Young aristocrat, Edmund Talbot embarks on a long and hazardous sea journey from England to Australia on an ancient, decrepit 18th century wooden warship in this darkly comic film of William Golding’s prize winning novel. The ship is crammed with a disparate assortment of officers, sailors and passengers, as well as poor emigrants, who jostle in the crammed ship. The voyage is rough and shattering, relentless and tedious. Out of monotony and tedium there grows a need for distraction and mischief. Edmund is drawn to one of the few available women, the flirtatious Zenobia. In a bid to impress, he arrogantly champions the case of a ridiculed fellow passenger, Parson Colley, little knowing the dire consequences which will result when shame is a force deadlier than the sea itself.

Edmund Talbot continues his hazardous journey to Australia on a ship that is beleaguered with problems as they are borne back into the doldrums. The monotony is shattered when a French warship is seen on the horizon. The ships are cloaked in dense fog as they anxiously await their fate and Edmund is forced to confront the possibility of combat and death. But what emerges is not what is expected. Half mad with fear, with drink, with love and opium, everyone on this leaky unsound hulk is falling apart as the ship itself begins to come apart at the seams.

As the decrepit warship sails on the last stretch of its voyage to Sydney Cove the passengers are suffering badly from the motion of the damaged ship which has been blown off course. Edmund is given the task of persuading the irascible Captain Anderson to find a smoother route. Unless their speed is increased, they may all starve before the ship reaches its destination. Lieutenant Benét proposes a risky solution to their broken foremast, but Summers is convinced it will destroy them. The injured Mr Prettiman gives a shocking mission to Edmund, who is torn by divided loyalties and whose every assumption is challenged in this final part of William Golding’s prize winning sea trilogy.