David Cheap boards the Wager as her new captain, receives formal honors, settles into his great cabin with steward Peter Plastow, and recites the Articles of War to assert discipline, emphasizing the ban on sedition and mutiny. He immediately readies the ship for rounding Cape Horn, confronting the vast risks of the Drake Passage.

The chapter explains the deadly seas and the challenge of longitude. With no reliable marine chronometer, Cheap must rely on dead reckoning, a hazardous blend of sandglass timing, log-line speed, and judgment. Though John Harrison’s timekeeper shows promise aboard Centurion years earlier, Cheap sails without it—and unknowingly into March, a particularly violent season for westward rounding.

The squadron pauses at St. Julian to repair the Trial’s mast, a desolate place haunted by the memories of Magellan’s and Drake’s executions. Departing on February 27, the ships press south amid cold, mist, and wildlife, passing the Strait of Magellan and skirting Tierra del Fuego, whose myths and bleak peaks underscore their isolation.

On March 6, Anson orders a dawn run through the Strait of Le Maire, reiterating instructions to avoid separation and to rendezvous in Chile if parted. Staten Island’s jagged pinnacles loom as the men hunt albatross and, buoyed by serene weather, begin to boast that the worst is past.

Suddenly the weather breaks: winds scream, seas heave, and currents seize the heavy Wager, driving her toward Staten Island’s lethal rocks. Cheap coordinates precise sail reductions and maneuvers, demanding flawless execution from Lieutenant Baynes, gunner John Bulkeley, midshipman John Byron with Henry Cozens, boatswain John King, helmsmen, and carpenters John Cummins and James Mitchell. Through disciplined action, Cheap wrests the ship clear. Byron and Bulkeley later praise his courage and skill, and Cheap briefly attains the authority and identity he craves.