New Bedford, Mass. 1851. As the son of the famous Black Jack Valera, the best whaler on the eastern seaboard, thirteen-year-old Lucky Valera has led a charmed and happy life at sea.

Following his father's death, Lucky is suddenly kidnapped and pressed into a life of servitude by Fernando Fortuna, his cruel and embittered half brother. Fortuna immediately puts Lucky to work in a grueling textile mill and confiscates the boy's wages.

But when Lucky meets Emmeline, a spirited girl with abolitionist sympathies, and Daniel, a fugitive slave from the South, his dream for a return to his old life of freedom and the sea seems to be within reach.That is, if he and his new friends can outwit and outrun Fortuna and an enraged slave trader, both of whom will stop at nothing to get back what they believeis their rightful property.