This is The Guardian.

This article contains some strong language.

Welcome to The Guardian Long Read, showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking.

For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to the guardian.com forward slash

long read.

I knew in my head we were dying.

The last voyage of the Scandies Rose by Rose George, read by Rosalie Craig.

Thank you. Rose George, read by Rosalie Craig. The Scandies Rose fishing boat set out to sea from Kodiak Alaska on the 30th of December 2019 with a crew of seven into weather as bad as anything December

could throw.

It was enough of a shitty forecast, said one of the crew in later testimony.

I didn't think we were going to leave that night.

At 8.35pm, fierce, frigid winds were blowing. Some boats stayed in harbour, but the Scandies

rose still set out. We knew the weather was going to be bad, said deckhand Dean Gribble.

But the boats are battleship. We go through the weather.

The boat was carrying 7,000 kilograms of bait and was headed north towards the Bering Sea.

She was trim, said Dean, and a good boat.

Gary Coburn was a good captain.

One of the last jobs before departure was to stack the crab pots properly.

There were 198 on board.

That is a heavy load, but not unusual.

Each pot measured more than two metres by two meters.

Big, heavy fucking pots, Gribble said.

...