One response of small-scale fishing entrepreneurs in north Norway to the resource crisis of the 1990s has been the pooling of family labour to keep all potential profits from reduced quotas within the household and family unit. In their everyday practices of living and working together, these couples struggle to maintain economically viable lives through ecologically and socially sound fishing schemes. This article examines what happens in the power relationship between skipper and crew when women board a fishing vessel. Drawing on data from two case studies of wife/crew and husband/skipper relations, the author focuses on how the issue of skipper’s authority is dealt within the context of gender equality characteristic of Norwegian society and demonstrates how men’s authority is actively created by their wives as they fish together.