Bill Tyrrell, sometime war correspondent and captain of the elderly cutter Vixen, has made it across the North Sea in a gale with a crew of eight unruly teenagers on release from the Probation Service. Now heading from the Thames estuary to historic Chatham docks for the Tall Ships celebrations, little can go wrong. But in the darkness, Vixen collides with the wreck of a small dinghy and something snags the propellera body. It seems that Bill's past is about to catch up with him.