The Deadliest Catch: A Tale of Exceptional Men
A mayday alarm pierced the metallic walls of the Coast Guard outpost on Kodiak Island. The Ocean Challenger, stranded 90 miles off the Alaska Peninsula, was being pummelled by water surging two stories high. In the words of pilot Jerred Williams, “The waves were so high you actually got white caps at the top of the wave.”
Suddenly the boat capsized. In those frenzied moments the crew launched a life raft, but alas, the seas were too high. Three men died in that October 18, 2006 disaster: David “Cowboy” Hasselquist, 51, Walter Foster, 26, and Steve Esparza, 26. Only one crew member, Kevin Ferrell, survived.
The tragedy calls to mind the words of Sir Walter Scott: “Those aren’t fish you’re buying; it’s men’s lives.”
These events are deeply rooted in the collective conscious of the hundreds of fishermen who scour the Bering Sea, working the deck of a vessel that sways precariously above 36-degree waters. These men are the unlikely heroes who appear on the Discovery Channel’s recent series, The Deadliest Catch. [http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/deadliestcatch/deadliestcatch.html]
The captains who run these ships are equal parts navigator, fishing guru, and disciplinarian. They won’t hesitate to reprimand an obstinate greenhorn with a salty, “Keep your mouth shut and do your f***ing job!”
A fisherman’s biggest fear is being hit with a rogue wave, a 50-foot high wall of water that comes barreling out of nowhere and hits the boat broadside. If you’re lucky, the boat rights itself within a heart-stopping minute. But if your crab pots are coated in three inches of ice and stacked high on the foredeck, your only hope is a rubberized survival suit.
If the water is calm, you may have to confront another threat – ice flows drifting down from the Arctic Circle.
In one recent episode, captain Jonathan Hillstrand of the Time Bandit finds himself surrounded by foot-thick ice chunks. He tries to break free, but the boat can only inch forward at a snail’s pace. Even at this speed, the 60-ton ice cakes inflict dents on the hull, causing the inside paint to crack and peel.
Five excruciating hours later, they make open sea. “I think it took a year off my life,” a grizzled Hillstrand admits.
Once Hillstrand was called upon to rescue a crewman from a nearby boat who had been swept into the frigid sea. At these temperatures, a person can die of hypothermia in just minutes. A desperate Hillstrand maneuvered his 113-foot vessel near the flailing man and hauled him out.
Capt. Hillstrand was touched to the soul by the event, almost moved to tears in the retelling. And brother Andy recounts that in his dreams he still hears the guy yelling, “Help me … Save my life!”
The mind-numbing routine is repeated dozens of times each day: bait the pot, plunge the 800-pound cage into the frigid water, and let it soak on the muddy bottom.
A day later the captain retraces his path. As the boat approaches, the deckhand snags the buoy line with a 4-pronged hook and the winch yanks the careening pot over the rail. The men extract the squirming snow crabs and shuttle them to a holding tank.
If Lady Luck is smiling that day, the pots are brimming with four or five hundred opies, what they call “red gold.” At times like this the deckhands don’t worry about the 18-hour work shifts, towering waves, or aching hands.
The men are sustained by the promise of a 5% cut at journey’s end. With luck, they will rake in 50 grand for a few weeks of excruciating work. “I have no clue what time it is, all I know is I’m making money,” shouts one gleeful deckhand.
Eventually the boats log their quotas and unload their catch at the tender. Time to swing the bow to warmer waters. A few days later captain Sig Hansen, a fourth-generation fisherman whose ancestors came from Norway, eases his 118-foot Northwestern into its Seattle port.
The catch was good and no one got hurt. But one question remains: Will greenhorn Jake Anderson make the cut? He made a boatload of mistakes. But he endured the adversity without complaint and learned the trade.
So the captain presents Jake with the ultimate accolade – a hooded glacier jacket with the name “Northwestern” emblazoned on the back. Grinning ear to ear, Jake embraces all the deckhands.
“Now, no one can mess with me,” Jake proclaims. Captain Sig shoots back, “The jacket don’t make you a man.”
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Stumble It!
Ahar!
I was expressing a little stress at home, what with teens arguing, a baby screaming, and me arriving home from work to it expected to drop the case and wade into the fray immediately, and my 16 year daughter froze the blood in my veins with a little question.
She asked, “Dad why are you so stressed, after all you GET TO go to work?”.
I still have work to do there huh?
In a feminized culture, while men work, women are honored, even worshipped.
Yet a man may expect to arrive home from work or war to a community and wife that calls him names – deadbeat dad, irresponsible father, abusive husband, lazy, violent.
Thanks feminism.
For the Iraq war 83 women lost their lives compared to 3,756 men – about 50 to 1 – as of July 11, 2007. These men are not honored by the media or government for defending the feminist state. (I expect that the feminist may spin it that women are smarter than men so they do not die in greater numbers)
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/iraq/database/casualties_search.asp
mruffolo (4)
You listed some the dangerous jobs that men do and wondered why the media bury this this information. The same way that they bury “soldiers” deaths.
It’s usually “men and women” but in Vietnam it wa over 58 000 men and 8 women dead
In the Civil War thee were some 600,000 casualties. I wonder how many women fought in Gettysburg, Antietam and other battles.
It even seems that male reporters only speak with forked tonguage against their own gender, where women are largely united.
I quess the old saying “In war the first casualty is truth.” still prevails
Sexist show, where is the “girl power” boat? LOL
That show is awesome; one of the best I’ve ever watched.
“The overwhelming majority of dangerous jobs are held by men, who accounted for 93 percent of all workplace fatalities last year while comprising 54 percent of the overall workforce.”
Though women have the opportunity and freedom to work risky jobs, they choose not to work them:
- Logging workers
- Aircraft pilots
- Fishers and fishing workers
- Structural iron and steel workers
- Refuse and recyclable material collectors
- Farmers and ranchers
- Roofers
- Electrical power line installers/repairers
- Driver/sales workers and truck drivers
- Taxi drivers and chauffeurs
http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/pf/jobs_jeopardy
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15640339
In 2005, about 5,702 men died.
In 2004, about 5,764 men died.
Instead, women demand equal rights to work easy jobs (teachers, lawyers, politician, soical workers, government employees, models, actresses, and managers)
Compare to the domestic violence industry’s charges that husbands are murders:
Spouse deaths:
average per year between 1976-2004, 1,492 deaths both men and women
(Note: No American organization presents husband murdering wife data by year or by a total)
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm
As men die at work to pay a court ordered support or to provide for their family, women complain that they are victims (though they live longer and work safer jobs).
Why do the popular media bury this information? Why do the domestic violence industry organizations present their data to dishonor men?
Great piece Carey.
If only we could live ten lives as a twenty-five year old. The many men we could be. We make a career choice and get stuck with it. Some of us are lucky to get two shots. But each choice closes off all the others. Some choices make for short careers but enable a man to live on the edge and really live.
mcd106, amen!
Now those fishermen are real men. Not coiffed up pretty little metro sexuals worried about thier manicured nails and pleated pants. Nor are they two faced lying camera grabbing politicians all bent on trying to advance thier own personal careers and interests at the expense of the country and its citizens. And they certainly aren’t self annoited media pretty boys and girls who feel it necessary to lecture the great unwashed masses as to what they should think.
Lets put those fisherman in charge. I imagine things would get done then.