The Sinking of The Scandies Rose

The Perfect Storm meets The Wager in this pulse-pounding saga about a deadly Alaskan shipwreck, a heroic search and rescue mission, and a Coast Guard investigation that trained its crosshairs on everyone involved, including the survivors.

On New Year’s Eve, 2019, the Scandies Rose—a 130-foot commercial crab and cod fishing vessel—was steaming toward the Bering Sea in a terrible storm. The captain was one of the most experienced and respected in the Alaskan fleet. But within two minutes of sending out a mayday call, all communications ceased. He and his crew faced the dark, icy sea, and choices no one should ever be forced to make. Drawing on extensive interviews, testimonies, and his years embedded in America’s fishing communities, the Emmy-winning showrunner of Deadliest Catch reconstructs the ship’s harrowing final voyage with a level of understanding only an insider could provide. Watson follows the lives of the seven men aboard the Scandies Rose, the brave Coast Guard helicopter and airplane crews who launched into the storm to search for them, and the family members left seeking answers among the wreckage. This page-turning blend of true crime and survival story leads you behind the scenes of the disaster, and straight into the guts of Alaska’s $5.3 billion seafood industry. It takes you deep into the fishermen’s lives. Finally, it builds to a high-stakes hearing to expose the failures that dragged good sailors to the ocean floor.