Life on a crab boat - Marianas Variety News & Views

Two high-tech, reputedly safe crab boats disappeared in the Bering Sea just outside Dutch Harbor, underscoring that safety remains a life‑and‑death concern in an industry that still harms workers at a high rate. Crabbing kills more workers per capita than any other sector, even as new gear and procedures proliferate. Patrick Dillon wrote Lost at Sea to document sinkings and the investigation that led to major reform of industry safety standards. To ground his reporting, Dillon signed on for a crab season aboard a working vessel and joined the crew in the brutal conditions he describes. On the morning of the eighteenth, Doug steered the Provider into a biting wind as six crew members prepared to bait and dump pots far from ideal water. Temperatures hovered around twenty-five degrees below zero, and wind ripped at foul‑weather gear as each pot was dumped and cleared with a high‑pressure hose.