Deadliest Catch’s Wizard once sank a massive wave that flooded the ship back in 2021. So, what happened to The FV Wizard and where is the boat now after the terrifying incident?
The Wizard is one of the stars of Deadliest Catch. Although it is now sailing the waters with Captain Colburn there to make sure it all runs smoothly, there was an incident that saw the ship begin to sink.
According to Captain Colburn, The Wizard was hit by a massive wave that blew out the windows and flooded the interior. This happened in mid-March 2021 while filming for the Discovery show was being carried out.
Deadliest Catch: The FV Wizard almost sank
The Wizard began to sink in 2018 and faced a flooding incident close to another sink three years later. In a 2018 episode, a flooding collision void threatened to sink him, but Keith fought to keep the Wizard afloat.
Keith’s ship also once collided with another boat in 2021. And once, Colburn went into the freezing waters to repair the ship’s hull and ended up getting injured when his head hit the rocking boat.
The Wizard is now working with another boat in the Alaska Crab Producers Cooperative, a sub-district of the Inter Cooperative Exchange, the largest harvest cooperative in the Bering Sea.
What happened to The Wizard?
Monte was on The Wizard with the camera crew when the wave “took a window out on the port side of a wheelhouse, tore up into the ceiling, took out the battery charges,” in 2021, Captain Colburn told TV Shows Ace.
Over a foot of water came across the dash, as it took out everything from the autopilot, steering, radars, sounders, everything down, gone. We still had a main engine. We still had everything. We just had nothing to drive the boat with the wheelhouse. It took them about five hours to get the boat in a position to where he had steering. He had minimal autopilot capabilities and navigational capabilities in order to get the boat in.
With the power still working, it wasn’t a total disaster. The wheelhouse has since been gutted. “The guys were able to get more equipment up and running and get radar working, to where we were navigationally sound,” he added.
Where the ship is today
The Wizard is one of Deadliest Catch’s main ships but faces its challenges, such as when an illegal fishing vessel began to follow the boat. It was six miles away from them, and both Keith and Rick had to act quickly.
They had to turn off their Automatic Identification system on The Wizard to throw the other ship off the scent and managed to lose them. As of 2023, the ship was recently seen at Ballard Ship Canal on May 15.
The Wizard is the biggest ship the camera crews fly with for the Discovery show. It is 77 years old and its current position is North America West Coast at the time of writing.
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