The S. S. Claridon is scheduled for her five last voyages after thirty-eight years of service. After an explosion in the boiler room, Captain Robert Adams (George Sanders) is reluctant to evacuate the steamship. While the crew fights to hold a bulkhead between the flooded boiler room and the engine room and *oid the sinking of the vessel, the passenger Cliff Henderson (Robert Stack) struggles against time trying to s*e his beloved wife Laurie Henderson (Dorothy Malone), who is trapped under a steel beam in her cabin, with the support of the crewmember Hank Lawson (Woody Strode).