About
Sigurd Jonny Hansen (born April 28, 1966) is a Norwegian-American captain and co-owner of the fishing vessel F/V Northwestern. Since 2005, Hansen has been featured in each season of the documentary television series Deadliest Catch, serving also as technical advisor for the production and also stars in Deadliest Catch: The Viking Returns.
Sigurd Jonny Hansen was born in Seattle, the eldest of three sons; his brothers are Norman and Edgar. Their father, Sverre Hansen, was descended from a long line of Norwegian-ancestry fishermen. His father and grandfather pioneered opilio crab fishing in Alaska as a way of giving crab boats a chance to earn money year-round rather than in short-term or late-year seasons. He began fishing at age 14, working on his family’s boat. After he graduated from high school, he began fishing year-round, spending on average 10 months per year in Alaska and the Bering Sea. Occasionally he also fished mackerel and cod in Norway during the summer. In his early years, he cut school so that he could go fishing.
Hansen started as a deckhand on his father’s boat before his teenage years, working his way up the ranks. At age 22, he became…
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Bio and photo via Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons licensing.