Renat Besolov’s fleet

The vessel was originally built in the USA as a pipe carrier for the oil and gas industry, then bought by a Norwegian company and converted for crab fishing: specialised catching and processing equipment was installed, and the navigation and safety systems were upgraded for Barents Sea conditions.

In 2015 the 21-year-old Renat Besolov joined the Polaris for his first voyage and was one of the first crew members with international experience. He earned $20,800 for that first voyage — at a time when foreigners were paid several times less than locals.

Renat was invited to the Hunter by a Norwegian captain he had worked with on the Polaris. The vessel is equipped with pots for snow crab fishing in the icy waters of the Barents Sea. Here Renat began systematically collecting shipowners’ contacts — a notebook that later became the basis of the catalogue of Norwegian fishing vessels for sending CVs directly.

Renat was urgently called to the Northeastern by the captain from his first vessel — “the pay is the same as for locals.” The owning company has existed for over 100 years. Here Renat spent several seasons in the Barents Sea fishing snow crab, rose to boss and trawl master, and created his own training programme for newcomers: knots, gear repair, hydraulics, safety, food handling. Sailors who went through this school easily found places on other vessels, citing their Northeastern experience on their CVs.

On 3 December 2018 Renat was due to transfer to the Northguider — a vessel of the same company. The posting never happened: on 28 December the Northguider ran aground in the Hinlopen Strait off Svalbard, at 80° north. All 14 sailors were evacuated by helicopter. The operation to raise and remove the wreck became one of the northernmost in history.

Renat joined the Stormhav after training as a factory-production technologist at Marint. It is his only fishing (non-crab) and most modern vessel. He worked less than a year and, like a notable part of the crew, left: the vessel found itself at the centre of several scandals widely covered by the Norwegian press — from working conditions on board to a customs inspection. In 2024 the vessel was sold to Husøy Fiskeriselskap AS for $8.5 million.

In 2022 Renat signed on with one of the largest crab vessels under the Norwegian flag — a big full-cycle floating factory. He was invited here by his former captain from the Northeastern, Atle Forland. In parallel, Renat was completing the creation of BFISHERMAN, laying out the whole path to employment in the Norwegian fleet in steps accessible to everyone.

In 2026 Renat Besolov spent a crab season in the Barents Sea on the Norwegian vessel Østerfjord of Østerfjord AS, which sells its product under the brand Norwegian Frozen at Sea — crab frozen at sea right after the catch. The vessel is a former longliner converted for snow crab with a crab factory installed on board. A return to the fishery after years of building BFISHERMAN: testing the platform’s methods on himself, in a real season.