The bosun Acki Lueders (Klaus J. Behrendt) stayed ashore after the death of his wife to be with his 8-year-old daughter. With his mother-in-law, he runs an unloved farm in Schleswig-Holstein. His friend Hans Ewald (Jan-Josef Liefers) persuades him to come to Hamburg and hire on the Pamir. Here, however, they find that instead of the hoped-for captain, a strict and unyielding captain, Ludwig Lewerenz (Herbert Knaup), is in command. There is a dispute above all because the three men cannot agree on how to train the young cadets and because Lueders makes friends with the cadet Carl-Friedrich von Krempin (Max Riemelt). When the ship arrives in Buenos Aires, the port workers strike. The Pamir crew loses time and the shipping company suffers a financial loss. Captain Lewerenz, who is put under pressure by the shipowner, orders the crew to fill the deep tank against the warning of his first officer. This finally becomes the Pamir’s fate. Hurricane Carrie means their wet grave for most of the 80 seafarers. Only six men survive.