2009-05-16 NW Wild Country Radio Interview with Sig Hansen, Part 3/3

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[Part 1]     [Part 2]

You can listen to the interview here.

INTERVIEWER:  How much fuel do you go through?  Like in, for instance, in the opilio season?  How much fuel do you go through?

SIG:  I mean, if you’re running hard, you can do about a thousand gallons a day.

INTERVIEWER:  A thousand gallons a day.

SIG:  Yeah.  And that’s fishing, you know, anywhere from 6-800, so figure, like … you average about 800 gallons a day.  Depending on the size of your engine, and how far you’re running, and how you’ve got to push it.  So you’ve got the fuel, obviously, and then, you know, your expenses; you’ve got your overhead.  There’s bait, there’s maintenance on the boat; you know, you’ve got your insurance to cover everybody, that adds up; and then, you know, and we pay into these … you know, now that we have the new system, we have to pay in for our fishing fees, and the state, and the landing tax, and when you add it all up, I mean, it’s a pretty penny.

INTERVIEWER:  Sig Hansen is the captain of the Northwestern, and long-standing fans of the Deadliest Catch, of course, recognize these boats.  They almost treat these things like … oh, I don’t know, like they’re personalities themselves.  And of course, different personalities, different performances.  I’m kind of curious about your thoughts, Sig, about the different characteristics of the different styles of boats.  The Northwestern is a forward-cabin boat; I believe the Time Bandit, and the Cornelia Marie, and the Wizard … I believe those are all three aft-helm boats.  So, what, in your opinion, is the difference between those two styles, and the advantages and the disadvantages?

SIG:  Well, when you’re house-forward, you know, that boat was built in 1977, the Northwestern, so she was built specifically for crab fishing.  There’s not a lot of living quarters, you know, it’s all deck.  Right?

INTERVIEWER:  Right.

SIG:  For the length of the boat it is, I can pack 200 pots on there pretty easy, and that’s a good load for that size of vessel.  House-forward, is basically because, you know, you’re up forward, you’re not looking over the pots, it’s easier to get up on the buoys….

INTERVIEWER:  Mm-hmm.

SIG:  … and maneuver through there, and, you know, it’s a nice hauling machine.

INTERVIEWER:  Yeah.

SIG:  The difference with that and house-aft, your … house-aft is really nice for a guy, because if you’re … let’s say you’re bucking into 40-foot waves.

INTERVIEWER:  Right.

SIG:  Well, now you’re windows are way back, where house-forward, you live with the fact that you can blow those windows out.  So you’ve got to watch your throttle.  So that’s a negative.  But also, when you’ve got the house forward, you can plow through, you know, plow through the waves, and you’re protecting your crew.

INTERVIEWER:  Right.

SIG:  That’s a shield for your crew back there.  House-aft, those guys get hammered, you know?

INTERVIEWER:  So, you’re obviously an absolutely crazy busy guy, but everybody’s got to have some down time, so I’m kind of curious what, exactly, Sig Hansen does for fun, if you ever get a day off, and it doesn’t sound like you get too many days off during the year, but if you have, you know, a 24-hour period where you can choose to do whatever it is you want to do, what is that?  How do you unwind?  Give me the Sig Hansen prescription for relaxation.

SIG:  I mean, I used to golf, but I’m not getting out there anymore, and honestly, if I can spend quality time at home with my family, that’s just like … you know, with the cell phone off.

INTERVIEWER:  Right.

SIG:  That’s, like, my perfect day.  And it’s not happening a lot these days.  You know?  Just kicking around the house is a lot of fun for me.  And just even going down to Ballard and going to the shipyard and stuff and just BSing with people is a lot of fun for me.  Just hanging out.  But … yeah, it’s changed, quite a bit.  I never thought I’d have a calendar and a schedule book.

INTERVIEWER:  [laughs]  I bet there’s a lot of things you never thought you’d have.  I mean, your face has become a brand name.  I … if you go to the Northwestern website, Sig, your face is now on fish stick bags.  I mean, you can’t get away from yourself.

SIG:  No, I … you know, I thought that, a couple of years ago, we tried to brand seafood products, I thought it’s just a really nice fit; honestly, when I … after we did the show the second year, I thought that, “wait a minute.  Man, you’ve got like Gorton’s, this guy with a yellow hat.  You’ve got Charlie the Tuna.  It’s a cartoon.”  Right?  “And these cartoons are selling fish products.  So why shouldn’t you have a fisherman selling fish products?  If you can stick your face on there, or your boat on there, and stand behind it.”  You know?  And so, like … it’s tough.  I’ve got a freezer full of it, and I like it.

INTERVIEWER:  Give us your best Elbow Room story.  I know that … I mean, anybody who spends any time up there … we asked this question of Phil Harris, and he had a great story for us, but I mean, obviously, that particular bar … most people will never actually see it, and I believe it’s shut down now.  But you’ve got to have a great story, don’t you?

SIG:  Well, the best story, I don’t think I could even tell you on the … is this PG, or what are we doing?

INTERVIEWER:  Naw, we’re kind of PG-13, bordering on R, most of the time.  But, you know, Phil gave us a really good story, and I figured, you know what?  Let’s give Sig a chance to match that.

SIG:  Did he talk about the bell?

INTERVIEWER:  Uh … no, I can’t say that he mentioned a bell.

SIG:  Did Phil, ringing the bell, and all that?

INTERVIEWER:  He didn’t talk about that.  No, no.  He didn’t.  He talked about somebody shooting the lights out with a shotgun.

SIG:  Well, I don’t … well, in the Roadhouse, on Akutan, there’s 80 villagers living there, and he was sitting next to a guy, and they got all pissed off or something, and he pulled out a gun and he tried to shoot somebody, and he blasted a hole in the ceiling … the hole is still in the ceiling, kind of funny to look at.  And, uh … I’ll tell you a Roadhouse story.  There’s one cop on the island, and … native, great guy, and he was in the bar, drinking with us, and one of the crew members was playing pool, and some guy got pissed off at something, and the next thing you know, there’s a pool ball—one of those cue balls—flying across the bar, and it just went past Mark’s head.  Our crew member.  And so he looks at him, and he just takes off running after him, and they’re trudging through, you know, four feet of snow, finally catches him, whooping of his life, comes back in the bar, orders a drink, and then the cop (and I won’t say his name), he looks at him, and he says, “Didja get ’im?”  You know, Mark says, “I got ’im.”  And then he says, “Good.”  And then, he bought him a drink and they sat there.

INTERVIEWER:  That’s called “frontier justice” right there, right?

SIG:  Oh, yeah, you know … another one, too: one of the boats came in and actually … they got tossed in the clink, for being naughty, and so the boat was going to leave the next morning, and then the crew was like, “Wait a minute.  I can’t be in jail.  I’ve got to go fishing.”  And so, around five in the morning, they kind of looked at each other, and these are friends of mine, they huddled together, locked elbows and arms, and then they just ran into the wall, they blew the wall down, walked back to the boat, jumped on, went fishing.  As the boat went by, the cops got him on the VHF radio and said, “Where the hell are you going?”  He said, to the captain, and he goes, “I’ll bring ’em back when the trip’s over, trust me.”  He said, “Okay.”  So they spent their time when they came back out and loaded up.

INTERVIEWER:  Very few places in the world where things like that happen.  You’ve been involved in this whole business, Sig, for how long, now?  I want to say that it’s … I want to say 22, 23 years.  I mean, how long have you been in this business of fishing for a living?

SIG:  Well, I’m forty-three, and I got up there when I was fourteen, so it’s a while.

INTERVIEWER:  How much longer do you think you can do it?

SIG:  Oh, I’m not dead yet, man.  I think I’ll be up there for quite some years.  Yeah.

INTERVIEWER:  Well, listen, I know you’re a busy dude.  We’re going to go ahead and cut you loose, but it’s a pleasure to talk to you, you know, you’re obviously one of Seattle’s favorites, because you’re a Seattle guy.  We appreciate your time, Sig.  Good talking to you.

SIG:  Oh, thank you.

INTERVIEWER:  There he goes, folks; Captain Sig Hansen of the F/V Northwestern; log onto triple-w dot f-v northwestern dot com for information about Northwestern swag, gear, so for they’ve got a lot of things going on, as Sig might have mentioned: the video game, and production of fish sticks, and fish sauces, and the bottom line is that, on Tuesday evenings, you can watch him on the Deadliest Catch, it is America’s number one rated cable program, one of the best shows, one of our favorite shows ever.  Now, the tentative plan, Mr. Herzog, for “Deadliest Radio,” is to continue with the Hansen clan next week.  We’ll hopefully have Edgar Hansen who is the lead deck on the Northwestern, down at the studio, and he is going to, if everything goes well, according to our plans, he will actually be interviewing a couple of KJR staffers about the possibility of them being deckhands aboard the Northwestern sometime.  So, it should be good.  All right, let’s take one more quick break, here, and when we come back, we’ll kind of get things rolling on the downhill stretch, here, at Auburn Sports and Marine.  We’re going to be live here until eight o’clock; come on down, folks!  We’ve got some giveaway swag here, we’ve got the coffee machine going, the doors are open early this morning for Northwest Wild Country listeners, Auburn Sports is usually open at nine o’clock; this morning only, they’re opening their doors at eight o’clock.  They’ve got a lot of fantastic stuff.  If you’re looking for tackle and boat deals, come on down; pick up the flyer on the front counter, you’ve got pretty much everything under the sun you could want for your fishing needs right here at Auburn Sports and Marine.  You’re listening to Northwest Wild Country, America’s number one rated outdoors radio news program, right here on Sports Radio, 950 KJR.