Time Bandit Risks Losing A MILLION Dollars’ Worth Of Crab | Deadliest Catch
On the 113 ft Time Bandit:
“Okay guys, we got the first one here, get them on the boat. Nobody get hurt, nothing break down, and we go home. Yeah, just take me home.”
With most of his quota caught, Captain Jonathan Hillstrand is just 10,000 lbs away from wrapping his season. “This one sure tested man here. This trip we land some dead loss because we’re out 6 15-day trip from hell. It ain’t over yet till you offload all your crab. We’re putting crab in the tank and home, hopefully, we can get them home alive.”
On average, king crab can live about 10 days in a tank. Any longer, and they start to die off. So, they start dying, and it’s like the Black Flag to them—they all start dying. With some of their crab nearly 2 weeks old, the Time Bandit needs to get to town and offload before they lose their catch. “We’re so close to being over with the season. Just got to go get those pods; it’s the only thing standing in between [Music] us.”
“Pick it up, back watch out!”
Adding to the stress of a drawn-out trip is the clumsiness of inexperience on deck this season. “I had three green guys. Axel’s our new uh, rain guy. We’re just stacking out right [Music] now. Don’t sound so drastic. I miss my All-Star Scotty. I don’t care how rough it was out, but he had that pot in the graan. I never had to even look.”
This is the first season in seven years that Jonathan’s son Scotty hasn’t worked the hydros. “Your breaking head, your head wire—not professional. I really miss my kid around here, but he’s over on the Cornelia Marie helping them out. He’s one of the best crane operators there is out here. He is the best I know.”
On the Time Bandit, “We did it! He hasn’t coming easy, brother.” After a brutal 14 days at sea, this is the last part, by the way, of the season. Captain Jonathan Hillstrand fills his quota and stacks the last of his pots. “This crab season’s over for us. Next stop, Opie season. We made it through the season. Everyone’s going to get a paycheck. Try to get our crab off; we’ll be in Dutch Harbor around 8:00 in the morning. We got offload around 6:00 p.m. with the crab in the tank.”
The Time Bandit has a shot at minimizing their dead loss. “I’m heading to town, marking and plugging the Waypoint in right now. Only 18 hours from Dutch Harbor, and hopefully, we get a quick offload.”
“Six words—that wasn’t very easy, was it? My crew is getting better every day; things have a way of working themselves out. Scare the hell out of me. Hello? Hey Al, things are going all right. Um, still looking [Music] good? Okay, okay, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, thank you [Music]. Oh my [Music] God, I can’t even offload, dude. Oh my God, that’s what he said.”
Delays in the cannery will force the Time Bandit to wait another 48 hours before they can offload. “Seems like every 12 hours we’re up, then we’re down, we’re up, we’re down. Now I know what a yo-yo feels like. Right now, I’m killing crab.”
After days of waiting to offload their tanks, with 22,000 crab on board, the Time Bandit crew waits for the verdict of their 180,000 lb catch. “Yeah, there’s going to be a few dead losses because they’ve been sitting on them so long, and it’s not my fault—it’s just the way it happened. They beautiful crab, hey Neil, they look good. Crab looks lively. Worry so much, Al, good job, good job. Still healthy, yeah. Happy about this? Yeah, the crab still looks really good. Yeah, we don’t want to wait another day though. No [Music]. Uhoh on dead loss—one crab is too many. There’s one—that’s not a good sign there, my friends. Hopefully, it’ll get better as we go. Hopefully.”
“Number in 16 days, dude, now we’re just burning $5 bills as they toss up. He’s not happy everyone else go off work before we do. Crab just sitting there dying day by day. So we’re looking at like five, five to six maybe more thousand lbs of dead loss. Not so much more like $40,000 worth of crab. That comes off my quota. You guys took a hit for deck for wages, ’cause we have never had this much dead loss, ever. We’ve never held our crab for more than 14 days.”
Despite $448,000 in dead loss, the Time Bandit managed to bring in 173,000 lbs of king crab worth $1.2 million. “Put that one behind us. It was a long one.”
Each crewman will take home 40 grand—two grand less than they would have gotten. “That was a test sent from God to keep us humble.”
Delivering dead crab knocks The Time Bandit down while the Wizard remains alive and well at the top of the board.
