In nineteenth-century New England, a young girl watches her baby brother learn to walk and talk while waiting for Papa's return from the sea after he joins the China trade and sails to foreign lands.

Condemned to stay on earth till his guilt is purged for an act of unspeakable cowardice in the battle against the Spanish Armada, British seaman Matthew Lawe fights as a buccaneer, searches for the Northwest Passage, and sails with Captain Cook.

Through Billy Budd, a sailor sentenced to death after striking his false accusor, Melville explores the difference between earthly and divine justice.

World War II is raging. Newly promoted Lt. Peter Maxwell is assigned to a munitions ship with a crew of mostly inexperienced African-American sailors commanded by a racist captain. The ship is a floating powderkeg that could ignite at any instant as the embattled crew faces typhoons, kamikaze pilots, mutiny, and murder.

Elisha Ely Morgan is a young farm boy who has witnessed firsthand the terror of the War of 1812. Troubled by a tumultuous home life ruled by the fists of their tempestuous father, Ely's two older brothers have both left their pastoral boyhoods to seek manhood through sailing. One afternoon, the Morgan family receives a letter with the news that one brother is lost at sea; the other is believed to be dead. Scrimping as much savings as a farm boy can...