Captain David Cheap refuses to turn back, driving the damaged, undermanned Wager toward Anson’s rendezvous and the planned strike on Valdivia. He pushes the crew through violent Pacific storms, with Midshipman Alexander Campbell enforcing orders amid growing resentment and mounting deaths.

Byron sights seaweed and warns Gunner John Bulkeley they may be near land. Bulkeley, fearing a lee shore and doubting Master Clark’s reckoning, urges a course change, but Lieutenant Baynes defers to Cheap. Cheap reveals Anson’s secret orders and insists on pressing on. On May 13, Carpenter Cummins likely sights land, but Baynes dismisses it; later Bulkeley, aloft, confirms land, and Cheap orders a desperate jibe. The Wager turns but is trapped running south inside the Gulf of Penas.

As topsails blow out, Cheap rushes forward to rally repairs, falls through a ripped hatch, and shatters his shoulder. Sedated with opium by Surgeon Walter Elliot, he is incapacitated when, at 4:30 a.m. on May 14, the ship strikes submerged rocks. Further blows destroy the rudder and an anchor smashes the hull. Panic spreads; some pray or unravel, while Seaman John Jones rallies a working party. Bulkeley tries to steer by sails; men pump and bail; the helmsman remains at his post despite a useless wheel.

The Wager battles on without rudder, mizzen, or captain on deck until she smashes into more rocks. Masts are cut away; the hull floods; many bedridden sick drown. Providentially, the wreck wedges between two rocks and does not immediately sink. As the sky clears, Byron spots an island beyond the breakers, offering a tenuous hope of survival.