Nine-year-old Dana Foster, wanting to be brave like her older brother Luke, joins him in forbidden adventures. They dash through the neighborhood scaling fences, climbing walls and swinging from branches. After a storm, they chase his model sailboat in the run-off along the curb by the street. Sailing swift and straight ahead of them, it swoops into a storm drain, leaving only a haunting image she can't forget. Her world shatters when she loses Luke in a tragic accident.

Nothing is the same. Quarrels and blame replace conversations while the family struggles through grief. Daily living patterns change when Dad begins weekly airport trips to work assignments in another state. Mom abandons her home pottery business for a job opportunity in an office.

Although months pass, Dana wants life to return to the way it was. She wants her brother back, even with his incessant teasing. Her only comfort comes from talking to him in heaven.

Three years later, still missing her brother and suppressing anger for her father, Dana visits him and his new family. While finishing a project in their wooded yard, she disappears. Search teams comb nearby mountains, unaware she is struggling on a life-threatening journey.

Chasing the Blue Boat follows a broken family in the early 1970s from New York to Western North Carolina as they heal through the hope and humor of strangers, start their lives anew and learn to forgive.