A new system set to begin this year will assign individual catch quotas for each boat, doing away with a highly competitive system.

Many in the industry say that individual quotas may save lives by eliminating some of the frenzy in crabbing.

Fishery managers still must finish regulatory paperwork to launch the new crab management plan by an October target date.

Barring unexpected snags, this year's opilio - or snow crab - fishery, which opened at noon Jan. 15, will be the last crab race in the Bering Sea.

A major reason fishing for king and snow crab is so dangerous is that the shellfish are harvested in winter, when their legs are fullest with meat. Boats heave and dive in rough weather, large waves break over the gunwales, and wooden deck planking often ices over. So much ice can build up on boats that they become top-heavy and flip over.

In the race for crab, fishermen skip sleep to launch and haul hundreds of 600-pound steel traps, called pots, that capture the crabs on the sea floor.

From 1991 to 1996 in Alaska's crab fisheries, 61 people died, with most of the fatalities occurring when boats were operating in heavy weather, according to a study from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

For the past four seasons, however, the winter snow crab fishery saw no vessels sink and no one die. On this year's opening day, however, at least two fishermen died when a boat sunk. Rescuers stopped their search Jan. 17 for three missing crew members, as well as a crewman who was washed overboard another vessel.