Fishing Ships of the United States - Fv Northwestern, Andrea Gail, Fv Wizard, Pelican, Fv Alaska Ranger, Fv Cornelia Marie, Fv Big Valley (Paperback)

Chapters: Fv Northwestern, Andrea Gail, Fv Wizard, Pelican, Fv Alaska Ranger, Fv Cornelia Marie, Fv Big Valley, Fv North American. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 32. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: F/V Northwestern is a crab fishing vessel notable for being featured in the Discovery Channel series Deadliest Catch. The vessel is owned and operated by the Hansen family of Washington state; the current captain is Sig Hansen and his brothers, Edgar and Norman, are both deckhands/engineers on the ship. The Northwestern, a western rigged boat, was built in 1977 at Marco Shipyards in Seattle for the sole purpose of fishing King and Tanner Crab off of the coast of Alaska. It was christened Northwestern on November 5, 1977 by Snefrid Hansen, wife of then-captain Sverre Hansen and mother of the current owner/operators, Sig, Norman, and Edgar Hansen. Sig Hansen in front of the F/V NorthwesternIn the 1980s the boat was one of the first to fish Opilio crab. Throughout the '80s the Northwestern kept very busy year round fishing Opilio crab, Blue King crab, Red King crab, and Brown King crab at different times of the year. To keep up with the increasing demand for crab in the late '80s and early '90s, boats needed to carry more pots (steel box shaped traps that are used to fish crab). Rather than buying a new boat, the Hansen family decided to have the Northwestern extended twice. Originally built at 108 feet (32.9 m) with the ability to carry 156 pots, the Northwestern was extended to 118 feet (36.0 m) in 1987 to allow for 200 pots. In 1991, when the maximum crab pots a boat could carry was raised to 250, the Hansens again had the Northwestern lengthened, this time to 125 ft (38 m). Sverre Hansen's three sons worked aboard the Northwestern as deckhands throughout their childhood, and all th...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=1041444