This film marks the first appearance of Hay, Moffatt and Marriot together. Hay stars as Captain Ben Cutlet who holds his sisters bar room spellbound with his sea-going recollections, but in reality he has been nothing more dashing than the skipper of a canal barge. Harbottle works behind the bar and sneaks a drink whenever he fancies. On delivering some drinks to Hay's table he announces 'That's funny, there's one left over!'  'Yes' replies Hay  'that's the third time today' 

Hay is conned into skippering the 'Rob Roy' for it's voyage to the West Indies (although he thinks he's going to Norway) by a gang of rogues acting as his crew who once out at sea plan to scuttle the vessel so they can claim the insurance. Hay is not worried about going to sea for the first time, for he has devised a plan that will get him out of this tricky endeavour, all of which unfortunately involve Albert and Harbottle, who fancying a bit of a voyage themselves, fail to go through with Hay's plan and we find Hay at sea with his couple of stowaways. Once at sea we see Hay looking a little bit sea sick and the mate shouts to him  'Red light on the port bow Sir' Hay replies 'Well stop the ship till it turns to green.' Later on the mate using nautical terms informs Hay that 'one bells gone' 'Gone where?' asks Hay 'just gone!' replies the mate. 'Oh what a pity, well go get another one!' A little later on another mate  informs Hay that 'Eight bells have gone Sir' 'What eight more? Well if it goes on like this we won't have any left' 

Hay has been nine weeks at sea and becomes suspicious of their actual position because they have seen no land and Norway is only 300 miles away. The trio decide to calculate their whereabouts. 'Now which way have we been sailing' asks Hay. 'When we came out of the harbour we turned left'  'Yes that's right, we turned left. That's nine weeks to the left' and so the painful arithmetic goes on and they come to the conclusion that they are three and a half miles from Birmingham that is until they realise that they should have dropped a day in the calculation when they crossed the International dateline. 'Right we'll drop one now' states Hay, 'Let's drop next Thursday.' 'Oh no! Can't do that' cries Harbottle. 'It's my birthday...I shan't get any presents!' 'Oh, all right we'll drop next Wednesday, its half day closing anyway, so it's all to the good.' 

Comic capers ensue, they half starve on the raft that they use to escape the rogues, the radio set is thrown from the raft into the sea by the indignant Hay because he cannot bear the cookery programme that is being broadcast. The raft finally makes it to shore only to be captured by cannibals but the radio set also washes ashore  and because of the noises it is making frightens them away. The radio becomes Hay's saving grace as it is proclaimed by the cannibals as the all powerful 'Voice in Box'  and they duly become under the command of Hay. Hay manages to capture the rogues who planned to scuttle the ship once they came ashore with the help of the cannibals. He makes good his escape back onto the 'Rob Roy' which thanks to the Chief Engineer had not been scuttled. On the homeward journey Harbottle spots a distress flare 'Look there! fireworks!' it must be the Crystal Palace!'  Hay replies 'Don't be silly. Crystal Palace is in London, might be Blackpool Illuminations!' Albert chips in 'We are nowhere near Blackpool, you have to pass Spain to get to Blackpool!' The flare as come from a luxury cruiser which was stranded on a sandbank and thanks to Hay's poor navigation he crashes straight into them. Unbeknown to him he has freed them from the sandbank and they are welcomed home as heroes. 

Hay is credited with the screenplay on this film and this could well have had a lot to do with the shaping of the characters that Moffatt and Marriott played in this film and others to come. During Will Hay's music-hall routines, he had long worked out the comic potential of having the old man Harbottle always butting in on the conversation and asking stupid questions and the character of Albert who would always show Hay  total insolence, but would always be there for him to help him out of any tricky situation.