Thanks for the info as always birdman. I was just curious at how he could have spent 400K on boat repairs and missed what sounded like a critical component.

I am at Camp Stryker, iraq and we always watch Deadliest Catch on Armed Forces Network. There are several different AFN channels, so we can watch each DC episode more than once. Some of the shows on AFN you watch just because there is nothing on, but DC is one we definitely watch by choice. I just stumbled on this thread about half an hour ago, and I have really enjoyed catching up on everything since this thread started. This is by far one of the best threads on TexAgs. Thank you birdman for all your first-hand insight. Deadliest Catch really makes you appreciate everything that goes on in order for you to enjoy the crab you eat from time to time. On a side note, back in April07, birdman posted on this thread listing several excellant books on the topic of crabbing/deepsea fishing that were better than The Perfect Storm by Sebastion Junger. When I was deployed to Kosovo in 2001, I was on patrol one night and we detained Sebastion Junger for violating the curfew that was in effect in the town of Gnjlani.

AGGIE12B

DC is my 5 year old's favorite show. He has his own crab trap and we slay the blue crabs off the dock. He gets so excited with the crabbing. Sometimes they bite him, but he can usually catch them (with tongs) and bait the trap.

Watched the first episode last night. The diving thing seemed monumentally stupid to me. What if he was knocked out cold by the bonk to the head? He's dead right? Just dumb. And it looked like the sea was a bathtub at that time.

Also too much is being made of the "0 balance" Anybody with a 7 figure + boat has plenty of collateral for a credit line if one is needed.

So...I apologize if this is a dumb question, but where does that giant helicopter fuel up? There's no way it can round trip 20ish hours without fuel.

"The Jayhawk has a 6,460 lb (2,930 kg) fuel capacity allows it to operate for 6.5 hours within a 300 nmi (556 km) radius.[3] The helicopter is not able to perform water landings as was its amphibious HH-3F Pelican predecessor.[4]"


I'm assuming it refills on the cutter ship operating in the region.

I wondered about that also....I think they(Jayhawk) can go about 300 miles....stay on location about an hour and return so 900 miles into the wind is way out of range. The Katmai was west of Adak Island which is near the end of the Aleutian's. They have dropped rescues off at Akutan/Unalaska on previous shows so they can fuel up there. I bet there is a fuel supply at either Saint Paul or Attu also.

SPOILER.....I think a lot of the last show was edited. A CC helicopter rescued three survivors from the torn up raft and three or four more deceased of the remaining seven. I'd guess that was a Jayhawk without a Discovery camera.

[This message has been edited by sunchaser (edited 4/22/2009 7:17a).]

I'm quite sure that helo can refuel inflight.

I know the Jayhawk has a probe and is capable of being fueled in flight. I have never seen them refuel off the end of a C130 and that's all they have. They of course can land on the larger CC vessels for fuel. In addition I know that they can move along side some of the smaller cutters and they somehow hoist a fuel line that they fly the probe into.

I think the Coast Guard in Alaska has like 15 floating vessels, 6 130's and 12 helicopters.....that really seams thin.

I had a LORAN on our offshore boat many many years ago....unique technology. It was phased out in favor of GPS technology. The last six remaining LORAN stations are still being manned by the CC in Alaska.

[This message has been edited by sunchaser (edited 4/22/2009 8:19a).]

Where can you find last nights episode?

Missed it last night and fell asleep during the oncore at 11.

they replay DC a ton during the week. The title of the episode was red sky somthing or other.

Did anyone else think the timing of Phil's news was a little too perfect. At the party the night before they are leaving, the phone rings and its the doctor. How many doctors do you know that call patients on their cell phone at night to give them bad news. Something about that sequence made me feel like it was setup for TV. I hope I'm wrong because I love the show. Hope it stays a reality show and they don't try and create any drama.

I was guessing that they refuel from the Hercules, but don't know enough about it to put my life on it.

I too am getting tired of the "$0 balance sheet" talk after hearing that Phil clears $500k.

quote:

---

Did anyone else think the timing of Phil's news was a little too perfect. At the party the night before they are leaving, the phone rings and its the doctor. How many doctors do you know that call patients on their cell phone at night to give them bad news. Something about that sequence made me feel like it was setup for TV. I hope I'm wrong because I love the show. Hope it stays a reality show and they don't try and create any drama.

---

According to the episode, the doc called in the middle of the day during the Blessing of the Fleet, the day the Cornelia Maria was scheduled to depart. Now, of course I understand editing, and it might not have happened like that.

I didn't watch the recent episode.

When a boat sinks in Bering, the chopper takes off from Kodiak. Before they do any searching, they refuel. Usually, they stop in Cold Bay or Dutch Harbor. If the search takes awhile, they can have tankers in the air.

Coasties use the Hercules to refuel the helicopters. The C-130s are used mostly for surveillance and large searches, but might be modified to carry fuel.

They can get fuel at any port in Alaska. Dutch, King Cove, Cold Bay, Sand Point, St Paul, Akutan, Adak, Attu, St Matt, etc. Those are just some of the places to fill up when searching the Bering Sea.

Nice follow up on the sinking. I think they showed reverance to the men lost and let us hear the survivors' stories in a good way. I cannot image how hard it would be to get back to the flipped over raft and then hear your shipmates calling for help, when you know there is nothing you can do for them.

I love wade fishing but if I had to climb in the airboat 40 times I'd have to give it up. It's hard to imagine climbing back into that raft that many times in those sea conditions.

So if you manage to close the canopy on that boat and it flips over are you a dead man or what?

I'm sure there is a reason, but why couldn't an EPIRB (sp?) or something similar be placed in all of the rafts to help in locating the survivors?

That was a sad episode. You could see that those guys were scarred from the incident. They didn't ask them if they were going to fish again. That would be interesting to hear their response.

I think the idea was to close the canopy as to NOT take on water. It seals it up and the raft will right itself if it gets flipped. They had to get the canopy deployed, and the guy had to get out of his suit to get the agility to set it up. The big wave hit them, and knocked him and the injured guy in the suit with a hole in it out and they never recovered them. 40 degree water will render you stiff and numb in just a couple minutes without a suit, and they really didn't have a chance after they got separated from the raft. Sounds like they got tossed a long way from it.

Once they got the canopy zipped up, they just tumbled inside of the raft, but I don't think they got separated from it again. Imagine being in a big inflatable moonwalk with some other guys and having it tumble like a can rolling down a hill over and over again. I bet those guys were beat up pretty bad.

They got separated from the raft multiple times according to articles written back in October. One of the young survivors states that on one flip he had to swim about forty yards to get back to the life raft.

Hmm, that would suck. Thanks for clarifying that. I didn't pick that up when I watched the interviews last night.

I caught a few episodes at the beginning and then the end of the season. What happened to the tiny boat that joined the season late with the crusty old hungarian deckhand and the captain that looked like a fat pat green? Last episode I saw with them, they were moored by the island during the big storm.

Pretty ho-hum season. Nothing really new came out and some of the editing seemed forced.

Liked the Time Bandit off fishing in Mexico while the other boats finished up their crab season.

agreed- the time bandit part made me laugh pretty hard. the northwestern was all depressed and cold and the time bandit was off having a blast

I hadn't really appreciated the skill of the captains until I watched the captain of the Lisa Marie, and how he basically came apart trying to find crab. Even the guy filling in for Phil aboard the Cornelia Marie had a better demeanor, although he did kill tons of crab in the storage tanks.

Also, why does Keith always act like he is about to go broke or be homeless, and yet he always ends up amongst the leaders in terms of pounds of crab?

I'm a little surprised there's not a fine of some sort for having too high a percentage in your holds dead.

There is a backdoor fine for deadloss. Every pound of dead crab counts against your guota. But you don't get paid for it.

Oh, I realize that. But to me there's a difference between not getting paid for the work you've done, and fining the living **** out of somebody for getting greedy with a longer than normal trip. I'm not a bleeding heart by any means, but I do see the value in punishment for wasted game.

once again, Keith looks like a jack ass taking chances with his life as well as his crews. Birdman pegged him a long time ago.

Why not put up the tarp BEFORE you head out? What a complete jack-ass. Doing stupid things for the cameras?, or does this guys thought process really tell him to do this?

I also did not understand why they did not put the tarp on at the dock.

Ditto. And why bother only taking of 12-15 pots. If you're worried about ice and becoming top-heavy, I'd take off at least 50, maybe 75 pots. I'm going to assume that nothing terrible happens to the crew or I don't think they would have showed that segment with that many details. When I first started watching The Deadliest Catch, I like Capt Keith. Now he just whines and makes me mad.






*I got Capt Keith and Capt Phil mixed up...huge difference!

[This message has been edited by Twix (edited 6/3/2009 1:49p).]

Phil's 2 boys get on my nerves.

Goose, counting against the quota is a big fine. Its not just lost revenue from being unable to sell the actual crabs, they're not able to sell that part of their remaining quota to boats still out fishing.