This rogue wave may be the biggest challenge Deadliest Catch Captain Jake Anderson and the Saga crew has ever faced.
In Tuesday’s all-new episode of the Discovery show, the Saga captain was hit by a surprise that nearly took out his crew amid a season filled with challenges.
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Anderson wasn’t up against tricky alliances with other captains like Sig Hansen and Keith Colburn or hit-or-miss crabbing like earlier in the season, however. Instead, the Saga was pummeled head on by a rogue wave.
By definition, a rogue wave is close to impossible to see coming, but the moment Anderson figured out what was about to hit his boat, he sounded the alarms on the deck, warning the deckhands to brace for impact.
“Here’s a big one, it’s coming our way,” Anderson said from the captain’s deck. “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me!”
Knocking the fishermen across the boat, Anderson said after checking for casualties it was the kind of wave that would “turn you to splinters.”
Deckhand Dave was shocked at the force at which the water hit the boat. “That is by far the biggest wave I’ve seen hit the side of this boat,” he said, shaken. “That is by far the closest and hairiest thing I’ve seen yet. You don’t believe that there’s that much force in a wave.”
And while all good sense would tell Anderson to turn back and go to safer waters, he forged on.
“All I’m doing is getting the crap knocked out of me. It’s only gonna get worse,” he said. “Is this worth dying for? No, but I do need my bills paid, you know?”
Anderson teased that the weather was his biggest nemesis this season in an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com prior to the season premiere.
“Our tides haven’t been this strong in 150 years,” Anderson said at the time. “So everybody in the fleet had something new to deal with that they never have dealt with before and probably will never see in their lifetime again.”
He blamed some of the megawaves on the supermoon event, which messed with the tides and made things on the Bering Sea more dangerous than normal.
“To basically explain it in layman’s terms,” Anderson explained to PopCulture, “if the wave heights were said to be 19 feet, where I was at, I’d be about 30, 35-foot swells.”
It also affected the crew’s crab pull.
“Nobody goes out to a fast food chain when there’s a hurricane blowing, and that’s how it is for the crab,” Anderson added. “It made bad weather worse; it made crab fishing difficult; it made even fishing on the easiest of days very, very dangerous. And everybody will see that on this upcoming season.”
We see what he means now!
Deadliest Catch airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Discovery.
Photo Credit: Discovery
