- A demobbed serviceman finds that his village has fallen on hard times. With the help of family, friends and the villagers he enters his boat in a yacht race. Winning will mean orders for new boats and life for the village.
- David and Johnnie are demobbed ex-prisoners of war returning to David's home village. Johnnie is a keen yachtsman from Australia and David is a boat designer and heir to the famous generations old boat building firm of Harry King & Sons at Pin Mill. They arrive to find that the village has fallen on hard times. They persuade the villagers to help them renovate the fishing smack David had designed and built before the war and convert it to a yacht. By entering it into a yacht race they hope to win orders for new yacht builds and renew the fortunes of the village.—Julian Cable
- David King (Edwin Richfield) is the heir to Harry King's boatyard at Pin Mill on the River Orwell in Suffolk. He has been a prisoner of war where he made friends with Johnny Craig (Don Sharp) a keen yachtsman from Australia. King has waxed lyrical about the delights of the busy village with its boat yard, sailmakers and pub and its fleets of fishing boats and barges.
As the village appears over the hill David is dismayed to see just a few rotting hulks. What has happened?
Walking across the mud they come across David's boat Adena. This is the fast fishing boat he designed and built before the war. She is filthy and mastless.
Arriving at the hard they meet David's sister Joan (Gwynneth Vaughan), herself recently returned from the Wrens, his mother (Eva Rowland) and kid brother Brian (Terry Everett). As they sit down to dinner on Mrs King's house boat Joan explains that the river has been dredged as far as Ipswich so the lighters don't need to unload their cargo onto barges at Pin Mill any more and the riverbed is foul from wartime obstructions making it impossible to fish. The villagers have taken jobs at factories in Ipswich and Catchpowell the sail maker (Arthur Goullet) is making fertiliser bags.
David gets drunk and morose. Johnny and Joan hatch a plot to renovate and convert Adena into a yacht and sell her. If she is successful, maybe other design and build orders will follow.
In the morning, Johnny tricks David into having their idea, and they try and get the villagers to help. The villagers are highly critical of yachtsmen as 'parasites' on the backs of working seamen and noone is willing to take the risk of giving their factory jobs up, although they hate them.
Johnny, Joan and David try hauling Adena into shallower water. The local parson helps and before long more of the villagers are helping.
They get wind of a yacht race to be run from the Orwell to the Cork Lightship. Winning the race will be a great advert for David's boat designing skills. They get more help from the villagers but they still have no sails.
The sail maker's wife Florrie (Natalie Raine) tries to persuade her husband to make them some sails in the primary comedy sequence of the movie, with a hilarious lack of success. Mrs King knows of skeletons in Catchpowell's closet and persuades him to cut down an old suite of barge sails for them.
On Adena's first trial sail they encounter some lethal looking ironwork in the water, narrowly avoiding disaster and then have a friendly race with another yacht. This turns out to be the pride and joy of Richard Martin (Darcy Conyers), a famous racing yachtsman. Everyone is down-hearted at the prospect of having to race against such a famous adversary.
Johnny suggests a wager. If Adena beats Moonshine, David will get to design Richard's next yacht. And if Richard likes the design, it will be built at Pin Mill.
As the race day approaches its clear that Adena is a very fast boat and Johnny an outstanding skipper. If its a windy day Adena's sea kindly hull and gaff rig will enable her to carry more canvas than Moonshine's modern lines and bermudan rig. In light airs Moonshine will have the advantage.
Johnny's advances towards Joan are also clearly meeting with success.
At the race start Johnny puts Adena onto starboard tack forcing Richard to give him water and then takes a huge risk accelerating straight for the start line. It pays off and the gun sounds just as they cross the line. All clear and the race is on.
The boats head out towards the Cork Sands. In the Butt and Oyster, the villagers listen to the racing commentary from the lightship via short wave radio. Its a light breeze, Moonshine is first. Adena is fourth. As they round the lightship the breeze picks up but Adena loses control of her topsail and Joan has to go aloft to retrieve the halyard.
As they approach the finish line Adena tacks sharply and Joan, working on the foredeck is pushed overboard by the boom of the self-tacking staysail. Johnny dives in to rescue her. David is left on the helm, all hope of winning is gone.
Johnny puts a cold, wet but unhurt Joan to bed. He tells her when she moves to Australia with him she'll have to get used to having a sun tan.
Back in the pub Richard is celebrating his win. Magnanimous in victory, he says Adena's hull is clearly so fast that he won't have anyone but David design his next boat. Johnny slips away, satisfied that the village is saved, his friend's future secure and he's got the girl.
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