THE NUMBERS

8,000: The hours of footage shot over the course of the king and opilio crab seasons, filling 5,000 videotapes. This footage is painstakingly edited down to 12 one-hour episodes.

5,000: The pounds (2,268kg) of equipment the production team has to ship from Los Angeles to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, to film Deadliest Catch. 

200: The number of hours a Deadliest Catch producer/cameraman flew in US Coast Guard rescue helicopters this season.

60: The number of cameras the film crews starts with each season. Only a third of the cameras are still working when they return to land. The others are ruined by saltwater and freezing temperatures.

60: The maximum number of seconds it takes a cameraman to put on their survival suit before they are allowed to go out to sea.

36: The average number of days a cameraman will spend at sea over the course of one season of Deadliest Catch.

32: The record number of consecutive days a Deadliest Catch cameraman has spent at sea (aboard the F/V Northwestern during the 2006 cod and opilio crab seasons).

18: The number of cameramen used to film the third series of Deadliest Catch.

4: The number of minutes someone can survive in the Bering Sea without a survival suit.

3: The number of lives saved by the US Coast Guard during those rescue flights.