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The first section of the text describes how the author and his family set sail from Plymouth England in July 1976 on their boat Wavewalker. They had spent months fitting their boat and testing it in the roughest weather. The first phase of their planned three- year, 105,000 kilometre journey passed pleasantly as they sailed down the west coast of ‘ Africa to Cape Town. But on their second day out of Cape Town, they began to encounter strong gales, which blew continuously for the next few weeks. The size of the waves was alarming. At dawn on January 2, the waves were gigantic.
At 6 p.m. an exceptionally high wave hit the ship and a tremendous explosion shook the deck. A torrent of green and white water broke over the ship. The author’s had smashed into the wheel, he flew overboard and sank below the waves. But unexpectedly his head popped out of the water. A few metres away, he saw Wavewalker nearly capsizing. But a wave hurled her up right. There was water everywhere.
He asked his wife Mary to take the wheel. When he went to the children’s cabin, he found that his daughter Sue’s head was hurt and there was a big bump above her eyes. The author repaired the ship as far as he could do. A lot of water had entered due to which they had been pumping continuously. Their Mayday calls got no replies
The second section is about their search for an island. By morning on January 3, the water level was sufficiently under control. So they took two hours’ rest in rotation. But still there was a tremendous leak somewhere below the waterline. A whole section of the started board hull was damaged and there was nothing holding it up. They had survived for 15 hours since the wave hit. But Wavewalker would not hold together long enough to reach Australia. So, the author was looking for the nearest island.
On checking the charts, the author calculated that there were two small island a few hundred kilometres to the east. Their only hope was to reach one of them. One of them lie Amsterdam was a French scientific base. On January 4, after 36 hours of continuous pumping, they reached the last few centimetres of water. Now, they had only to keep pace with the water still coming in. Mary found some corned beef and cracker biscuits, and they ate their first meal in almost two days. But at 4 p.m. black clouds began building up behind them. The weather continued to deteriorate throughout the night. By dawn on January 5, their situation was again desperate.
When he went to comfort the children, his son Jon said, I “But, daddy, we aren’t afraid of dying if we can all be together you mid Mummy, Sue and I.” That evening Mary and the author sat together holding hands. They both felt that the end was near. But Wavewalker rode out of the storm and by the morning of January 6, with the wind easing, he tried to get a reading on the sextant. He came to know that they were somewhere in 150,000 kilometres of ocean looking for a 65 kilometre wide island.
The third section is about their cheerful landing on lie Amsterdam. The author had checked and rechecked his calculations. About 2 p.m., he went on deck and asked Larry to steer a course of 185 degrees. He told Larry that he could see the island at about 5 p.m. Then he went below, climbed on his bunk and dozed off. He woke up at 6 p.m. Then he was informed by his children that he had found the island. They anchored offshore for the night. Next morning all 28 inhabitants of the island of lie Amsterdam cheered as they helped them ashore.