The Energon Pub

http://tv.yahoo.com/deadliest-catch/show/41661/news/tv-news.en.ap.org/tv-news.en.ap.org-20100210-us_obit_phil_harris

To those that don't know who he is, he was Captain of the Crab Fishing vessel Cornellia Marie, featured on Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel.

This comes as somewhat a ahocker though probably not entirely surprising. The guy was tough, though to a fault. His health had been deteriorating due to his work habits, excess drinking of energy drinks and excess smoking. Two years ago he nearly died of a blood clot, which was documented on the show.

You gotta amdit, what they do with Cornellia Marie during Opilio on the Show is up in the air a this point They may just choose not to cover them and use one of the other ships since we do know they have crews on various ships across the fleet.

We'll definately get the memorial episode.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. His kids don't really seem up to the task of running the ship yet, but who knows? It will be odd not seeing him on the show anymore. R.I.P.

Sad thing is he'll never get to see his younger son, Jake, become a full deckhand (though that is somewhat Jake's own fault due to his behavior, work ethic, and misuse of his father's money). Phil at least got to live to promote his elder son, Josh, to full deckhand (who earned it most likely for going the exta caretaking for his stubborn old man while crabbing at the same time shortly before he had the blood clot.) I can see Josh helming the Cornellia Marie one day, but he needs the instinct first, and that is developed through experience. While a relief skippr came along, I can imagine Phil considered that he may die within the next few eyars following the blood clot and has some sort of plan. I can see Murray comming back and taking over full-time. He only had a bad King Crab season last year because he had to take over last minute (literally), thus had no plan.