"This is a really gripping and exciting adventure story. If I were to recommend one Hammond Innes novel to anyone who hadn’t read him, this would be the one."
-An online customer.
It’s a first-person narrative told by John Sands. He is skippering a yacht, the Sea Witch, across the Channel with three friends, when they are nearly run down by a vast cargo ship, the Mary Deare.
A few hours later, in daylight, they spot it becalmed west of the Channel Islands. Coming closer they see the lifeboats have all been launched, their ropes trailing down the sides into the sea. In a reckless moment Sands gets his friends to sail right up to the side of the steamer, manages to grab a rope and haul himself aboard.
The mystery begins.
