If you have ever watched Deadliest Catch, you might wonder how fast a crab boat is, and what the average speeds are. I’ve done all the research for you, and you can see the results in the table below.
How fast does a crab fishing boat go?
To find out what the average speed of a crab boat is, I took a look at the Marine Traffic website. It monitors the positions and speeds of fishing vessels, so I was able to search for the crab boats on Deadliest Catch, to see how fast they go.
| Crab Boat Name | Size | Average Crab Boat Speed |
|---|---|---|
| Aleutian Ballad | 107 feet | 8.2 knots (9 mph / 15 km/h) |
| Cornelia Marie | 125 feet | 14.5 knots (17 mph / 27 km/h) |
| Early Dawn | 108 feet | 10.6 knots (12 mph / 20 km/h) |
| Erla-N | 108 feet | 13 knots (15 mph / 24 km/h) |
| Farwest Leader | 110 feet | 8.9 knots (10 mph / 16 km/h |
| Fierce Allegiance | 166 feet | 10.7 knots (12 mph / 20 km/h) |
| FV Northwestern | 125 feet | 12 knots (14 mph / 22 km/h) |
| Kiska Sea | 125 feet | 7.5 knots (9 mph / 14 km/h) |
| Lisa Marie | 78 feet | 8.1 knots (9 mph / 15 km/h) |
| Maverick | 92 feet | 9.2 knots (11 mph / 17 km/h) |
| Ramblin’ Rose | 108 feet | 6.7 knots (8 mph / 12 km/h) |
| Retriever | 133 feet | 10.7 knots (12 mph / 20 km/h) |
| Rollo | 105 feet | 7.7 knots (9 mph / 14 km/h) |
| Saga | 109 feet | 8.8 knots (10 mph / 16 km/h) |
| Southern Wind | 148 feet | 9.7 knots (11 mph / 18 km/h) |
| Summer Bay | 105 feet | 8.6 knots (10 mph / 16 km/h) |
| Time Bandit | 113 feet | 9 knots (10 mph / 17 km/h) |
| Trailblazer | 133 feet | 8.2 knots (9 mph / 15 km/h) |
| Vixen | 98 feet | 7.8 knots (9 mph / 14 km/h) |
| Western Viking | 86 feet | 12.6 knots (14 mph / 23 km/h) |
| Wizard | 156 feet | 9.5 knots (11 mph / 18 km/h) |
What is the average speed of a crab boat?
This data above is calculated due to the way in which the crab boats are tracked using GPS technology. It gives us some really interesting insight into how fast crab boats go when fishing.
Based on the table of data above, I crunched the numbers to give us an average speed of a crab boat.
The average speed of a crab boat is 9.6 knots. That means a crab boat will on average go as fast at 11 miles per hour (17.7 kilometers per hour) based on GPS tracking of crab fishing boats from the Deadliest Catch TV series in May 2019.
What is the fastest crab boat on Deadliest Catch?
Looking at the average speeds above, the fastest boat on Deadliest Catch appears to be the Cornelia Marie which was tracked at 14.5 knots (17 mph / 27 km/h), closely followed by Western Viking at 12.6 knots (14 mph / 23 km/h).
How fast is a crab boat? Not that fast in truth, with average speeds of 9.6 knots when fishing.
Related questions
Below are some additional questions I researched into the crab boats from Deadliest Catch.
How much does a crab boat cost?
If you love Deadliest Catch, you might also wonder how much their fishing vessels cost.
I recently published a guide which contains pricing information for many of the boats. You can read more about the costs here, but on average a small crab boat can cost between $80,000 and $160,000 US dollars.
The last word…
So, there you have it. Now you know how fast a crab fishing boat can go, or at least the ones featured on Deadliest Catch anyway. I’ve linked you up to some more Deadliest Catch articles below if you want to read more fun and interesting facts.
