However, shortly after getting started, a man fell overboard on the Sultan. The boats of the fleet were finally able to begin casting pots after a day of delays. The last man was found from the Big Valley disaster, raising the death toll to five, with Cache Seel as the only survivor.
The Coast Guard found another man wearing a survival suit and pulled him from the water, but declared him dead shortly thereafter. Seel, who had managed to get into his survival suit before getting tossed into the sea, confirmed that the Big Valley capsized and went down quickly three men died shortly after falling into the sea with no survival suits on. A single life raft from the Big Valley was found with one survivor, deck boss Cache Seel, in it. As dawn broke, debris from the Big Valley was all that could be seen, making it clear that the boat sunk. Three fishing vessels, including Maverick and Cornelia Marie, started the search, joined just before dawn by a Coast Guard helicopter, but found nothing at the position indicated by the EPIRB. As the rest of the boats neared the fishing grounds, a Coast Guard alert was issued to the fleet: An EPIRB, belonging to the F/V Big Valley, had been activated, and no one on the Big Valley was answering radio hails or satellite phone calls. The Northwestern headed out to the far northern Opilio fishing grounds, near the Russian border. The Lady Alaska had to return to port due to electrical problems, costing them a day of the already short season. The weather was treacherous, with heavy gale warnings and high seas predicted. The ships left Dutch Harbor for the deadlier opilio crab season, the last one to be held under the derby-style rules. After a very successful offload at the Northwestern traditional offload port, Akutan, Bradford, the Northwestern greenhorn, is awarded 10% of a deckhand's share for his hard work and good attitude-about $1600-and finally gets a greeting and handshake from Captain Sig Hansen. The greenhorns make decisions about whether to continue with their new careers or to go on with their lives. The crews rush to finish pulling in the last of the crab pots for the season and head back to Dutch Harbor to get in line for the crab processor. The Hansen brothers on board the Northwestern decide not to launch any more pots and instead go after a string of pots in the northern king crab waters that Sig dubs "Long Tall Sally" the decision is rewarded when the pots come in huge, enabling the Northwestern to win the final King Crab Derby title. The fleet is forced to make difficult decisions about whether to continue last-minute pot placements or pull in all of their gear and cut their losses on the short season rather than violate the law. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced the end of the season after only 2 days and the captains started to worry they would not catch enough crab to be profitable. The crews continued to set their crab pots with mixed results-highliner boats like the Fierce Allegiance and Northwestern were pulling lower numbers than expected the Western Viking finally found the crab after an extremely bad first string. The Northwestern greenhorn, Bradford, was unnerved by the sight of his first king crab-"they look like aliens," he observed-but was corrected by deck boss Edgar Hansen: "They're gorgeous! Look just like giant dollar bills!" Some ships started catching lots of crabs immediately-the Northwestern had two "riders" on pots kept in underwater storage to add to their tanks before even pulling their first official pots-while others experienced problem after problem with both equipment and finding the crab. The greenhorns started to feel fatigued after only one night. The crews of the ships set all of their crab pots and waited to retrieve them up. The ships departed to sea for the king crab season. Introductions to the crews of the ships and the backgrounds for the greenhorns who would be working for the first time on some of the ships, as well as some boats' traditions for dealing with greenhorns-Sig Hansen, captain of the Northwestern, refuses to greet or acknowledge greenhorns until after he sees how they work out on board. Ships featured in this episode include Northwestern, Erla-N, Sea Star, Arctic Dawn, and the Saga. A summary look of lives as Alaskan crab fisherman.
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