Deadliest Catch Numbers…
From Discovery
8,000: The hours of footage shot over the course of the king and opilio crab seasons, filling 5,000 videotapes. This footage is painstakingly edited down to 12 one-hour episodes.
5,000: The pounds (2,268kg) of equipment the production team has to ship from Los Angeles to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, to film Deadliest Catch.
200: The number of hours a Deadliest Catch producer/cameraman flew in US Coast Guard rescue helicopters this season.
60: The number of cameras the film crews starts with each season. Only a third of the cameras are still working when they return to land. The others are ruined by saltwater and freezing temperatures.
60: The maximum number of seconds it takes a cameraman to put on their survival suit before they are allowed to go out to sea.
36: The average number of days a cameraman will spend at sea over the course of one season of Deadliest Catch.
32: The record number of consecutive days a Deadliest Catch cameraman has spent at sea (aboard the F/V Northwestern during the 2006 cod and opilio crab seasons).
18: The number of cameramen used to film the third series of Deadliest Catch.
4: The number of minutes someone can survive in the Bering Sea without a survival suit.
3: The number of lives saved by the US Coast Guard during those rescue flights.
Filed under: Discovery, Original Productions
These numbers remind me that the job of documenting crab fishing is almost as difficult as the fishing. Almost.
I have to say that I’m glad Discovery is willing to take the financial risk.