Crabmaster 14"

With crab species found worldwide, from the tropics to the arctic, crab boats sail all the world’s seas in search of their catch. Crabs make up 20% of all crustaceans consumed by humans, amounting to 1.4 million tons of catch by crab boats. Horse crab accounts for a quarter of this total, but other important crab fishing species include the snow crab, blue crab, edible crab, Dungeness crab and the famous king crab. 

Crab boats often fish by using traps. Large cage “pots” are baited with fish, then sunk to the sea floor where crab live, while floating buoys mark their locations. After deploying all of its traps throughout the crab fishery, the crab boat then repeats the circuit, hoisting the crab pots back aboard the ship and hoping to find them full of catch. Undersized specimens as well as unwanted bycatch are returned to the sea, while the desired crab types are stored in tanks aboard the crab boat until it arrives back in port. 

In recent years, commercial crab fishing has become a high-profile industry. Several documentary films and television series have exposed the world to the exciting and adventurous, yet dangerous world of crab fishing in Alaska’s Bering Sea, often focusing on the trapping of king crab and opilio crab, more commonly known as the queen crab or snow crab.