Péril en haute mer

As king crab season begins, captains Keith Colburn and Phil Harris could be sidelined by life-threatening illnesses, and all the captains are under huge financial pressure from costly summer boat repairs.

The fleet is hunting down the elusive king crab when a vicious storm kicks up, and a mayday goes out. The Coast Guard launches rescue helicopters, and the captains stay glued to their radios.

Despite tragedy, the captains of the Time Bandit, Cornelia Marie, Wizard and Northwestern send their crews right back to fishing as soon as the weather clears.

Grueling hours and vicious hazing test the greenhorns, and some start to crack. The smallest boat in the fleet, the Lisa Marie, arrives on the scene with a young crew and something to prove.

Crab pots are coming up empty, and the skippers are out of ideas. Low bait and long grinds wear down the crews, and tempers flare.

An upcoming drop in the price of king crab has the skippers rushing to finish their season, but crew battles and a fierce Arctic storm block the way.

The king crab season is down to the wire, and the captains are desperate to top off their quotas. It looks bleak in the fished-out grounds. Some boats dig deep for an end-of-season sprint, and other boats just scrape by.

It's the start of opilio crab season, and the skippers have their eyes on the oncoming ice pack. Captain Phil Harris reunites with the Cornelia Marie, and the Time Bandit targets the Northwestern's greenhorn for sweet revenge.

The fleet arrives on the opilio grounds and struggles with ice, big seas and bad information to hunt down the crab. A skipper regrets sending his men out in savage weather to save the boat.

In the third week of opilio crab season, long hours and miserable conditions have the crews turning on each other. The Wizard reels from a monster wave that banged up the crew, and an old deckhand is ready to exit the Time Bandit.

After filling their boats with opilio crab, the skippers race to the harbor in St. Paul, Alaska, for offload, but the 250,000-square-mile Arctic ice pack stands in their way.

The skippers face frozen crab, frozen gear and a frozen harbor. On the Northwestern, Sig Hansen battles a fierce storm as he tries to quit smoking, and the Cornelia Marie's Phil Harris has a bubble theory.

The fleet gets word of great fishing by the ice pack, and captains Keith Colburn and Phil Harris fight over fishing turf. Captain Harry Lewis of the Incentive faces his fears and climbs north to frozen waters.

The fleet is tired and desperate for home, and deadly mistakes are made. The crews learn that when an ocean lies between a fisherman and his family, tragedy at home spells gut-wrenching heartbreak at sea.

The opilio season is almost over, but an Arctic storm front has the skippers on edge. The boats race to plug their tanks with crab and get back to port unscathed.

In the final 24 hours of the opilio crab season, a savage Arctic storm causes multiple vessels to send out maydays. The Coast Guard attempts to save four men before their boat is pounded into splinters against jagged rocks.