The fishing boats of "Deadliest Catch" aren't really shown sitting next to each other, so it's easy to assume that they're all kind of about the same size. They're not — and that means there are some big things that get left out of the show. For starters, let's take the Wizard. That's one of the larger boats, clocking in at about 151 feet long. Now, compare that to the Lisa Marie: She's just 78 feet long. Others hover in between those. The Time Bandit, for example, is 98 feet long.
Size impacts quotas, and in 2012, CNN took a look at the way quotas were handed out. In a nutshell, the bigger the boat, the bigger the quota. They also found that the smaller boats were finding it more economical to sell their quotas to the bigger ones, and that was a big deal for one simple reason: The bigger the boat, the safer they were.
So, why are there still crews out in the smaller boats? Watch the show, and it seems as though captains have no choice but to head out, but in reality, they could just sell their quota. The Seattle Times suggests they opt not to because Discovery pays out enough to make it more lucrative to take the risks to appear on the show, instead of taking the payout and letting bigger (and safer) boats do the heavy lifting. Just how much they pay, the outlet adds, is information that's kept tightly under wraps.
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