A leviathan exits

The Ocean Phoenix, a 635-foot processing ship active for many years in the Bering Sea pollock fishery, recently went to scrap at Brownsville, Texas. Built in 1964 and originally used as a freighter, the Ocean Phoenix was said to be the largest fishing vessel in the United States. She worked as a "mothership" taking deliveries from trawlers. This photo shows her docked in Seattle in July 2019. The operating company has acquired a replacement ship, the 276-foot Pacific Glacier, and renamed it the Phoenix. Wesley Loy photo

Crash victims included pollock player Phillips

Among the four others who died with former Sen. Ted Stevens in the Dillingham plane crash was Bill Phillips, a Bethesda, Md., lawyer and lobbyist and the senator's former chief of staff.

Phillips was well-known in Alaska commercial fishing circles as the long-time owner of the Bering Sea pollock processing ship Excellence.

In January the Excellence merged with the partners in another processing ship, the Ocean Phoenix.

The ships market their products through a Seattle-based company, Premier Pacific Seafoods.

The vessels are known in the industry as motherships, taking fish from catcher boats for processing at sea.