Dutch Harbor, Alaska — The Saga crab boat faced a chaotic and dangerous scene this week, as Captain Jake Anderson struggled to maneuver his vessel against 60-knot winds with only a skeleton crew on deck. What began as a docking nightmare quickly spiraled into a full-blown personnel crisis, raising questions about discipline, safety, and sobriety at sea.
The ordeal began when Anderson attempted to dock the Saga with one engine out of commission. “It’s hard having one guy up here, walking it up, you know,” Anderson said from the wheelhouse. Down two deckhands, he was left with only Nick and Tim to handle three lines in gale-force winds. “I want to shoot myself right now,” Anderson muttered in frustration as the boat nearly collided with another vessel.
Despite the setbacks, the undermanned crew managed to secure the lines and regain control of the ship. But the relief was short-lived. Missing deckhands Jamie Smith and Kenny Jensen returned to the vessel two hours late—and immediately faced suspicion of drinking on duty.
“You’re two hours late. It’s blowing 60 and you leave your brother by himself manning three lines in a storm with one engine,” Anderson scolded. Producing alcohol test strips, the captain demanded both men take the test on the spot. “Good deckhand or not, amazing deckhand or not, they’re getting alcohol strips as soon as they get here,” Anderson declared.
Both men admitted to drinking, though they claimed it was limited. “I had cranberry and vodka. I know I should’ve been here,” Smith confessed. Anderson, himself a recovering alcoholic, took the infraction personally. “You compromise my sobriety by drinking around me like this,” he told the crew.
After four hours in what the crew dubbed “the drunk tank,” Smith and Jensen were retested. Initially, both appeared to pass—until suspicions surfaced that Smith had tampered with his results. A crewmate revealed that Smith’s test strip had been scratched to conceal a positive result.
“Are you kidding me? He scratched it off?” Anderson exclaimed when shown the evidence. Smith, who allegedly consumed “six to eight doubles” before boarding, soon walked off the boat with his backpack, leaving his future with the Saga in jeopardy.
“I’m still technically and legally responsible for him,” Anderson admitted, noting the paperwork required to sever liability. “If he gets hurt or he hurts somebody else, it’ll be my direct responsibility and the boat’s.”
The incident underscores the dangers of alcohol in the high-stakes world of crab fishing, where even minor lapses can put lives and livelihoods at risk. For Anderson, already down one engine and behind quota, the scandal adds a new layer of uncertainty.
“You’re so lucky you still got your job,” Anderson told Jensen, who avoided dismissal by the thinnest margin. “You’re close.”
As the Saga pushes to complete its season with 60,000 pounds left to catch, Anderson must decide whether discipline, trust, and sobriety can be restored—or whether his troubled crew will sink the season before the ice does.
