The Onedin Line

Classic drama series charting the fortunes of a Liverpool shipping family headed by the ambitious James Onedin. The action opens in 1860. Already a seasoned seafarer at 28, Onedin is determined to command his own ship, even if it means marrying a woman he does not love. James Onedin is anxious to purchase the schooner, Charlotte Rhodes. Her owner Captain Webster refuses James's offer. However, the Captain has a daughter...

Anne Onedin learns about sea fever - and navigation. "Plain Sailing" Returning from Portugal. James Onedin comes down with typhoid. Anne is forced to learn the elements of navigation and take charge of a mutinous crew.

After a perilous return voyage, James Onedin finds more problems ashore. With little ready cash he is scarcely a match for ship-owner Callon's vengeance.

James Onedin slowly struggles to build up his fleet of sailing ships.First he needs a warehouse - but as always the price is high.

James sails home to yet more money problems. Elizabeth cannot decide whether to marry Frazer or Fogarty.

The Charlotte Rhodes, badly damaged by violent storms, is foundering. Callon makes it a race for salvage.

Despite a disaster in the vineyards, James, in Lisbon, still manages to bargain for his square rigger. White sails billow against the blue sky, as the Pampero sails towards South America.

When James sails home to Liverpool with his new clipper, Anne is not on the quayside to greet him. The reason for her absence is a certain Michael Adams...

A ship James has chartered from Callon is lost at sea. Callon sees his chance to bankrupt the Onedin Line and takes it.

James is approached to carry a secret passenger to Italy, little knowing that Callon has arranged it, knowing the dangers involved.

The crew of a chartered ship has mutinied at Brest. Unless James can make them agree to sail on to London, the fruit cargo will perish and he will face financial disaster.

A dramatic voyage to Australia ends in near-disaster when James's promised cargo doesn't materialise. Then a stranger, McPherson, makes an unusual proposition.

Is Elizabeth's baby a bastard? Albert suddenly comes face to face with a new possibility, while James sets forth on a troubled voyage to Quebec.

James is lured by the prospect of high profits into attempting to run the Unionist blockade to the beleaguered Southern states of America during the Civil War.

Lured by the profitable prospects of steamships, James sets up a public company - but Callon is an old hand at financial juggling. Barnes returns to Liverpool with the news that the Pampero has been lost.

James Onedin is in need of quick profits to regain control of the Onedin Line which Callon has wrested from him. But when James sails for the West Indies he has a troublemaker aboard...

Discontent is rapidly mounting aboard James's clipper The Star of Bethlehem. Led by sailmaker Jessop, the crew plan a seamen's strike on their return to Liver-pool. Anne is increasingly torn between loyalty to her husband and her principles.

Anne has left James and is determined not to return. But James has warned her that she'll not survive as a woman alone...

What is the mystery surrounding the voyage of the Samantha? In Ireland, a woman asks James to get her damaged ship, the Samantha, with its cargo of guano, home to Liverpool. James is convinced there is something suspicious.

James and Albert are responsible for bringing yellow fever into Liverpool. They are shocked to learn that the enquiry into the outbreak will be headed by Albert's father...

Sailing from Foochow in his chartered clipper Osiris, James picks up the lone survivor of a wrecked ship. The survivor has a strange story to tell...

James has an uneasy feeling about the Pibroch and her curious cargo. But he discovers the secret of the vessel's voyage too late. For James is aboard her-and in grave danger.

Captain Baines is deemed responsible for the loss of his ship and has to face a board of Nautical Assessors, while James plans to sail around the Horn, the last testing voyage left to a sailor....

James and Albert Frazer sail to Turkey to inspect a steam engine well in advance of its time.

James discovers a derelict schooner and decides to take her in tow. Mr Baines considers the schooner is hardly worth the trouble, but James is intrigued by the mystery of the abandoned vessel.

Elizabeth finds that Albert has visited Carrie Harris again and she decides to leave him. Albert, furious with his wife, threatens to sue for divorce and to make public Elizabeth's unchastity.

Paris is in the hands of Citizen Communards who are fighting a civil war with the rest of France. Nevertheless, James insists on going to Paris to collect an old debt ...

A tea merchant is to sell his Onedin Line shares to the highest bidder. If Fogarty can buy them he will gain control of the company.

James has challenged Daniel Fogarty to a race from Foochow to Liverpool. The winner will gain control of the Onedin Steamship Company. But with Anne's news, James has another reason for a fast passage to Liverpool....

It is six months since the death of Anne Onedin. How is James coping with the loss of the woman who had become so dear to him? Young Leonora Biddulph is soon to learn...Tonight: When ship devils cause a ship to sink, James comes into conflict with Samuel Plimsoll, the sailors' friend.

James sights a dugout canoe In the freshwater outlet of the Amazon. Inside the canoe is the exhausted and sun-blistered figure of a woman...

James sails into Liverpool to find two mysteries awaiting him: the disappearance of the steamship Anne Onedin, and a strange request from Senor Braganza...

Difficulties and danger await Captain Fogarty when he attempts to take a cargo of coal up the Amazon. Having James Onedin as a competitor doesn't help, either...

James comes into open conflict with Samuel Plimsoll , who is campaigning for a safe load-line to be painted on all vessels. The result is a hazardous voyage for both men.

James is to fetch a cargo of rubber seeds from Brazil for the development of plantations in India. The Brazilian Government, however, guard their rubber seeds rather zealously. But Caroline has a plan...

Captain Baines is a confirmed bachelor. Until he meets Mrs Darling and finds himself in a peculiar and rather sinister dilemma...

In a race against time, James takes two ships to the Baltic for cargoes of pit wood. When one of the ships is caught in the ice, James challenges Captain Fogarty: -how will he choose to die - by ice or by fire?

A remarkably debonair James imparts some surprising news to his sister, Elizabeth. He is to make a proposal of marriage...

Captain Baines is troubled to learn that James is tiring of the sea and is thinking of selling his ships. But Baines's troubles really begin when James asks him to navigate a West African river ...

James and Captain Fogarty race their ships to Boston, the winner to secure a tea contract. Why are both men so convinced that they will win?

When a ship strikes an iceberg, Captain Baines is not picked up with the survivors. James, determined that Baines is still alive, sets himself the seemingly impossible task of finding him...

Leonora Biddulph or Caroline Maudslay? The time has come for James to make his decision.

"Get yourself another steamboat, Onedin, and don't waste my time."

'It's a foolish man that tells the world he's found a goldmine.' Baines and Onedin find an uncharted island. They intend to mine the guano; however Matt Harvey finds out about their plan

As James takes the Christian Radich across the equator, a fire breaks out, and then some of Daniel Fogarty's bars of gold bullion are missing,

Once again William takes Beaumont's advice and both men discover that they have been duped. But James believes that his nephew deliberately sank a ship.

In Liverpool, James learns from his brother Robert that the ship Maisie Agnes has sunk. To make matters worse, the ship had been chartered by Callon, and the insurance company refuses to pay the claim because the cargo included barrels of gunpowder, which caused the disaster. Determined to take advantage of the situation, Callon forces the Onedins into bankruptcy. To settle the debt, they will have to sell the Charlotte Rhodes and Robert's shop. In response, James decides to embark on one last voyage, this time carrying a cargo of gunpowder.

Seth Burgess urgently needs crewmen for a voyage to New York and turns in desperation to Paddy West, who makes a thriving business of turning landlubber emigrants intoinstant sailors, thus enabling them to evade American immgration control.

'It's Onedin! Well, he'll not take us without a fight. Best arm yourselves, lads.'