Learning To Rapidly Adapt In High Stress Environments
Or…
Crab Fishing In The Bering Sea
2001-2007
Primary Objective: ● $ Secondary Objective: ● Discovery/Adventure
Expectation: ● It was going to be hard ● ?
Reality ● No sleep ● conditionsworkingDangerous ● Cold ● tollPsychologicalofisolation ● Split decisionsecondmaking ● 4 Marines quit in my 6 years of fishing.
The Bering Sea
● Primary Hazard # 1: Smashed hands/body parts & concussions ● Primary Hazard # 2: Non-lethal hypothermia ● Primary Hazard # 3: Man overboard → hypothermia → death ● Primary Hazard # 4: Catastrophic engine failure or fire (esp during a storm)
Bait → Bait Bag → Crab Pot → Launcher → Soak → Hope For Crab ● ~200 crab pots on the boat ● Roughly 700 lbs/320,000 kg per pot (empty)
Hypothermia. ● You can get hypothermia in water temp below 70°F / 21°C ● Avg Bering Sea water temp during fishing months: 38.8°F / 3.8°C ● Time to hypothermia in these water temperatures: under 3 min ● Avg time to turn boat around is ~7 min
Roughly 150 ft long / 45m
● 5000+ calories burned per day (~1.5lbs / .7 kilos per day) ● That’s 10x more calories than you burn playing a professional football match ● How do you quickly resolve a massive calorie deficit on a crab boat? Supplements: ● Working hours are 20-72 hour shifts on deck, followed by 3-4 hours of sleep, then back on deck for 20-72 hours… for 5-10 weeks. 7 days a week. ● TAC (Total allowable catch per season) was about 22 Million lbs (nearly 10M kilos) of King crab ● Fisheries payout to boats= $4.25 per lb / $8/kilo ● We catch 275,000+ lbs per season / 125,000 kilos ● 4 crew members per boat = 4 way split By the numbers…
Constants:●Heavyequipment●Sleepdeprivation●Poweredbyadrenaline-fight/flight Variables:●Storms/Swells/Waves- 30ft-40ft waves (9-13 meters) ● -10 degrees f /- 23 degrees celsius ● Ice ● Engine room fires
Was there a lesson?
There’s often an opportunity in risk. It’s rewarding to learn how to mitigate and control risk, and then actually being able to turn that into an opportunity.
● Crab shells are made of chitin. ● Very abundant bipolymer. ● Could one day be an alternative or replacement to the Lithium-Ion battery ● Like Lithium, chitin may be able to bind to zinc to make electrode materials
