Nick Crane attempts one of the world's most fearsome yachting challenges, the
Isle of Wight 'Round the Island Race'. Novice sailor Nick is plunged in at the
deep end of the competition and his boat suffers near capsize in a gruelling
test of his seamanship. Will Nick even manage to finish, as 1,500 boats battle
to avoid wrecks, reefs and rip tides? To complete his circumnavigation of the
Isle, Nick must learn how a sailing boat can achieve the seemingly impossible
and make progress against the oncoming wind.

Preparing for the race Nick also learns how sailing on the Isle of Wight gained
the royal seal of approval when Queen Victoria said it was impossible to
imagine a prettier spot. After the queen built Osborne House as a summer
retreat on the Isle, her son the Prince of Wales became commodore of the Royal
Yacht Squadron at the island's sailing capital, Cowes.

Mark Horton relives a gruesome tale of cannibalism and murder that scandalised
Victorian Britain and still affects the law today. In 1884, a yacht, The
Mignonette, sank 600 miles from land. Lost at sea in a small lifeboat, the
wrecked crew killed the cabin boy and drank his blood to survive. Miraculously
the men were eventually saved, and surprisingly they fully expected to walk
free after confessing their crime. The 'custom of the sea' condoned cannibalism
as a last resort but the 'law of the land' said otherwise. The trial of the
self-confessed cannibals captivated the nation. But would their extraordinary
defence that, as seafarers, they had a 'necessity to murder' convince the jury
and save them from the noose?

In Milford Haven, Ruth Goodman celebrates unsung heroes who arrived from
distant shores. When Hitler invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Dutch fishermen
escaped in their boats, crossing the North Sea to help defend Britain. How did
the Dutch seamen adapt their fishing skills to clear German mines laid in the
seas around British ports? Minesweeping was a deadly job, the fishermen had to
learn fast or die trying, but they also made happier catches. Ruth explores the
romantic entanglements which, against a backdrop of danger, led to many
marriages between Dutch men and Welsh women.

Naval historian Nick Hewitt searches out the remarkable remains of the
submarines that threatened to sink Britain by strangling its sea trade. Why
does a First World War German U-boat, its hull astonishingly intact, lie hidden
in the mud of the Medway estuary, so close to London? And what is the story
behind the Soviet sub which Nick discovers nearby? Its hull reveals what life
was like for Russian submariners, preparing for the day when Britain's Cold War
would turn hot.

And one hardy bunch of sea-anglers, who all hail from Zimbabwe, find that a
life on the ocean wave isn't all it's cracked up to be when they chance their
hand with rod and line in the rolling seas off the coast of Yorkshire. As they
battle sea-sickness on their annual day-trip from Whitby, they find themselves,
once again, all at sea.