No Mercy
Wednesday, May 07 2008 | Comments (0)
Crashing seas. Clashing views. Cashing in. The water wasn’t the only thing rockin’ the boats this week. Superstition, tradition, motivation, and bare fists all prove to be strong forces in the Northern waters.
To begin our recap slightly out of order, let’s start with, perhaps, the highlight of the episode: the brawl aboard theThe Northwestern! Captain Sig Hansen and his men were close to a FULL tank, so he decided to push through to reach this goal, even through the latest pots are lacking the big numbers. While the crew begins to show it’s fatigue, greenhorn Jake Andersen shows his motivation to keep learning and improving. Deck boss Edger spends some Q.T. with Jake, which just seems to infuriate new full-share deckhand Matt Bradley (who was a greenhorn not that long ago).
Is Jake enthusiastic, or just sucking up? Matt, assuming it’s the later of the two, finally reaches his boiling point and after a few snide remarks from Jake, Matt lunges for him, grabbing his throat, and crossing the physical assault line. After Jake gets in a defensive punch, the two push each other around a bit before the brawls is broken up. Edgar calls it: Matt is threatened by Jake’s talent, motivation, and the special attention he gets for his hard work. But, as Captain Sig tells the combative duo, Matt should know better, and if they want to be a part of the Northwestern family, they had better act like it. In last night’s post-show chat with Jake, he claimed that he and Matt are more like brothers, and that the made up shortly after the spat.
Although not as explosive, the The Wizard had hit’s share of conflict this week, too. Last week, Captain Keith Colburn of the Wizard had high hopes that his 50 pot string would pay off. And, despite the rough waters crashing his boat, his crew did pull in HUGE pots of 90 or more crabs in each pot! The larger the pots, the heavier the load is for the crew. Knowing that they were close to completely filling their tank, but seeing the toll it was taking on his crew, he knew that he needed more help. To get the job done, Keith called in his brother Monte to start his shift early and get out on deck to help out.
Monte is not, apparently, a morning person. And what he hates most it going out on deck without his cup of coffee and time to wake up. But Keith needed him out there. Here’s where things TURNED, rather unexpectedly. Sure, Monte was grumpy about going out. But, he didn’t really protest it – just moaned about it a bit. Then, after what could have been either crafty editing or producer prodding, Captain Keith flipped-out on his brother. Grumpy Monte grumbled his way down to the deck, and when the job was done, only one hour later, Keith really laid into him about his negativity on deck.
The question really is whether or not Monte was as negative as Keith claimed he had been. Was Keith overreacting? Was Monty being a difficult brother, letting his real feelings about having to answer to his brother, the current Captain, cloud his reactions? It was hard to tell what the real issue was.
No sibling rivalry on the Time Bandit. In fact, everyone in the Hillstrand family and crew had to pull together to make things work…literally. Only a quarter mile from their string, they lost power. All captains, bosses, and deck hands were involved in getting the Bandit back on track. They risked their lives tinkering with the wires. But crab fishing in the deep icy seas is dangerous in the daytime, let alone without lights or electricity. After some stressful moments in the pitch-black night, with only their flashlights to defend them against the raging dark waters, power was restored, and the Bandits went on to pull in their first string of the second trip with 50 – 75 crabs in each pot. Captain Johnathan Hillstrand wondered if the brief bad luck was predicted earlier that day by the raven that hopped on board the Bandit, to steal eggs. Perhaps he forgot the age-old saying, “Beware ravens with eggs; power sucking thieves they are.”
Superstition is really a looming presence on most boats. On the Cornelia Marie, things just weren’t falling into place for the skipper. Captain Phil Harris awoke on the Friday that they were schedule to take off on their second run only to find that he couldn’t keep anything down, and that he had an overall uneasy feeling. It could have been premonition or something physically wrong with the captain. (The latest teases for upcoming episodes indicate that Captain Phil nearly lost his life at sea in January after an injury and blood-clot complications. More on that in our Deadliest Catch News). Phil called his crew together for a meeting, and shared his concerns about leaving on a Friday. In the past, nothing good had ever come from leaving on a Friday.
So, the crew took a chance at falling even further behind, and waited it out for a day.
The Early Dawn has also had a string of bad luck in the past few weeks, and really needed a big week to keep the spirits of the crew alive. In addition to the stresses of just being out at sea, the crew is also having a hard time dealing with their young greenhorn, Brian. What makes dealing with Brian even worse? He’s the boss’s son. Yes, Brian’s dad owns the boat. So, there’s only so much trouble he can probably get in, and only so much the crew can even say.
Well, Brian proceeded to test just how much he could do without getting in “too much” trouble. And he certainly tested how much the crew would tolerate.
Captain Rick Fehst demanded a 20 hours on/4 hours off shift to finish up their week. They were facing 60 naught winds and waves as high as 20 feet. At the end of the shift, the crew got a much needed rest. During rest times, the crew takes turns manning the wheel, and this time, it was Brian’s turn. Only 10 minutes in to his shift, Brian falls asleep, and let’s a HUGE wave crash against the boat, hitting hard enough to knock the men out of their bunks.
When Captain Rick finds out he was asleep at the wheel, he calls Brian’s dad, owner of the Early Dawn. They decide not to terminate his work on the Early Dawn, and just fine him for the offense. The crew may not let him off so easy.
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