Victor Slocum was the son of Captain Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail alone around the world. He travelled for many years with his father and then as a sea captain in his own right. During this time he gathered material for this book, some of it from personal experience and some using accounts of his father and other sources. Victor Slocum relates how he helped his father to build an ocean-going junk-rigged canoe after the Aquidneck was wrecked near Brazil in 1887. A teenager at the time, he helped to sail this vessel home more than 5000 miles to North America. The book contains stories of other castaway boats and the experiences of their survivors, including Joshua Slocum's account of the Easter Island castaways. Other stories, such as Shackleton's boat voyage and the castaways of the whaleboat Essex, are also featured.