Northern Leader

If you spend a couple weeks sailing aboard a factory fishing vessel you’ll begin to redefine what hard work is all about... especially when you’re in a storm called a ‘bomb cyclone’. I was aboard Northern Leader for nearly three weeks, a 168-foot fishing boat based in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Working each day on the decks in the nasty Bering Sea swells and navigating your way through the massive onboard fish factory can be tough enough on its own but throw in a cyclone that was the strongest North Pacific winter storm ever recorded and you have yourself a once in a lifetime rollercoaster ride! Equivalent to a category 2 hurricane and gusts up to 125mph we were tossed around in fifty foot swells for days. It got so intense on the outside decks a crew member was nearly washed overboard. It’s one of the most gruelling shoots aboard a ship I’ve been on, and I’ve been on many. I had an amazing crew to ride the waves with, both my film crew (tough as nuts that kept filming through the worst of the storm) and the fearless Northern Leader crew, who made it feel like you were with family while toughing it out on the Bering Sea, hanging onto the rails and toilet bowl. Photos and video of wind and waves never do the real deal justice, it’s so difficult to capture any size perspective, but a few video clips I shot on my phone give you some sense of it all. What a ride!

Tech Specs

Tonnage: 1712 GT
Length: 184 ft
Beam: 18.75 ft
Product Capacity: 1.7 million lbs
Freezer Hold: 38,000 cubic feet
Hook System: Mustad Autoline Super Baiter
Number of Hooks: 76,800
Propulsion: 2 x Schottel Z-Drive and 1 x Schottel tunnel thruster
Power: 4 x Caterpillar C32 gensets @ 715 kW each,
1 x Caterpillar C18 gensets @ 425 kW & 1 x Caterpillar C9 @ 238 kW