Trawlermen (2006) s01e05 Episode Script
Coming Home
1 Tonight, skipper James risks sinking his boat when's he's surrounded by 30 other trawlers.
John and his crew go it alone in temperatures of minus 10.
Roll on the summertime! And Jimmy may have to throw his fish back into the sea.
- I'm not out here to dump fish.
- 0h, dear, dear.
It's all in a day's work for the men who do the most dangerous Job in Britain.
150 miles south of the Arctic Circle, whitefish trawler Ocean Venture is taking a huge risk.
They've come to the deep and dangerous waters of the Atlantic with no guarantee that they'll find any fish.
It's the first time that Alan Dennison, the youngest deckhand on the boat, has been this far north.
I never really get scared, because this is home from home.
I spend approximately nine months of the year at sea.
So I spend more time on this boat than what I actually do at home in my own house.
They're six days into a ten-day trip but their hold is half-empty.
So they've left their usual fishing grounds to come north in the hope of catching highly prized Greenland halibut which will earn them big money.
Skipper John waits anxiously to see what's coming aboard.
The haul is massive but it's not what they were expecting.
It's redfish, almost unknown in the UK, but hugely popular in France and Spain.
It's been a while since John caught any redfish.
It used to fetch a good price.
(Laughs) But before he gets too excited, John calls his fish agent at Peterhead to find out if the redfish is going to make the boat's fortune.
200 miles east of Ocean Venture, the skipper of the trawler Amity is also in a good mood.
0h, what a beautiful morning! Like a summer's day today.
The skipper and his gang today.
I can hear the prawns from here! Amity is fishing for prawns in the North Sea.
Only 12 hours ago, the boat was in the teeth of a force 10 storm and the crew in a deep depression.
0h, what a difference a day makes.
Today it's the best job in the world.
Yesterday in the storm it was the worst job in the world.
Absolutely amazing.
Skipper Jimmy Buchan has been chasing the elusive prawns for five days.
With little success.
This is their first haul since the storm, and first mate Kevin O'Donnell is desperate to start catching some prawns and making some money.
Yes, we're gonna catch some today.
Skipper is singing and everything! - What do you think, Kevin? - Very good haul.
I'm so pleased with the skipper today.
- (Laughter) - He's a good man.
(Kevin) 0K! The problem is that it's mostly fish and hardly any prawns.
But at least now they've got something to sell.
Look at that.
Lovely big fish.
Absolute beauty.
As well as cod, they've got some monkfish, also known as angler fish.
The reason that it's called an angler fish is the sea bed is this colour, this brown colour, so he's sitting there with his angler out just over his mouth like this just like a fishing rod, and along comes the fish to eat this, which is luminous, and this opens up.
And once you go in there, they're ain't no return! Amity might have got a big haul of fish, but they still need to catch prawns, and they're not the only boat in the North Sea looking for them.
Amity has to fight for its catch with the 60 other prawn boats that fish out of Peterhead.
Including their arch-rival Fruitful Bough.
In sharp contrast to Amity, the ambitious skipper of Fruitful Bough, 29-year-old James West, has found more prawns than he knows what to do with.
(Grunts) They're at the end of a ten-day trip and have only got a few more boxes to fill, and it looks like James's luck is still in.
He's spotted a group of boats all circling the same fishing ground.
Wee spot of prawn just came up in this area, and everybody's kind of gathered into this area.
There must be about 20 or 30 boats fishing within a six-mile range here now.
So many boats in one place on the radar is a sure sign of rich pickings.
But it's not that straightforward.
As all the boats Jostle for space, they're in danger of the marine equivalent of a motorway pile-up.
Trying to get through all these boats I went through this way, there's a boat gone that way and one this way, and my gap's just gonna open up hopefully, but then there's another guy coming this way and he's gonna close up the gap.
But the danger isn't Just on the surface - it's what's hidden beneath the waves.
Every boat is towing a net which is a quarter of a mile long.
If the trawlers don't stay at least a mile apart, their gear could easily become tangled.
If one of these boats was to stick up and they would have to heave back their gear then you get into a wee bit of a problem and everything'll go into knots.
If James makes one wrong move, he could cause a mid-sea collision and lose his boat, worth more than £1.
5 million.
In the freezing waters of the North Atlantic, John, skipper of Ocean Venture, is having the spare bins put into the fish hold in anticipation of more good hauls.
Ready for fish! Below deck, Alan and Jonathan are busy packing away the last catch.
Ready! John's gamble of travelling to deep waters seems to be paying off.
They've Just found out that their haul of redfish is worth a massive £2,500.
Whoo-hoo! Yeah, I can just see the pound signs rolling in Johnny's eyes.
The big dollars are coming home.
Aye, there'll be no more charity-shopping for you, Johnny.
- We'll get a steak supper when we get home.
- Aye.
Ready! You'll maybe manage to take your wife out for a steak, Alan.
Aye, I'll maybe take mine to the chip shop.
(Both laugh) For a deep-fried Mars bar! No.
Patty and chips, patty and chips.
One thing that won't be on offer at the chip shop is another inhabitant of the deep water - distant cousin to the shark, it's the ratfish.
Very bad spike in their back.
If the spike breaks off inside your body, we've heard of people having to get airlifted cos it's poisonous.
It actually tastes a bit like a lemon sole, the flesh of it.
But, er, there just isn't a market for them.
The housewife isn't going to go into a shop and buy something called a ratfish.
Well, would your wife buy a ratfish? Fruitful Bough is still dodging 30 other boats and their fishing gear as they all fight for the prawns in the same area of the sea.
(Indistinct radio chatter) Skipper James has Just managed to avert a catastrophe.
Just as we was towing down here, everybody's towing in the same strip, but everybody's got their idea of where the best spot of prawns is at.
And us and the other boat, the Moray Endeavour, we ended up just a bit close to him just now.
Too close for my liking, but everything was all right.
All right, er, special tonight is chicken korma.
What do you want, then? - Er, I'll have, er - Chicken korma.
I'll have a chicken korma, please.
Fruitful Bough is a family business, and amongst the crew is James's youngest brother Andrew who has only been at sea for the past three months.
All right, all right, Chef.
Chef! Er, can I have six chicken kormas, please? This trip they've been doing well, and they need Just one more good catch to send them off home.
(Andrew) If it's not a good haul this time, I suppose there'll be a bit of disappointment and it's going to take longer to fill the boxes and we're not gonna get so much money at the end of it as well, so But hopefully it'll be all right.
As the net comes in, it looks as though it's another bumper haul.
But it isn't prawns that are making the net so heavy it's a massive boulder.
That was so big.
We would call that a Mini Cooper.
The boulder has ruined their catch and torn the net.
James's middle brother Robert is first mate on the boat and he isn't impressed.
Pretty much all the fish, they're all pretty much destroyed and not eatable.
A lot of fish and prawns are broken and squashed.
We can't keep them, so I'll just write this haul off.
The wasted haul and damaged net are spreading mutiny on the Bough, led by the cook, William.
Everybody's kind of bored and hacked off.
So It's been a slow start, so we'll maybe have to throw James out the wheelhouse and put Robert in.
Do you think you can make a better job, Rob? (William) James out, Robert in.
Yay-hey! (Man) Revolution! (William) Revolution! (Cheering) (Laughter) It's the first bad haul that Fruitful Bough have had this trip, and it's hit James hard.
I would say my morale's poor, and the crew probably the same.
But Ah, we'll be 0K.
But you do feel crap, it does affect you if you're nae catching.
Fruitful Bough's rival, Amity, have a different problem.
They're catching too many fish and not enough prawns for the skipper Jimmy.
Too many empty boxes down there, boys.
We need to get them filled up.
I'm trying my best, Kevin, I'm trying my best.
As a prawn boat, the amount of fish that Amity can catch is limited by EU rules.
If they catch too many fish, they will have to throw them back, even if they're dead.
The rules is there to conserve fish, I do understand that.
But, as I've been searching and the weather's been bad, the prawns have not been coming up from the sea bed, with the result that I've been catching more fish than I would normally catch.
It's very hard for me to come down to my crew and tell them, "Well, next haul we'll have to throw the fish away.
" It's crazy.
Jimmy's already tried three different fishing grounds and hasn't found enough prawns.
He has no choice.
He'll have shift again, this time to a 200-metre-deep ravine.
It's one of his old hunting grounds, but it has destroyed his nets in the past.
I'm prepared to take that chance because the prawns may just be that bit bigger, there may be more.
We'll maybe haul up, it'll be a poor haul, but in the fishing, you can never tell until you try.
To get to the ravine, Jimmy will have to steam for 50 miles, which will cost £300 and lose valuable fishing time.
We will have a fishy on a little dishy when the boat comes in On Ocean Venture, deckhands Alan and Jonathan are doing some running repairs.
They're still in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic.
It's minus 2 degrees in the water just now.
- Is that what it is? - Aye.
The reality is that anyone falling in the water here could be dead within 15 minutes.
Down in the warm galley, having finished his duties on deck, Tucker is cooking haddock for tea.
Me, I'm the chef.
0r cook! I've been at sea 18 years this year.
My friends would probably think I'm a bit nuts.
They know how dangerous it is.
Boats going down, fishermen getting drowned, and I suppose they worry about me.
But it's something I never think about.
If I thought about it I wouldn't have come to this job.
You're missing your friends and your family and your loved ones.
It's probably one of the loneliest jobs in the world, I would say.
Missing the family is an occupational hazard for trawlermen.
But it's particularly hard on those with young children, like 24-year-old Alan.
Alan and his wife Lisa have two girls.
Seven-month-old Alex and three-year-old Libby.
Sometimes when I got away to sea for a long time, Libby goes around the house saying, "Dad's lost, we can't find him.
Dad's lost.
" Ah, it's got the downside to it.
You miss your kids growing up.
I want you to stay at home the whole time.
You want me to stay at home the whole time? If the crew can't be at home, at least they can enjoy Tucker's home cooking - a highlight of skipper John's day.
You can't beat the fresh haddock.
Straight out the sea.
Into the frying pan, onto the plate.
(Chuckles) - Well done, Chef.
- Cheers, Jimmy.
- Top-notch, Tucker.
- Cheers, boys.
Cheers, Dave.
Righto, wakey wakey! Wakey wakey! 0K to go! The crew of Fruitful Bough have been in their bunks for less than two hours.
Righto, boys! Wakey wakey! They haul four times a day and often have to work 20 hours at a stretch.
Wakey wakey! Wakey wakey! Come on, Andrew! After eight days at sea, it's taking its toll.
What time is it? I don't know these things.
I don't know time or day.
But there's nothing like a big haul of prawns to wake everybody up.
It's what skipper James West has been waiting for.
This is what we like to see.
Big baskets full, small baskets half full.
So that's telling us it's a better selection of prawns, which is excellent.
With such an impressive last haul, James finally turns the boat for home, to the obvious Joy of the crew.
James West, take me home! To the place where we belong! Take me home To the place Why are they happy? Wee bit like that, I think.
Country road, take me home To the place where I belong West Virginia, mountain mama Take me home Country road Take me home, country road - Magic! - Yeah! As Fruitful Bough steams into port, the head of the West family fishing dynasty, James Senior, is looking out for his sons.
I've done this for about 11 years now.
Waiting for my boys for when they come home.
Get landed now and home to our own beds.
It's kick-ass cool.
Having docked in the harbour, the catch is being unloaded for market.
James Senior comes down to see the fruits of their labour.
It's been good fishing.
It will make a nice trip, I would say.
I think I would have been quite proud of it.
So we're all happy.
Younger generation triumphs over the older generation! I taught him everything he knows! I'm nae saying nothing! In the morning, they'll find out whether youth has triumphed over experience, when the fish is sold at market.
(Radio) North or northwest, 5 to 7, perhaps gale 8 later in Faeroes and Southeast Iceland.
Snow showers (Narrator) As Ocean Venture prepare for their final haul in deep water, the crew are facing the worst Atlantic weather so far.
We can't see what's happening for snow just now! (Wind howling) John the skipper is snug and warm in the wheelhouse.
I'm very cosy in here but I've been out there and done it.
My turn has passed.
Roll on the summertime! They've been getting excellent hauls of redfish but they're still searching for the valuable but elusive Greenland halibut.
Nestled amongst the redfish are some Greenland halibut.
They might not look like much but these are some of the most expensive fish in Britain.
Well, we've had good fishing here in the deep water, so I'm delighted.
That makes it all worthwhile.
We'll now all get our pay at the end of it.
I think we'll just go home now.
See if we can catch a price at the market.
The fish market will be the real test of whether Ocean Venture's trip is a success or failure.
But it will be 48 hours before they find out.
Been blown onboard with the snow.
First they have to steam home through the snowstorm.
He's away.
He's one of the lucky ones.
320 miles away in Peterhead, skipper James West is unloading the last of Fruitful Bough's catch.
One coming up this side.
Their prawns have already been sold to their regular buyers and more than covered the boat's running expenses of £15,000.
But if the crew are to get a decent payday, their fish must get a good price at the daily market.
40 a pick, 40 a pick, 40 a pick.
81, 81, 81.
Small cod! Two and a quarter at 80.
Two and a quarter at 80.
Success or failure for Fruitful Bough is all down to their fish agent, Steven Mowatt.
95 aye, 95 aye, 95 the lot.
The buyers at this wholesale market include distributors who sell fish across Britain and Europe, as well as processors, who will turn the fish into anything from fish paste to fishfingers.
One and three quarters at 75.
One and three quarters at 70.
Fruitful Bough's cod doesn't sell well.
There's too much cod in the market today and prices are low.
Three at 55.
Three at 55.
But Steven's hoping to see a better result with the squid.
75! 75! Is it 80? 75.
That's the squid there.
The squid's made £80.
Beautiful fish.
It's not fantastic money, but it's 0K, you know.
It's well over £2 a kilo.
But they're lovely fish.
But what really pleases Steven is the price he gets for the Atlantic halibut.
£400 a box.
400 and odd quid for 50 kilos, so about £8 a kilo.
It's a pity we couldn't get some more of them, eh? Despite a shaky start, by the end of the auction all the fish sells.
Which means that each crew member earns a satisfying £1,300 for their ten-day trip.
James the skipper is delighted.
Prices is good in the fish market, so forget about how hard it was.
We're in, we've got our good trip, everybody's gonna be happy.
High five! Are you keen to get out again? - No.
- (Laughter) At sea, news of the money Fruitful Bough made at market is rubbing salt in their competitors' wounds.
Er, Fruitful Bough has landed today.
Big shot.
So Wee bit envious.
As they say, the money's in the bag with him.
My bag's still wide open.
In his hunt for the elusive prawns, Jimmy has brought his boat to their fourth fishing ground of the trip, a 200-metre-deep ravine which could destroy his net.
Hope the prawns is working the night shift tonight.
The moon is up.
Hope they've not all gone to bed.
(Calls out) The crew are now about to haul.
What they don't want to find is any more fish.
If they exceed their limits, they'll have to throw it back.
Lot of fish there again tonight.
It's too fishy.
There's not a lot of prawns there.
They might have caught a few prawns tonight, but it's not enough.
The amount of fish they've been netting is causing a crisis.
Jimmy calls an emergency meeting to discuss tactics.
There's two options open to us at the moment.
We either shift the grounds, shift 30 miles, and maybe get no prawns at all and be in a bigger mess, or do we stay here and start dumping fish? I'm not out here to dump fish.
I want to make money, like.
Kevin, I don't make the rules, I've just got to live within the rules.
So that's it, now.
We're gonna have to shift round again and probably catch nothing.
0h, dear, dear.
Jimmy's caught between a rock and a hard place.
He will have to draw on all his 20 years' experience as skipper to get himself out of this one.
But he won't give up without a fight.
Never surrender! Tomorrow on Trawlermen Amity catches more than Just prawns in their nets If this blows up now, I'm a goner.
Ocean Venture makes one last haul How many fish suppers? and the most successful pair trawlers in Peterhead set off with a rookie on board.
John and his crew go it alone in temperatures of minus 10.
Roll on the summertime! And Jimmy may have to throw his fish back into the sea.
- I'm not out here to dump fish.
- 0h, dear, dear.
It's all in a day's work for the men who do the most dangerous Job in Britain.
150 miles south of the Arctic Circle, whitefish trawler Ocean Venture is taking a huge risk.
They've come to the deep and dangerous waters of the Atlantic with no guarantee that they'll find any fish.
It's the first time that Alan Dennison, the youngest deckhand on the boat, has been this far north.
I never really get scared, because this is home from home.
I spend approximately nine months of the year at sea.
So I spend more time on this boat than what I actually do at home in my own house.
They're six days into a ten-day trip but their hold is half-empty.
So they've left their usual fishing grounds to come north in the hope of catching highly prized Greenland halibut which will earn them big money.
Skipper John waits anxiously to see what's coming aboard.
The haul is massive but it's not what they were expecting.
It's redfish, almost unknown in the UK, but hugely popular in France and Spain.
It's been a while since John caught any redfish.
It used to fetch a good price.
(Laughs) But before he gets too excited, John calls his fish agent at Peterhead to find out if the redfish is going to make the boat's fortune.
200 miles east of Ocean Venture, the skipper of the trawler Amity is also in a good mood.
0h, what a beautiful morning! Like a summer's day today.
The skipper and his gang today.
I can hear the prawns from here! Amity is fishing for prawns in the North Sea.
Only 12 hours ago, the boat was in the teeth of a force 10 storm and the crew in a deep depression.
0h, what a difference a day makes.
Today it's the best job in the world.
Yesterday in the storm it was the worst job in the world.
Absolutely amazing.
Skipper Jimmy Buchan has been chasing the elusive prawns for five days.
With little success.
This is their first haul since the storm, and first mate Kevin O'Donnell is desperate to start catching some prawns and making some money.
Yes, we're gonna catch some today.
Skipper is singing and everything! - What do you think, Kevin? - Very good haul.
I'm so pleased with the skipper today.
- (Laughter) - He's a good man.
(Kevin) 0K! The problem is that it's mostly fish and hardly any prawns.
But at least now they've got something to sell.
Look at that.
Lovely big fish.
Absolute beauty.
As well as cod, they've got some monkfish, also known as angler fish.
The reason that it's called an angler fish is the sea bed is this colour, this brown colour, so he's sitting there with his angler out just over his mouth like this just like a fishing rod, and along comes the fish to eat this, which is luminous, and this opens up.
And once you go in there, they're ain't no return! Amity might have got a big haul of fish, but they still need to catch prawns, and they're not the only boat in the North Sea looking for them.
Amity has to fight for its catch with the 60 other prawn boats that fish out of Peterhead.
Including their arch-rival Fruitful Bough.
In sharp contrast to Amity, the ambitious skipper of Fruitful Bough, 29-year-old James West, has found more prawns than he knows what to do with.
(Grunts) They're at the end of a ten-day trip and have only got a few more boxes to fill, and it looks like James's luck is still in.
He's spotted a group of boats all circling the same fishing ground.
Wee spot of prawn just came up in this area, and everybody's kind of gathered into this area.
There must be about 20 or 30 boats fishing within a six-mile range here now.
So many boats in one place on the radar is a sure sign of rich pickings.
But it's not that straightforward.
As all the boats Jostle for space, they're in danger of the marine equivalent of a motorway pile-up.
Trying to get through all these boats I went through this way, there's a boat gone that way and one this way, and my gap's just gonna open up hopefully, but then there's another guy coming this way and he's gonna close up the gap.
But the danger isn't Just on the surface - it's what's hidden beneath the waves.
Every boat is towing a net which is a quarter of a mile long.
If the trawlers don't stay at least a mile apart, their gear could easily become tangled.
If one of these boats was to stick up and they would have to heave back their gear then you get into a wee bit of a problem and everything'll go into knots.
If James makes one wrong move, he could cause a mid-sea collision and lose his boat, worth more than £1.
5 million.
In the freezing waters of the North Atlantic, John, skipper of Ocean Venture, is having the spare bins put into the fish hold in anticipation of more good hauls.
Ready for fish! Below deck, Alan and Jonathan are busy packing away the last catch.
Ready! John's gamble of travelling to deep waters seems to be paying off.
They've Just found out that their haul of redfish is worth a massive £2,500.
Whoo-hoo! Yeah, I can just see the pound signs rolling in Johnny's eyes.
The big dollars are coming home.
Aye, there'll be no more charity-shopping for you, Johnny.
- We'll get a steak supper when we get home.
- Aye.
Ready! You'll maybe manage to take your wife out for a steak, Alan.
Aye, I'll maybe take mine to the chip shop.
(Both laugh) For a deep-fried Mars bar! No.
Patty and chips, patty and chips.
One thing that won't be on offer at the chip shop is another inhabitant of the deep water - distant cousin to the shark, it's the ratfish.
Very bad spike in their back.
If the spike breaks off inside your body, we've heard of people having to get airlifted cos it's poisonous.
It actually tastes a bit like a lemon sole, the flesh of it.
But, er, there just isn't a market for them.
The housewife isn't going to go into a shop and buy something called a ratfish.
Well, would your wife buy a ratfish? Fruitful Bough is still dodging 30 other boats and their fishing gear as they all fight for the prawns in the same area of the sea.
(Indistinct radio chatter) Skipper James has Just managed to avert a catastrophe.
Just as we was towing down here, everybody's towing in the same strip, but everybody's got their idea of where the best spot of prawns is at.
And us and the other boat, the Moray Endeavour, we ended up just a bit close to him just now.
Too close for my liking, but everything was all right.
All right, er, special tonight is chicken korma.
What do you want, then? - Er, I'll have, er - Chicken korma.
I'll have a chicken korma, please.
Fruitful Bough is a family business, and amongst the crew is James's youngest brother Andrew who has only been at sea for the past three months.
All right, all right, Chef.
Chef! Er, can I have six chicken kormas, please? This trip they've been doing well, and they need Just one more good catch to send them off home.
(Andrew) If it's not a good haul this time, I suppose there'll be a bit of disappointment and it's going to take longer to fill the boxes and we're not gonna get so much money at the end of it as well, so But hopefully it'll be all right.
As the net comes in, it looks as though it's another bumper haul.
But it isn't prawns that are making the net so heavy it's a massive boulder.
That was so big.
We would call that a Mini Cooper.
The boulder has ruined their catch and torn the net.
James's middle brother Robert is first mate on the boat and he isn't impressed.
Pretty much all the fish, they're all pretty much destroyed and not eatable.
A lot of fish and prawns are broken and squashed.
We can't keep them, so I'll just write this haul off.
The wasted haul and damaged net are spreading mutiny on the Bough, led by the cook, William.
Everybody's kind of bored and hacked off.
So It's been a slow start, so we'll maybe have to throw James out the wheelhouse and put Robert in.
Do you think you can make a better job, Rob? (William) James out, Robert in.
Yay-hey! (Man) Revolution! (William) Revolution! (Cheering) (Laughter) It's the first bad haul that Fruitful Bough have had this trip, and it's hit James hard.
I would say my morale's poor, and the crew probably the same.
But Ah, we'll be 0K.
But you do feel crap, it does affect you if you're nae catching.
Fruitful Bough's rival, Amity, have a different problem.
They're catching too many fish and not enough prawns for the skipper Jimmy.
Too many empty boxes down there, boys.
We need to get them filled up.
I'm trying my best, Kevin, I'm trying my best.
As a prawn boat, the amount of fish that Amity can catch is limited by EU rules.
If they catch too many fish, they will have to throw them back, even if they're dead.
The rules is there to conserve fish, I do understand that.
But, as I've been searching and the weather's been bad, the prawns have not been coming up from the sea bed, with the result that I've been catching more fish than I would normally catch.
It's very hard for me to come down to my crew and tell them, "Well, next haul we'll have to throw the fish away.
" It's crazy.
Jimmy's already tried three different fishing grounds and hasn't found enough prawns.
He has no choice.
He'll have shift again, this time to a 200-metre-deep ravine.
It's one of his old hunting grounds, but it has destroyed his nets in the past.
I'm prepared to take that chance because the prawns may just be that bit bigger, there may be more.
We'll maybe haul up, it'll be a poor haul, but in the fishing, you can never tell until you try.
To get to the ravine, Jimmy will have to steam for 50 miles, which will cost £300 and lose valuable fishing time.
We will have a fishy on a little dishy when the boat comes in On Ocean Venture, deckhands Alan and Jonathan are doing some running repairs.
They're still in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic.
It's minus 2 degrees in the water just now.
- Is that what it is? - Aye.
The reality is that anyone falling in the water here could be dead within 15 minutes.
Down in the warm galley, having finished his duties on deck, Tucker is cooking haddock for tea.
Me, I'm the chef.
0r cook! I've been at sea 18 years this year.
My friends would probably think I'm a bit nuts.
They know how dangerous it is.
Boats going down, fishermen getting drowned, and I suppose they worry about me.
But it's something I never think about.
If I thought about it I wouldn't have come to this job.
You're missing your friends and your family and your loved ones.
It's probably one of the loneliest jobs in the world, I would say.
Missing the family is an occupational hazard for trawlermen.
But it's particularly hard on those with young children, like 24-year-old Alan.
Alan and his wife Lisa have two girls.
Seven-month-old Alex and three-year-old Libby.
Sometimes when I got away to sea for a long time, Libby goes around the house saying, "Dad's lost, we can't find him.
Dad's lost.
" Ah, it's got the downside to it.
You miss your kids growing up.
I want you to stay at home the whole time.
You want me to stay at home the whole time? If the crew can't be at home, at least they can enjoy Tucker's home cooking - a highlight of skipper John's day.
You can't beat the fresh haddock.
Straight out the sea.
Into the frying pan, onto the plate.
(Chuckles) - Well done, Chef.
- Cheers, Jimmy.
- Top-notch, Tucker.
- Cheers, boys.
Cheers, Dave.
Righto, wakey wakey! Wakey wakey! 0K to go! The crew of Fruitful Bough have been in their bunks for less than two hours.
Righto, boys! Wakey wakey! They haul four times a day and often have to work 20 hours at a stretch.
Wakey wakey! Wakey wakey! Come on, Andrew! After eight days at sea, it's taking its toll.
What time is it? I don't know these things.
I don't know time or day.
But there's nothing like a big haul of prawns to wake everybody up.
It's what skipper James West has been waiting for.
This is what we like to see.
Big baskets full, small baskets half full.
So that's telling us it's a better selection of prawns, which is excellent.
With such an impressive last haul, James finally turns the boat for home, to the obvious Joy of the crew.
James West, take me home! To the place where we belong! Take me home To the place Why are they happy? Wee bit like that, I think.
Country road, take me home To the place where I belong West Virginia, mountain mama Take me home Country road Take me home, country road - Magic! - Yeah! As Fruitful Bough steams into port, the head of the West family fishing dynasty, James Senior, is looking out for his sons.
I've done this for about 11 years now.
Waiting for my boys for when they come home.
Get landed now and home to our own beds.
It's kick-ass cool.
Having docked in the harbour, the catch is being unloaded for market.
James Senior comes down to see the fruits of their labour.
It's been good fishing.
It will make a nice trip, I would say.
I think I would have been quite proud of it.
So we're all happy.
Younger generation triumphs over the older generation! I taught him everything he knows! I'm nae saying nothing! In the morning, they'll find out whether youth has triumphed over experience, when the fish is sold at market.
(Radio) North or northwest, 5 to 7, perhaps gale 8 later in Faeroes and Southeast Iceland.
Snow showers (Narrator) As Ocean Venture prepare for their final haul in deep water, the crew are facing the worst Atlantic weather so far.
We can't see what's happening for snow just now! (Wind howling) John the skipper is snug and warm in the wheelhouse.
I'm very cosy in here but I've been out there and done it.
My turn has passed.
Roll on the summertime! They've been getting excellent hauls of redfish but they're still searching for the valuable but elusive Greenland halibut.
Nestled amongst the redfish are some Greenland halibut.
They might not look like much but these are some of the most expensive fish in Britain.
Well, we've had good fishing here in the deep water, so I'm delighted.
That makes it all worthwhile.
We'll now all get our pay at the end of it.
I think we'll just go home now.
See if we can catch a price at the market.
The fish market will be the real test of whether Ocean Venture's trip is a success or failure.
But it will be 48 hours before they find out.
Been blown onboard with the snow.
First they have to steam home through the snowstorm.
He's away.
He's one of the lucky ones.
320 miles away in Peterhead, skipper James West is unloading the last of Fruitful Bough's catch.
One coming up this side.
Their prawns have already been sold to their regular buyers and more than covered the boat's running expenses of £15,000.
But if the crew are to get a decent payday, their fish must get a good price at the daily market.
40 a pick, 40 a pick, 40 a pick.
81, 81, 81.
Small cod! Two and a quarter at 80.
Two and a quarter at 80.
Success or failure for Fruitful Bough is all down to their fish agent, Steven Mowatt.
95 aye, 95 aye, 95 the lot.
The buyers at this wholesale market include distributors who sell fish across Britain and Europe, as well as processors, who will turn the fish into anything from fish paste to fishfingers.
One and three quarters at 75.
One and three quarters at 70.
Fruitful Bough's cod doesn't sell well.
There's too much cod in the market today and prices are low.
Three at 55.
Three at 55.
But Steven's hoping to see a better result with the squid.
75! 75! Is it 80? 75.
That's the squid there.
The squid's made £80.
Beautiful fish.
It's not fantastic money, but it's 0K, you know.
It's well over £2 a kilo.
But they're lovely fish.
But what really pleases Steven is the price he gets for the Atlantic halibut.
£400 a box.
400 and odd quid for 50 kilos, so about £8 a kilo.
It's a pity we couldn't get some more of them, eh? Despite a shaky start, by the end of the auction all the fish sells.
Which means that each crew member earns a satisfying £1,300 for their ten-day trip.
James the skipper is delighted.
Prices is good in the fish market, so forget about how hard it was.
We're in, we've got our good trip, everybody's gonna be happy.
High five! Are you keen to get out again? - No.
- (Laughter) At sea, news of the money Fruitful Bough made at market is rubbing salt in their competitors' wounds.
Er, Fruitful Bough has landed today.
Big shot.
So Wee bit envious.
As they say, the money's in the bag with him.
My bag's still wide open.
In his hunt for the elusive prawns, Jimmy has brought his boat to their fourth fishing ground of the trip, a 200-metre-deep ravine which could destroy his net.
Hope the prawns is working the night shift tonight.
The moon is up.
Hope they've not all gone to bed.
(Calls out) The crew are now about to haul.
What they don't want to find is any more fish.
If they exceed their limits, they'll have to throw it back.
Lot of fish there again tonight.
It's too fishy.
There's not a lot of prawns there.
They might have caught a few prawns tonight, but it's not enough.
The amount of fish they've been netting is causing a crisis.
Jimmy calls an emergency meeting to discuss tactics.
There's two options open to us at the moment.
We either shift the grounds, shift 30 miles, and maybe get no prawns at all and be in a bigger mess, or do we stay here and start dumping fish? I'm not out here to dump fish.
I want to make money, like.
Kevin, I don't make the rules, I've just got to live within the rules.
So that's it, now.
We're gonna have to shift round again and probably catch nothing.
0h, dear, dear.
Jimmy's caught between a rock and a hard place.
He will have to draw on all his 20 years' experience as skipper to get himself out of this one.
But he won't give up without a fight.
Never surrender! Tomorrow on Trawlermen Amity catches more than Just prawns in their nets If this blows up now, I'm a goner.
Ocean Venture makes one last haul How many fish suppers? and the most successful pair trawlers in Peterhead set off with a rookie on board.