A modern video gaming teenager of mixed racial heritage struggles to adjust to a wind-powered world when a strange weather anomaly, spawned by an ancient Voodoo spell, tosses him over two hundred years back in time to 1803. After the death of his mother, his estranged father had attempted to "man him up by enrolling the 14 year old Connor in a Caribbean sailing boot camp for troubled youths. He resisted like a cat on a leash till he was washed overboard by a strange white squall. After being rescued by the crew of an ancient British Man-O-War, Connor initially thinks it's all an elaborate hoax devised by his father, a cosmetic surgeon for the elite. Reality finally asserts itself, however, and he finds himself assigned to the ship's surgeon, a glorified butcher, who Connor instructs in modern concepts of sanitation and a better use for high proof spirits beyond that of drunkenness. Eventually his experiences with naval regulations and raw human interactions involving different cultures, pirates, a Voodoo Priestess, and the Haitian struggle for independence combine to manage what no modern boot camp would ever risk lawsuit or imprisonment to accomplish. In the end, given a chance to return to his previous existence, what will he choose to do?