“Deadliest Catch” might largely focus on the action and adventure of life on the Bering Sea, but sometimes, the fact that these crab fishermen are real individuals — not just reality TV personalities — is heavily spotlighted. A prime example comes in Season 19 when Johnathan Hillstrand finds the strength and courage to help deckhand Jesse McCollum scatter the ashes of his late father, Mike, from aboard the F/V Time Bandit.

For Hillstrand, this funeral-at-sea was extremely difficult given the fact that he considered Mike, an engineer on the Time Bandit who he knew from high school, his best friend. In fact, Mike’s ashes were on board the vessel for some time before the official farewell. Hillstrand says in Episode 7 (“Cold Hard World”), “I’ve just been putting it off because it’s so emotional for me.”

However, when his deckhand began experiencing restless nights as he slept beside the ashes, Hillstrand knew it was time to say goodbye, as difficult as it would be. Hillstrand says, “Jesse, I love your dad. He’s my best friend, this is hard to do. I’m sorry this took me this long. I haven’t had the courage to do it …”

Johnathan Hillstrand says emotional moments remind viewers that they’re not characters

The loss of his high school best friend isn’t the only one that “Deadliest Catch” viewers have watched Johnathan Hillstrand grapple with. In 2010, he mourned the loss of Phil Harris, the fierce captain of the F/V Cornelia Marie, who suffered a stroke that eventually caused his demise at the age of 53. Rather than keep his final days private, Harris wanted the cameras to keep rolling, with audiences able to witness his tear-inducing last moments with family and friends.

Similar to the emotional funeral-at-sea for Mike McCollum, the gatherings around Harris’ hospital bed remind viewers that they’re seeing true emotion and heartache on their screens, not something that’s fabricated by producers. “We’re not characters. We’re real people,” Hillstrand said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “Phil was an easy guy to love. He was always the coolest guy in the building — honest, hardworking, old-school handshake kind of guy. I really loved him.”

The F/V Time Bandit is probably the most iconic of all the crab-fishing vessels featured on Discovery’s “Deadliest Catch.” Owned and operated by the Hillstrand brothers, Johnathan and Andy, and puckishly adorned with the Jolly Roger on its prow, the ship has been a staple since the second season. But viewers have surely noticed the absence of the Time Bandit in some of the more recent seasons, particularly Seasons 14, 15, and 16.

Reports from TMZ in 2019 that the Time Bandit was up for auction likely gave fans the impression that the ship’s absence was all but permanent. A listing on Dock Street Brokers had listed it with an asking price of $2.8 million. This came just a few years after a large explosion in the ship’s engine, necessitating repairs that forced it to sit out Season 15 of “Deadliest Catch.” Between these two pieces of news, doubts must have flourished that the Time Bandit’s days on the show were a thing of the past.

However, Seasons 17, 18, and 19 of the show have seen the Time Bandit back in action, with at least one Hillstrand — namely Johnathan — manning the ship each time. What’s more, the Dock Street Brokers’ online listing for the boat has been down for some time. While we aren’t entirely sure what became of the decision to sell, it looks like the Time Bandit is still in the hands of the Hillstrands and is very much a part of “Deadliest Catch.”

The Time Bandit was retired, put up for auction, and has returned to the seas

As featured on “Deadliest Catch,” the Time Bandit is, to be sure, a unique ship, featuring a dishwasher, rooms with queen-sized beds, and even a four-man sauna, all of which are more-or-less unheard of on a crab fishing boat. A special episode during the ninth season of “Deadliest Catch” also revealed that the Hillstrands’ connection to the boat runs very deep; Andy and Johnathan’s father and uncle were both among the group that designed and built the Time Bandit.

Prior to the engine explosion, Johnathan Hillstrand had announced his retirement at the end of Season 13, which meant that the Time Bandit also sat out Season 14. That retirement thankfully proved to be short-lived, though obviously the repairs and the planned auction got in the way of the ship’s return to “Deadliest Catch.”

More recently, changes to the show’s format have prompted some to wonder if the ship is once again missing in action, with u/wildebeest55 recently posting on the r/deadliestcatch subreddit that they had not seen it for at least a few episodes. Ultimately, other users pointed to this recent format shift, which seems to be moving away from showing every single ship’s crew each week, instead showing a different group of ships each week.