The Northwestern is a 125 feet fishing vessel. It was built in 1977 at Marco Shipyard in Seattle, WA. The vessel was built specifically for the King and Tanner crab fisheries of Alaska's Bering Sea. In 1981 there was a collapse of the King Crab fishery. So the boat kept busy by fishing Tanner Crab.In the early 1980s the Northwestern was one of the first boats to fish Opilio or Snow Crab.