After being assaulted in the city, Doria Hanrahan returns to her hometown, jobless, paranoid, and expecting to cash in on her father's fishing trawler. When she discovers the trawler has been willed to Murray Santoro, who cared for her father during his final illness, she is filled with anger and guilt. Desperate for cash she joins the crew of the Merrichase. On the ocean, far from land, she learns Murray is not only a doctor, but suspected of murder...