America's Toughest Jobs

[forestryworks]

on october 10th they're gonna show the logging episode
of America's Toughest Jobs

i believe they worked with Rygaard Logging out of
Port Angeles, WA

edit: according to peninsula daily news rygaard logging will be on of the crews on season 2 of ax men which starts in 2009

 

[056kid]

Crabs cant turn you into a pan cake!
And i dont care HOW heavy thoes pots are, they dont fall out of the sky!!

You can see the waves coming. I can say from personal experience, you wont see that widow maker comin!!!!!





Thats just what i have to say about "the most dangerous" job!!



So they make more loot, at least I have FUN!














Why hasent anyone ever thot of wearing caulks on deck?

 

[Bushler]

Show a little respect, please.

I've been a commercial boat owner/skipper crabbing the west coast for 34 years, and have lost in excess of 50 friends in sea related accidents. Several of my best friends are dead. When they found PV's body they noticed he'd clawed his fingers off his hands, trapped in a sinking boat, trying to paw his way out through the Lexan storm windows.

My 'little brother' Stu died near Adak, trying to get a last minute maday out, (he did, it was heard, and the rest of the crew were saved), then couldn't make it back into the inflatable.

Richard pitchpoled the Kincheloe on the Brookings bar (all crew lost), Jim drowned when the Sweet Pea went down with all crew in Pelican Bay, CA.

The list of dead friends goes on and on.

I've also spent 40 years cutting timber when I wasn't fishing, so I know that business pretty well too. I've only lost one friend in the woods.

Crabbing accidents are usually mortalities, while cutters usually manage to limp to the hospital. Both are dangerous, but nothing compares to crabbing the west coast in the dead of winter. Trust me on that.

Owner/Skipper, F/V Nancy Jean.

 

[Bushler]

Almost every logger I hired to work the deck ended up puking and turning green. Big tough men...worthless. Rolling around underfoot puking and getting in the way. I'd drag them off the deck into the foc'sle, then go back to work. They couldn't get the hang of the roll of the boat.

One of my logger friends puked so hard his false teeth went overboard. Gnarly.

 

[ropensaddle]

Almost every logger I hired to work the deck ended up puking and turning green. Big tough men...worthless. Rolling around underfoot puking and getting in the way. I'd drag them off the deck into the foc'sle, then go back to work. They couldn't get the hang of the roll of the boat.

One of my logger friends puked so hard his false teeth went overboard. Gnarly.

I have a deep respect for crabbers I would have made a good one
early in life but don't think I would have the stamina now. I still
am pretty strong but 16 hrs and I am spent anymore. I have worked
38 straight then 16 per day for three weeks in march 97 restoring power
cutting trees away and dragging cable for the linemen and that was as
close as I can remember to the production requirements put on crabbers.
Every job is a job though but some do take more out of ya!

I will jump in to say I have removed fifteen foot over hang
over 12500 volts all day long in the sun that is not a cake
walk I tell ya, more dangerous than logging imo.

 

[hammerlogging]

Bushler, thats one fine looking boat.

 

[treemandan]

Almost every logger I hired to work the deck ended up puking and turning green. Big tough men...worthless. Rolling around underfoot puking and getting in the way. I'd drag them off the deck into the foc'sle, then go back to work. They couldn't get the hang of the roll of the boat.

One of my logger friends puked so hard his false teeth went overboard. Gnarly.

you would have to shanghi me to get me on that tub. No offense about the boat buddy but that's what it looks like to me. A little tiny boat in a bathtub and God is splashing around in there. Sorry for the losses, its one hell of a tally. The Dan abides although he needs to pack the dramamine and I am starting to feel queasy just looking at the pic. I am gonna stick to showers for awhile.

 

[treemandan]

Crabs cant turn you into a pan cake!
And i dont care HOW heavy thoes pots are, they dont fall out of the sky!!

You can see the waves coming. I can say from personal experience, you wont see that widow maker comin!!!!!





Thats just what i have to say about "the most dangerous" job!!



So they make more loot, at least I have FUN!














Why hasent anyone ever thot of wearing caulks on deck?

At least you admit to being only a kid.

 

[1I'dJak]

I've been commercial fishing on the west coast of the Queen Charlotte islands and it was a tough ass grind...long days, **** weather made it harder, nowhere to go other than your bunk when the day is done...etc... But the physically hardest job I've done is probably single stemming....More people can go out on a fish boat than could do that job...albeit they might be culls, but they can atempt it...few people can get choppered up in a heli-block and hike around steep ass ground (sometimes having to rapell) with all your climbing gear to find and to climb up big trees and take some big ass tops.... been talking to some guys about taking 100+ centimeter top;s with their 200t, having to cut windows in them so they could get their saw in em...the fear is a bit more in your face than fishing, whereas in fishing the danger is all around you and often out of your control...however in fishing, accidents are often deaths...once you go overboard your chances are slim....

 

[clearance]

I've been commercial fishing on the west coast of the Queen Charlotte islands and it was a tough ass grind...long days, **** weather made it harder, nowhere to go other than your bunk when the day is done...etc... But the physically hardest job I've done is probably single stemming....More people can go out on a fish boat than could do that job...albeit they might be culls, but they can atempt it...few people can get choppered up in a heli-block and hike around steep ass ground (sometimes having to rapell) with all your climbing gear to find and to climb up big trees and take some big ass tops.... been talking to some guys about taking 100+ centimeter top;s with their 200t, having to cut windows in them so they could get their saw in em...the fear is a bit more in your face than fishing, whereas in fishing the danger is all around you and often out of your control...however in fishing, accidents are often deaths...once you go overboard your chances are slim....

Jak, I lived on the Charlottes (Port) and being on land during some of those storms was enough for me. I didn't even like taking the ferry over (the one they sank). Anyways, I have windfirmed as you know, and done utility removals, but I would much rather climb scary trees than be on a boat out there. I have a lot of respect for you guys that have fished out there in that cold and heartless sea.

 

[1I'dJak]

True enough clearance...I remember working out on the west coast swells and thinking how easy it would be to fall over and how hard it would be for the boat to turn around and get me while i foundered in my gum boots and rain gear...but I never had that fear like I did the 3rd day stemming when the foreman told me to take the top where I was...stem was about 80 cents or 30 inches where I started cutting...never done anything like that b4...My arshole pinched tight...I wondered, is this something I can do? Sweat dripping down my helmet brim...hearing that top (crap, basically a tree) creak and crash down wan like no other thing....driving back from windfirming today, guy was telling me a stemming story of how he was taking a big top and trying to keep it out of the creak so he was wedging the crap out of it, stacking his wedges and pounding away...wedges spit out, tumbled to the ground....sank his last wedge till he couldn't pound it anymore...started downclimbing his tree to retreive his wedges then Crack! there goes his top! Sketchy ####e...

 

[clearance]

Thats a nasty story, I know guys who have done standing stem, I have taken big tops but nothing like that. Windfirming can be fun, hows it going out there? Living in motels, lots of windshield time? I have thought about doing it again.

 

[1I'dJak]

lots of windshield time....bout 3-4 hours staring out the windshield a day...long drives but its going alright...a little up and down, but that's the nature of the beast...apparently there's a bunch more single stem coming next year, but I'd definetly rather windfirm...however, Western Forest Products (who is the biggest client for island windfirming) is on the ropes... and I wouldn't doubt if they dissolved....that guy still windfirming up in the Charlottes? Dude, I couldn't windfirm without the grapple though, makes for a lot less effort...

 

[clearance]

lots of windshield time....bout 3-4 hours staring out the windshield a day...long drives but its going alright...a little up and down, but that's the nature of the beast...apparently there's a bunch more single stem coming next year, but I'd definetly rather windfirm...however, Western Forest Products (who is the biggest client for island windfirming) is on the ropes... and I wouldn't doubt if they dissolved....that guy still windfirming up in the Charlottes? Dude, I couldn't windfirm without the grapple though, makes for a lot less effort...

He don't like the grapple and don't like the old bowline, he is a faller, oh well. He is real good guy though, straight shooter, I miss working for him. I think he is working the coast. Western is going under? Holy F. That will mean the old M&B gets split up. Its a sad time for logging here, worse ever.

 

[1I'dJak]

well I don't know for sure if it is...but i think they got too big and have too much overhead to roll with the lean times...basically I could see them either selling off some unprofitable divisions or just going the way timberwest did and contracting out all phases of logging...or i could be wrong...just my gut feeling... guilty of thread hijaking....I don't even think they do any single stem down in the states....couple guys I knew gave a demo in washington state and I think all the US loggers thought it was kinda loony...

 

[clearance]

well I don't know for sure if it is...but i think they got too big and have too much overhead to roll with the lean times...basically I could see them either selling off some unprofitable divisions or just going the way timberwest did and contracting out all phases of logging...or i could be wrong...just my gut feeling... guilty of thread hijaking....I don't even think they do any single stem down in the states....couple guys I knew gave a demo in washington state and I think all the US loggers thought it was kinda loony...

Do doubt, the loggers that saw us windfirming thought we were nuts. Probably thought that they would be asked to climb up there. Ain't gonna happen.

 

[Mike Van]

I spent 35 years as a power co. lineman before I retired. The last 20, I was more worried about getting hit by a car than burned in the air. Heading into the woods today, 60+ nice locust to cut & pull out. There is no way, no how you'd get me on a crab boat at 57. If the tractor craps out today, I can walk home. If the boat did, well you know............

 

[056kid]

Not trying to be disrespectful at all!
Fishing is defiantly a tough job.

 

[Zackman1801]

its really too bad they dont have any logging shows about the east coast guys, or even guys in the middle of the country. I wouldent doubt there are people who think that logging only goes on, on the west coast.

 

[forestryworks]

its really too bad they dont have any logging shows about the east coast guys, or even guys in the middle of the country. I wouldent doubt there are people who think that logging only goes on, on the west coast.

if they do, they live under a rock