Nobody, N O B O D Y, expected a vessel of this size to be a crab boat, especially in Alaska, and rhe Bering Sea.
The 250ft Aria Epip, the largest ship ever, to fish the Alaskan crab seasons. The ship, although recently joined, the ship already grew much attention, ever since it rolled up at dock. With a massive stack onboard, way over 300 pots onboard.
It had it's own tie up spot a bit away from the harbour since it was too large to navigate and dock in any other spots. At first they thought it was a new, smaller processor, but when word came through that it was a crab boat, Captains and crews all around the fleey were intrigued by the behemoth fishing vessel.
The Captain, and owner of the F/V Aria Epip was 32 year old Jerry "Jay" Bay, life-long friend of Josh Harris, and the ship co-Captained by .
Altogether, the ship had a crew of 13 onboard, along with Captains and relief skipper. Most ships had 6-9, but since the Aria was so large, it needed more deckhands, and a qualified engineer, since the two 2,500hp engines, multiple auxiliaries, pumps, generators and other electrical and mechanical components needed regular maintenance to carry the near 500 tonne vessel.
And when she drove up the channel into the Harbour, most crews on the boats the Aria passed were standing on their ships's bow watching the behemoth crab boat move past the smaller boats, the Aria twice as big as most boats.
And Josh was equally excited to see the massive blue, green and yellow ship.
But the eay the Aria is so well equiped for crabbing was the fact that Jay husband, Connor Bay, was a very wealthy half-billion dollar owner of multiple clothing businesses.
"Her, Jay, Aria, you on here?" Casey said over the radio.
"Got ya loud 'n clear, Case. How's fishing?" Jay took the microphone off its hook, speaking into it before waiting for Mcmanus's response.
"Well, we're on good crab, but Harley is all up on our hotspot." Casey sounded pissed, like very pissed, "How many pots d'you got onboard?" Casey continued.
"Almost my whole stack, just set down my cod pots. I got 30 pots if you want 'em." Jay responded, looking at his crew preparing the first King pot.
"Gladly take them. Here's my plan, you come over here, we share the crab, while we box Harley and the rest of the fleet out, how's that?"
Since Josh and Jerry were really close friends, the Cornelia Marie and the Aria Epip had a permanent partnership, were if one needed help finding crab, the other would help, or if their searching for crab, their 100% honest with their numbers; a true partnership between boats.
"Dose Harley know of the Aria yet?" Jerry asked his buddy, who started laughing over the radio.
"I'm sure he's heard of her, but not how large she is. Com'on, get up here." Casey ended the transmission, Jay putting back the microphone before picking up the loudhailer, "Hey boys, come on in, we're heading up North."
The crew looked slightly confused, but tied down the ready King pot, and headed inside to shed off their raingear.
Leo Sparks, or Sparky, Jay's cousin, padded up into the wheelhouse, weilding a cup of coffee, going to Jay to ask why they were heading up North when they were going to set at a possibly good depth for a vien of King to be laying over.
"Hey, Jay. Gotcha coffee." The ginder man stated, placing the cup on Jay's large desk of moniters, depth finders, pressure gauges and papers.
"Thanks, Sparky, appreciate it." It was only a few days through King season for the Aria, but the Captain/Owner Jerry had around 8-9 hours of proper sleep altogether, he'd napped more hours than slept.
"No problem. I'm asking for the guys, but why are we headed North? I though we had a good spot where we were." Sparky asked, sitting into the co-Captains chair on the starboard side, beside the Captains.
"Casey called, appearantly Harley and the Southern Wind were trying to push them out of a productive hotspot, since we have all our gear on, we can box Harley and the fleet out, but with that, we share the crab. And I've allowed Casey 30 of our pots, since he's only got 120 onboard. We'll both have 150 pots each to go through." Jay explained, pointing the tip of his pen at when the Cornelia was. "Tell the guys were have 50 miles until we get to our spot." Jerry dismissed Sparky, as the younger man nodded, and left the wheelhouse.
"400,000lbs of King quota, hope fully we'll quickly get our crab and speed off to Dutch. We got a week to catch 100,000lbs for the first trip..." Jerry mumbled to himself, sipping the freshly brewed coffee while noting and writing down notes into his
logbooks, the producer taking that as his que to stop filming until they got here or something interesting happened.
Two hours and 50 miles later, the Aria Epip arrived at the Cornelia's hotspot. The producers camera panned onto Jerry as he radioed to the Cornelia.
"Cornelia, you got me here?" Jay said, pulling Aria into idle, the massive ship shifting gently over waves that would normally have a 120ft boat's crew on edge.
"Aria, Aria. You finally made it, welcome to your pots new home." Joah's voice gravelled over the radios speaker, causing Jay to laugh. "Home sweet home." Jerry joked back.
The Aria's crew was already on the deck preparing their first pot for launch.
"We'll talk to you in a bit, good luck Jay." Josh ended the conversation, "You too, Josh." Jay put away the radio, picking up the loudhailer, "Bombs away." He said into the hailer, pressing the buzzer to signal his crew to drop the pot.
On the Sothern Wind, 20 hours later, Harley was still all over Casey's hotspot, unbeknownst to what had been happening on the radio has been setting pots bordering Caaey's hotspot. He'd turned his AIS off, steaming up to what he thought was a Cornelia Marie pot, unaware of the massive ship and partner boat behind him.
"Alright, pick this pot up and give me an estimated count." Harley ordered over the loudhailer, as his crew got ready to pick the pot up.
Doing as told, the crew picked the pot up.
The pot was placed on the launcher, and the crew cheered, "Look's like about 50-70 in here, boss!"
Just as they were getting excited about finding a good spot to fish in, the radio began to static, before someone began talking, "Uh hey, they bud, you've just got my pot, man." The voice sounded annoyed, but not angry. "Southern Wind, you've gone through my pot." The voice continued, just as the bow of a ship came into view of the port side wheelhouse. But it was just hull.
Peering out the window, the giant name Aria Epip came into view, and the massive, massive ship the name belonged to.
The crew have taken notice of this before Harley did, and were on deck standing, staring at the behemoth, with little Cornelia Marie steaming beside it on the starboard-bow.
"I repeat, Southern Wind, you've gone through my pot." Now the deck of the Aria came into view, and 10 very angry looking deckmates were standing at the rail.
The Aria Epip was so large that the waves that rocked the Southern Wind up and down was barely moving the largest ship in the fleet. And in comparison, the Aria Epip was twice as long as the 125ft Northwestern. And just about 100ft longer than the Wizard, who used to be the largest vessel in the fleet. But now Aria took over that spot.
Harley didn't awnser the radio, just ordered his crew to set the pot back.
Jay looked out his starboard window, glaring down dissapointedly at the Southern Wind. Talking into the radio again, "I know checking another boat's pot isn't illegal, but you normally don't get caught, do you."
"D'you hear?" Mandy turned to her freshly woken father, Sig. "Heard what? What happened?" Sig tiredly asked, shooing Mandy out of the Captains chair.
"The Southern Wind picked up one of Aria Epip's pots up North. Why's it spreading through the radio so quickly? It's like a plague." Mandy sounded confused, but stayed composed, "I mean, from what I know it's not illegal to spot check another boats gear."
"Do you know anything about the Aria?" Sig asked, surprised Mandy didn't know anything about the huge crab boat, information spreading on the channels was quick enough to be picked up. "No, only know that their up North wirh the Cornelia." Mandy responded, plopping herself down in the co-Captains chair, looking over to her father.
"The Aria Epip is the largest boat in the fleet." Sig stated, pointing the Northwestern's bow towards their string. "The largest? I thought Wizard was the largest."
"Oh Mandy, the Wizard is no where as large as the Aria, the Aria Epip used to be a Russian boat, named the Russian Heart or something. Until Jay Bay bought it. It's 250 feet long. Twice as long as us." Sig said, watching as his daughters face morphed into surprised shock.
"That's why it spread so fast." Mandy muttered as Edgar strolled up the steps up to the wheelhouse, dishevelled, looking like a bush. "What's up, kid?" Edgar greeted his neice, giving her a high five, before going over to his eldest brother.
Before speaking to Sig, the radio frittzled on, "Mayday, mayday, we're taking on water, our pumps can't handle it, we're sinking." An EPIRB beacon popped up on the navigation, it was up North, where the Aria was.
"Roger, Vikky Venture, we are the closest vessel to you, we are on our way." Jerry Bay said over the radio.
TBC