There is always someone awake and at the helm. Any hand on a boat would be qualified to stand a watch, which isn't terribly complicated, involving little more than monitoring that the autopilot holds course and watching for obstacles and rogue waves. read more
Sometimes, if the weather isn't too bad and the shallows are along ways away and everyone is exausted, everyone goes to sleep and the boat drifts. Not a good idea, but it happens. Sometimes the engineer or the cook takes the watch if they don't work much on deck. read more
We eat crab, of course, a lot of fresh crab. A lot of these boats, they eat pizza pockets, and they don’t eat right. If you don’t eat, you can’t go without sleep. read more
The largest boat operable with a six-pack is 100T, but this can be increased if you can demonstrate deck time on a larger boat and take another test. A fish boat above 200T will be an inspected commercial vessel, so you need a "Master's license" to operate it (the same would be true for a whale-watching boat that takes more than six passengers). read more
In the past, crab fishing was conducted derby style. Each year, up to 200 crab fishing boats headed out of Dutch Harbor in Unalaska, Alaska, to catch as many as possible of the seven species of commercially desirable crab located in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. read more