Wizard 14" - Deadliest Catch

The Wizard was originally built for the US Navy in 1945 in Brooklyn, New York by the Ira S. Bushey shipyard as a yard oiler (YO 153 class). She is eastern rigged and is 155 feet long and 30 feet wide, and her name was the International Marine Organization number, YO-210. After serving in the Navy she was decommissioned and tied up in Boston Harbor until January 9, 1974. She was then sold in September 1974 to a private party, and used as a molasses hauler for eight months under the name Clifford K.

In 1979 she was purchased by John Jorgensen. She was modified by Bender Shipyard in Louisiana for use as a crabber in the Bering Sea. Jorgensen renamed her Wizard after his grandfather’s longliner, Wizard. John and his family sailed her through the Panama Canal and on to Seattle where Marco Shipyard finished the conversion. Before the conversion she had eight tanks for carrying oil cargo and a capacity of 240,000 gallons. During the conversion, two of the tanks were replaced with additional generators and a salt-water circulation system to keep crabs alive. Four of the original tanks are currently used as live holding tanks for crab. The two forward tanks are used for dry storage and a refrigerated seawater unit. The wheelhouse and living quarters were increased, and additional hydraulics for the two cranes and crab pot hauling equipment were added.

The F/V Wizard began fishing crab in 1979 during what is now known as the “King Crab Heyday” of the late 1970’s. During that time she targeted primarily bairdi crab (tanner), and the snow crab throughout the 1980s. In the late 1980s, when king crab had recovered and snow crab quotas surged to phenomenal levels, the Wizard routinely was one of the top ten crab producers in the Bering Sea, in a fleet that at times would be as large as 270 vessels. Under Jorgensen’s tutelage, while he was still active as a captain, Keith and Monte Colburn learned the ropes of many of the aspects of becoming proficient crab captains.

In 2005, when NOAA under the Department of Commerce enacted the Crab Rationalization program, vessels of the Bering Sea were awarded individual fishing quotas. The Wizard’s king crab and snow crab allocations were among the highest in the Bering Sea for an individual boat, ranking in the top five for kings, and top ten for snow, in a fleet of 250 vessels.

In July 2005, John Jorgensen and his partner Steve Soriano sold the vessel to long time captain Keith Colburn and his brother Monte Colburn.