This article: The SS Claridon is an old ship that is scheduled to be scrapped after just a few more voyages. Cliff and Laurie Henderson and their daughter, Jill, are relocating to Tokyo and decide to sail there on board the ship. A fire in the boiler room is extinguished, but not before a boiler fuel supply valve is fused open. Before Chief Engineer Pringle can manually open a steam relief valve, a huge explosion rips through the boiler room and the many decks situated above it, killing him and some of the passengers and trapping Laurie under a steel beam in their state room, in addition to opening a huge hole in the side of the ship.
Cliff runs back to their state room and can't get Laurie out alone. He then finds Jill trapped on the other side of the room. He tries to use a shattered piece of the bed to get to the other side, but it falls through the huge hole made by the explosion. Third Officer Osborne believes that the crew should start loading the passengers into the lifeboats, but Captain Robert Adams is reluctant, as he never lost a ship. Cliff rescues Jill by using a board to have her crawl across the hole on. Down in the boiler room, Second Engineer Walsh reports to Captain Adams that a seam to the bulkhead has broken away. Cliff tries to get  a steward's help, but to no avail. A passenger states that he overheard his conversation, and wants to help.
Osborne reports that the boiler room is now half full. The ship then begins to transmit an SOS, on orders of Captain Adams. Cliff and a few other men return to his state room to try to help free Laurie, but find that they need a torch.
The carpenter reports to the crew that the boiler room is now two thirds full. Captain Adams makes an announcement to the passengers to put on their life jackets. They then begin loading and launching the lifeboats. contains an answer for the question: Whose conversation does a passenger overhear that makes him want to help?, what is it ?


Cliff