As the economy gets tighter and tighter, Stella Madison and her friends decide to pool their resources and move to Alaska. They set out in a monstrosity of a sailboat, called the Dreadnaught (that has obviously seen better days), with an old captain-turned-inventor at the helm, and each one of them signed on as a member of the crew. But Stella has never set foot on a boat in her life, and Alaska is over a thousand miles away—through wilderness places—before they even get there. 

Here is the story of a rag-tag group of misfits trying to run away from life even as they drag it along behind them in flying colors. It isn't long before the question of whether they can make a success of the venture turns into whether they can depend on each other enough even to survive. The only sure thing is... they can't do it alone.