Why The Time Bandit Disappeared From Deadliest Catch

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.