The crabby entrepreneur

The Bering Sea was angry that day. The Viking Rover, an Alaskan fishing boat, was pitching and yawing in violent swells. John King, an ivy-league-educated greenhorn from Cape Cod who had spent nearly a year hauling king crabs onto the Rover's deck, wasn't sure if he would make it back to shore alive. Waves heaved the boat onto its side, its stern, its bow. In the process, the vessel lost its rudder and thousands of pounds of crabs in the hold. "That first year [of crabbing] was essentially lost," King recalls.