Deadliest Catch is welcoming Capt. Sig Hansen’s 18-year-old daughter Mandy Hansen to the Northwestern crew in the season 10 premiere of Discovery’s hit reality series.

Hansen has captained his crab boat, the Northwestern, in front of the cameras since Deadliest Catch premiered in 2005, when Mandy was barely 8 years old. In season 9, Hansen butt heads with deck hand Jake Anderson, and, with Anderson joining another crew, Hansen decided to replace him with his young daughter. Anderson later rejoined the Northwestern crew.

Crab fishing has been publicized as extremely dangerous, and Hansen admitted he took a bit of convincing before he agreed to let Mandy on the boat. Mandy has been working alongside her father every summer for the past four years, helping him transport salmon.

“So, she’s been doing that since she was, what, 14? She’s had job offers from other salmon boats. And then she said that she was going to try crabbing, of course. And I said, ‘Over my dead body – or it’s going to be on my boat.’ And then, one thing led to another. She’s a pretty persuasive kid,” Hansen told Yahoo.

Mandy loves the water, Hansen revealed, adding that he has told her that there are plenty of things she can do on the water besides crab fishing, and he gushed about her plans to attend a maritime academy.

“If she can get a Third Mates Unlimited license, she’s off and running. I don’t have a license that big, you see? So that makes me proud. She’ll have a bigger license than Daddy; who’d have thought,” Hansen mused.

Deadliest Catch Season 10 begins Tuesday, April 22, at 9 p.m. on Discovery.

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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