The Depression has hit New York hard. Disgraced seaman, Will Boden, is barely scraping by on the waterfront when he finds himself lured into the slippery world of industrial tycoon and big-game hunter Carl Schenk by the promise of a return to the sea. Against all his instincts about men and ships, Boden joins the luckless crew of misfits aboard The Lodestar, a woefully ill-suited luxury yacht bound for a safari cruise to the High Arctic. Across unforgiving polar seas and the savage tundra, the battle of wills between Boden and his master widens into a series of disasters that propels them and the ship's crew to tragedy.