
You board the Elsinore at Baltimore as a paying passenger and learn only at the pier that Captain West's daughter Margaret is sailing too, delayed by a piano she decided to bring two days ago. The crew arriving by tug are bruised, drunk, and barely able seamen; before the tow lines are even off, one jumps into the freezing harbor with a knife rather than be dragged back aboard. As the anchor comes up, the ship's authority already looks too divided to answer for him.
Read The Mutiny of the Elsinore