on the Time Bandit.
My friend Mike,
he would do anything for me. He was my best friend in high school.
And then he died in his sleep.
Jesse. Good-looking dude. Strong dude, just like his dad.
They happened to have an in-town funeral for him
Yeah.
He brought some of his dad's ashes out with him so we could
give him a proper burial at sea.
And hopefully, his dad's soul can rest.
[narrator] Filling out captains Jonathan and Andy Hillstrand's operation on deck
are crewmen Jesse McCullen,
son of recently deceased, former Time Bandit engineer,
Mike McCullen.
Trying to keep the legs in the life force.
As excited as I was 20 years ago, I still can't believe I'm
out here doing the same thing he did.
And yeah, this is a remarkable feeling. It really is.
All right, brother.
We can't miss our delivery date
or we're really screwed.
I hope I don't F it up.
[laughs]
[narrator] With just over half of their 50,000 lbs goals still evading them,
and an offload approaching in four days' time.
Right now we're pulling the very first pot of string that I set on that edge.
This is my string.
[narrator] The brothers Hillstrand have no choice but to haul their 20 pots
set on a 130 fathom ridgeline.
[man screaming]
Okay, here we go.
Let's see what the first one has.
Jackpot!
Oh, we got colors.
- Holy [bleep]. - Yeah, no way.
[all cheering]
That's a good table. Look at that table.
[all laughing]
What'd you get in that one?
Oh, yeah!
Got some good crab on board, dude.
Come on, baby. Come on.
Yeah!
Oh, this is awesome.
- Wanna take a little break? - Yep.
Well, I know not what I do.
I know what to do, to do.
Don't put this by the keyboard you'll scramble.
Yeah, don't want to put that by the keyboard.
All right, bering sea.
Watch it.
Goddamnit!
[narrator] On the Time Bandit.
All right, beer season.
Watch out!
Get out of the way!
Ooh!
That was crazy.
I've never seen that happen.
I ain't never seen nothing like that.
We got lucky that it broke off and went into the water instead of on the deck.
All right. Let's get it aboard!
You're gonna kill two of 'em, you know?
Nah, they're in the back, so...
It'd have been very bad.
Now we gotta go back to work.
Shake the [bleep] out of it. Send it back.
[man yelling]
Zeroing on something good up here.
[narrator] Back in Dutch harbor.
[Jake] I had a terrible offload.
[narrator] On the Saga.
So we're gonna go out west. Way out west to ADAC.
Because there's bigger fish out there.
I've never been that far before.
Honestly, I'm a little bit nervous about it.
It's a three-day travel.
I've been pretty far west,
but never that far at once.
I need an extra hand.
I need help.
So I told Sean that he's gotta [bleep] come with me.
I know Sean has history with black cod with his dad.
And it's... He's gotta [bleep] go.
[narrator] Over the past ten years,
[Sean] I've been working on boats since I was 12 years old.
I wanted to be where my dad was.
[narrator] Captain Sean has carried on the Dwyer family business
for his father Pat,
who passed from Lou Gehrig's disease.
I watched him die for eight years.
The way I deal with it,
is doing it right the first time and not cutting corners.
I'll carry on his standard.
[narrator] Now the young skipper joins forces with Jake Anderson.
- [Jake] Speak of the devil. - [Sean] Sup, buddy.
[narrator] To catch their combined million pounds of black cod quota.
- What you got there? - Top secret information from back in the day.
Chart from the old man.
As you can see it's pretty ... beat up.
Wow, this goes all the way to Siberia.
He's all the way out here. All the way out to the border.
Look at that.
- Your dad was fishing deep. Lot deeper than I've been. - Yeah.
Probe in the deep.
WHat I do know about black cod is they run in patterns.
And they run in the same patterns that they usually, typically always have.
[Sean] Yeah, well, if we're gonna catch this quota,
might as well take all the help we can get.
Ready to throw the lines and get out of here?
Let's rock n roll.
All right, everybody. Ready to go?
Let's start then.
[Sophia] We're pulling off the dock right now.
We got another captain up in the wheelhouse.
Uncle Jake does not like to play with others.
All right. Three days steam, chum.
Wake me up when we get there.
[narrator] 260 miles northeast.
Taking a lot of painkillers but doesn't take it down.
I've tried to get warm thinking it's gonna get better but it isn't.
Is it so painful that you wanna cry?
Yeah.
We're not even through the first string, everybody.
[chuckles dryly]
Have you taken Advil?
Not yet. I'm gonna take some now.
I don't know if the stuff those norwegian doctors gave you is strong enough.
Maybe not.
- Let's try one more time. - Yeah.
- Okay? - Yes, yes.
[narrator] On the Northwestern.
Okay, hit it.
[narrator] With every pot committed to his daughter Mandy's chosen grounds,
captain Sig idles up to his northernmost string
amid building 20-foot seas.
[Sig] It's supposed to get quite a bit worse here.
These winds are coming out of the southeast but they're moving from the west.
[Lauritz groaning]
It's coming across the peninsula and moving towards us.
Lauritz, he's got some back issues.
We're just gonna see how long he'll last today and then what kinda pain it brings.
Oh, there's life in it.
Really? That's a crab an hour.
[bleep]
Hey, Lauritz. You hurt?
[Lauritz groaning]
[bleep]
You all right?
[groaning]
Lauritz went in?
[bleep]
Just letting you know, once it starts getting worse,
it just... Gonna have to tap out right now.
I don't know about Lauritz.
I'm starting to fear the worst here.
[narrator] On the Northwestern.
[Sig] It doesn't look good or sound good.
So I think he may be done for this season.
We're gonna need another person to fill that gap.
Short-handed, it's just going too hard.
[phone trilling]
[Mandy] Hello?
Hey, how are you?
[Mandy] Good. How's it going up there?
[Sig] We ran into a snag. Lauritz got an accident.
I need a plan B.
And you're it.
maybe you can think about coming up for a little while?
I know it's last minute. It's not fair.
But, you know...
[sighing]
Okay, fair enough.
Talk soon.
Aight, bye-bye.
[Sig] I get it.
Who wouldn't wanna be home?
Just gotta get him up quickly to get into offload
and hopefully, you know,
Lauritz gets better.
Poor guy.
[narrator] 250 miles southwest.
On the Time Bandit.
Last one!
We gotta little run now. We gotta run.
Hopefully we won't run out of crab.
Crab got legs. They move around... See what happens.
Hey, Jesse. What's up?
You haven't slept in three days? Why?
You've had a lot going on, I'd say, in the last couple weeks, haven't you?
Yeah.
I got a Unisom you could try to take.
Later on. After we're done working.
Okay, man. Sounds good, Jesse.
Well,
that's the weirdest [bleep] I've ever heard.
heard people come up and say haven't [bleep] in three days.
But I never heard anybody say they can't sleep for three days.
He's got a lot on his mind, though.
You know, he's got the sad ashes. His dad's ashes are in his bunk.
Next to him. While he's sleeping, he's with his dad.
We just need to take care of his dad and then he might be able to sleep.
I've just been putting it off because it's so emotional for me, the...
My best friend in high school...
I wouldn't be able to sleep with my dad's ashes in my bed.
He should bury Mike.
Let him bury Mike right now, so...
Let us... Let him... He's restless.
Let him go.
Want Jesse to be able to sleep
when his dad will be laid to rest.
Huh!
We're gonna bury Mike.
We'll quit meals.
You guys can all come out here
and I'm just gonna say a few words and...
we're gonna spread his ashes 'cause...
he was a submarine guy
and this is a canyon.
It's... It is a perfect place for a submarine guy to go.
Maybe you can say something.
I might not say the right thing.
- Yeah. - [Johnathan] And, uh, we'll... bury Mike,
and let him... let him be free.
He's trapped in a box.
Let him... let him...
Jesse. [sniffles]
Love your dad. He's my best friend.
This is hard to do.
And, uh... [sobs]
I'm sorry it took me this long.
- [indistinct] - I haven't had the courage to do it.
It's gonna be hard to do.
Now let's go do it right now.
Come on out. We will water your dad.
I wanna say a word about Mike.
He was a great dad, he raised a great kid.
And we just wanna honor him today
and spread his ashes in the Saint... Saint George Canyon.
Lord, please take Mike in your arms.
Take his soul. Let his soul be in heaven.
Let him find peace.
Let Jesse find peace.
In love, in mercy.
That's what we ask in Your name.
Amen.
When you're ready, you just... you just let your dad go
and then dump his ashes and...
[Jesse sobbing] Okay.
[Johnathan] Oh.
Oh, he went bye-bye.
Well, that's your dad there. [laughing]
Your spirit's free, Mike.
Love you, Mike.
Miss you, Mike.
- Love you. - Love you, Jim.
Let him go.
Tough. It's tough to do.
[Johnathan] He'll be in heaven.
- [groans] - We should hug it out.
- There you go. - Okay.
[Johnathan] That wasn't easy.
[Andy] He was a good dude.
[Johnathan] I got Mike in my nose.
You know what he'd say?
"Get back to work!"
[narrator] In Dutch Harbor...
[Rick] I'm sorry, Mom.
I'm sorry I'm not there.
I love you guys.
[Rick's mom speaking over phone]
[Rick] They're having the...
memorial this Saturday.
I got a lot going on.
Lot of... [sighs] planning.
Right now my back's against the wall.
We're losing money.
From crew to weather,
to this off load,
to my grandpa dying.
I'm just done.
Completely done.
[exhales sharply]
I don't know. I gotta go figure some things out.
[Craig] It's not good.
We could... we could go home.
[sighs] [bleep].
It hurts.
It hurts frickin' hardcore inside.
But, you know...
he was a fisherman.
He would want me fishing.
He would encourage it.
And I gotta make up for lost time.
I wanna be out there hauling
as the actual weather starts to come down.
So we're gonna be heading
though Unimak Pass,
and it's gonna be really, really, really nautical.
[narrator] To make up for an extra day dockside...
Go ahead, drop everything.
[narrator] ...on the return trip to his gear,
Rick charts a course through Unimak Pass,
where the North Pacific and the Bering Sea collide,
breeding towering waves.
It's gonna get downright [bleep].
Waves have picked up quite a bit.
We're looking at probably 20-footers coming at us.
The current's ripping.
We're just gonna take this slow and steady,
try not to blow a window out.
If that window blows out
and it hits me,
I had a buddy who almost died from that.
Big wave, big wave.
Ooh.
[Rick groans]
Another frickin' big wave.
And another one. Come on!
Big wave. Aargh! Come on.
Whoo!
[deckhand 1] Let's do it.
[Rick] Aargh, come on, baby.
Come on. Dang!
We keep taking green water over the bow.
Wow. That is a double frickin' wave.
Let's go, let's go, let's go.
Up, up, up, up, up.
[alarm beeping]
[Rick] What the hell.
We just took a lot of water over the bow.
Hey, we got an alarm.
[Rick over radio] Can somebody check the forepeak in the engine room?
Dang it. Come on!
[narrator] In Unimak Pass...
[alarm ringing]
Hey, we got an alarm.
[Rick over radio] Can somebody check the forepeak in the engine room?
[narrator] Aboard the Aleutian Lady...
[deckhand 2 speaking]
[deckhand 3 speaking]
[deckhand 2 speaking]
[deckhand 3 speaking]
[Rick over radio] Hey, guys. I can see the hatch covering the side,
and it ain't sitting right.
[deckhand 2 speaking]
[Rick] Come on, guys. Get that thing down quick.
I can't keep the scores.
- [Craig] Oh, yeah. - See, that's in it. Right.
[Rick] I don't know if that hatch got jarred loose from the waves.
Now that thing would've came off,
you would've been downflooding.
A lot of green water pouring inside the house.
If that ends up happening,
we'll be shut down, going sideways,
and we'll end up slamming into the rocks.
[deckhand 2] Craig!
- Now? - [deckhand 3] It did.
[deckhand 2] Yeah.
We gotta just keep going.
We gotta keep getting through.
Eh, dang it. Hold on.
Watch out, guys. Watch out.
[over radio] Here comes a big one.
Dang it.
Come on.
Okay. Let her up.
[Rick] We're almost through.
We're almost through this thing.
[deckhand 3] Okay.
[Rick sighs] Okay, we're good.
This is a sort of [sighs]
shortcut you gotta try to take to be on top.
I just shaved eight hours off this steam
and now we're gonna be able
to haul some gear and kick some ass.
- Actually I could... - [device beeps]
...put it on autopilot now. [sighs]
[sighs deeply]
I wonder why captains drink so much all the time.
[narrator] 525 miles southwest...
on the Saga...
- [orca snots] - [Jake] [bleep].
[Jake] Oh, my God, it's the orcas.
I love 'em.
A long night out here.
This is about where we're at right now.
What do you think?
I... I don't wanna set over your dad's light.
[Sean] Yeah.
[narrator] Just north of the Western Aleutian Chain
- Three-twenty. - [Sean] Three-twenty.
Okay.
[narrator] ...captains, Jake and Sean
deploy their long line string
on intel from Sean's father,
marked down on charts three decades ago.
[Jake] All right, first pot out of A deck.
Let's call it P Dwyer.
[deckhand 4] All right, let her up.
Actually, you know what?
I'm gonna call it Copycat.
[deckhand 4] All right, Mac, to let it go.
[deckhand 5] No. No.
Pinched. It's [bleep] up.
Oh, [bleep].
[deckhand 5] Hey, the pot.
Oh!
[Jake] This is bad.
This is bad right here.
[deckhand 5] Hey, hey.
Hey, I don't wanna be over here.
Just lost the whole string.
[Mac] I don't know what's going on.
We had a big snarl, so we got it figured out.
I think that as the pot went over,
it took the whole bunch.
No room for error for longlining.
Now we just burnt the whole string.
Oops.
[Sean groans] Oh, my God.
- [Mac] [indistinct] - [deckhand 5] Crazy.
That whole string has to be repicked up.
[over radio] Stick it in the block,
pull it all onboard again.
Well, [bleep] it. I'm going to bed. See you.
[indistinct radio chatter]
- [deckhand 4] Oh-ho-ho. - [deckhand 5] Yeah.
- [Mac] Holy [bleep]. - [deckhand 4] Yeah!
Holy [bleep].
We just set this thing.
[deckhand] Five!
In five minutes.
Five fish?
[deckhand speaking over radio]
Five fish already.
We... we just put it in the water
and picked it up again,
there's five fish again.
Dude, look at that.
Well, that's when you know that this is a start, Mac.
[deckhand 5] Whoo!
[Jake speaking over radio]
I'm gonna go right away.
[Sophia] We're fishing, we got pots in the water.
We're setting deep.
We're gonna pull up some big fish,
big numbers,
make lots of money.
[producer] Do you have faith?
I have faith.
[narrator] 460 miles northeast...
in Dutch Harbor...
[Sig] It's, um, here in your hip?
[Lauritz] Yeah, yeah.
Shoots down all the way?
That's the sciatic nerve.
'Cause I know I got a pinched nerve.
- [Sig] Yeah. - But it...
Now... it hasn't been this bad before now.
I know what it is. It's very painful.
Just keep taking the pills.
It's all you can do.
Stay off it, okay?
- Yeah. - All right.
Thank you.
[Sig groans then sighs]
[narrator] On the Northwestern...
You know, I can't have him laying in the bunk, uh...
while we finish our season.
It's just... it's so painful.
And we gotta send him home.
Now we'll be, uh, a man short on deck
but, uh, I don't have time to...
look for another person.
- [deckhand 6] Is that all your stuff? - Yeah. All of it.
Good. Now you're looking safe.
- All right. Yeah. - I'm gonna go make dinner at home.
Well, you got a job when you come back, okay?
No matter how long.
- Thank you. - [Sig] I promise.
Thank you.
- [deckhand 6] All right, Lauritz, be safe. - [Lauritz] Yeah.
[deckhand 6] You call us when you know something.
[Sig] That guy is in a lot of pain.
We're gonna get this crab off,
shouldn't take very long.
We're just gonna have to go a man short.
We're just gonna have to work a little harder.
[narrator] 180 miles northwest...
[Johnathan] Okay, that's what's coming up close.
[narrator] ...on the Time Bandit...
We're back here on my brother's old hotspot
on the ridgeline.
Hopefully, we'll have the rest of it to offload.
I got a good feeling about this spot, Johnny.
Yeah.
[deckhands cheering]
[deckhand 7] We got crab!
[deckhand 8] Yeah, baby!
Look at that pot, John.
That is a badass pot.
- We're good. We're rollin'. - [Andy] Whoo!
[whooping]
[deckhand 7] All right.
[deckhand 8 speaking]
[Johnathan] We're down to a four-man deck.
Jesse is still not so well, you know?
It's all we got.
[Andy] Aye, aye, aye.
Jesse, we need you up here, buddy.
[Andy] How you feelin' today?
[Jesse speaking]
[Johnathan] Your heart hurts or...
It's just... it's just doing funky chicken, man, like...
Kind of like, you know... [mimics heartbeat]
Like, it... you know...
When normally walking,
it feels like I'm [bleep] running.
Like, I'm so drained.
[Johnathan] That sounds bad.
Do you think we need to get him on a plane?
[Jake] I think Mac feels very happy
about the whale snot,
getting blown into your face by the orca whales.
I think that just brings good luck.
I find that a little hard to bay-lieve, Jake.
You might find that hard to believe.
[laughing]
- Here you got a good dad joke, bro. - Yeah! Yeah!
That's not a bad joke, Sean.
[Jake laughing]
[all laughing]
[Sean] Yeah, dude.
[all laughing]
Do you think we're gonna do whale this season
or we're gonna blow the whole thing?
[Sean laughing]
[narrator] Jake and Sean breached the far west
to orchestrate a killer comeback.
[narrator] On the Time Bandit...
[Jesse speaking]
[Johnathan] Well, that sounds bad.
Your heart... your heart's not feeling right.
You're gonna have to fly home,
and go get it checked.
You can't work and come on the boat with a heart problem,
so we'll get you home.
- [Jesse] Love the experience. - Yeah.
[Jesse] I'm just [bleep] not pulling my weight, so...
[Andy] We all care about you. We want the best for you.
- Okay. - [Andy] Go home.
Okay. Thanks, Jesse.
[Jesse sighing]
[Johnathan] I just... I just want...
I just don't wanna hurt nobody.
And it's just such a shame.
But it sounds like the best thing is to get him off the boat.
Even if he says he wants to stay on the boat.
- He can't work on the boat with a heart problem. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Jesse] No. I don't really wanna go home right now.
Yeah. [sighs]
Yeah, fully intended on actually,
you know, fulfilling my side of things.
I don't know, I just lost Mike
and I don't wanna lose Jesse.
That's all.
[Jesse] You know, a long shot. I understand.
All right, guys.
[over radio] Uh, clear the deck. We gotta go to town.
That's it.
[Johnathan] It's a shame
because, I think, the kid's just got a broken heart.
[narrator] 440 miles southwest...
First one's in the hook.
[narrator] ...on the Saga...
[Sean] First longline string I'm hauling.
This is a trip.
You basically just get it in the block
and treat it like one long pot.
We picked a mark on my dad's old chart.
He like to say that he forgot
more than I'll ever know and it's probably true, so...
I don't think I'm done learning from him.
[Jake] When we set and turned around and had to pick it up,
we were seeing fish in these pots, so.
I'm happy to be out here.
I'm excited to pull the first pot.
[Sean] We want bigger fish
even if that means smaller numbers,
because if you have bigger fish,
you get paid more.
[deckhands cheering and laughing]
[deckhand 1] Damn!
That is a big pot.
Now we need to see if we got the size.
[deckhand 1] Woo-hoo!
Are they big?
She said, yeah.
Look at that. That's big.
I'm going down.
[indistinct chatter]
What do you think of those things, Jake?
Whoo!
Nice, dude.
[deckhand 2] Whoo!
Now we're making money.
Just because the old man's gone,
it doesn't mean that there's not still lessons he's teaching me.
[deckhand 3] Come on!
[deckhand 4] Let's go!
This is the first silver dollar
my grandpa made in Alaska.
He gave it to me a couple of years back.
If anything I'll turn all luck around, it'll be this.
[deckhand 3] Come on now!
[Rick] Come on, baby. Big pot.
[deckhand 3] There we go.
[deckhand 4] We're on 'em. Yeah, baby!
- [deckhand 3] Yes! - [deckhand 5] Whoa.
Yeah!
Ha-ha! Whoo!
[deckhand 4] Yeah, boys. Yeah, boys.
[Rick] I know you're watching, grandpa.
I love you.
[deckhand] Uh, Sig.
[Sig over radio] I'm back.
[deckhand] Look who's back.
[Mandy strains] Hey.
- Okay? - Yeah.
- Hey. Good to see you. - Good to see you.
[Sig laughing]
Oh.
Surprise, surprise!
[Sig laughing]
[Mandy chuckles] How's it going?
It's going fine.
Better now.
Good.
Heard you needed some help.
[Sig] What does Mom say about all this?
She's got it under control.
She's watching Sailor.
[Sig] All right, good.
- Now let's get the heck out of here, man. - All right.
[Sig over radio] Let's go.