Johnathan Hillstrand Loses 5,000 Pounds on Time Bandit in Deadliest Catch
Johnathan Hillstrand had to cut to St. George Island on deadliest catch after the Time Bandit’s freezer stopped working on the May 29 episode. The failure left the crew with 5,000 pounds of bait thawed out and 500 pounds of perishable food spoiled.
Time Bandit Runs Short
The freezer problem turned into a supply emergency fast. Rather than make a three-day return to Dutch Harbor, Hillstrand kept the boat moving and sent the crew for Freon and food, avoiding a run that would have burned $20,000 in fuel and cost three days of fishing time.
That choice put the crew on St. George Island, home to 28 residents, where Teddy got Freon for the ice box and the team secured a big caribou that would get them through three weeks. For a fishing boat working inside tight margins, the decision was about preserving both bait and days on the grounds, not just patching a broken appliance.
St. George Island Supply Run
The supply stop gave Hillstrand a way to keep the Time Bandit in the game without surrendering a full cycle to Dutch Harbor. The 5,000 pounds of bait mattered most because it had already thawed, leaving the crew with less to work with once the freezer failed.
The spoiled 500 pounds of food added another layer of pressure. If the boat had turned back, the crew would have traded fishing time for fuel and supplies, a costly swap in a season where one bad mechanical hit can rewrite the trip.
Deadliest Catch May 29 Pressure
May 29 also showed how crowded the episode was around the fleet. Rick Shelford set 30 pots on the Aleutian Lady while dealing with engine trouble in seas threatened to build to 20 feet, and Jake Anderson offloaded 100 pounds of king crab before moving into Bairdi.
Sig Hansen later noticed two pots welded together in Anderson’s gear and said, “They're trying to overpower us.” Anderson had already called the haul, “It's not a bad way to make $2 million,” while Hansen brought in crab numbers to the tune of 200. That is the backdrop for Hillstrand’s repair run: on this kind of day, a freezer failure is not a side note, it is a decision about whether a boat keeps fishing or starts paying for it.
