Christine inherits a sailboat from her father, whom she barely knew. Christine is a divorced single mother and her job at a research insitute leaves her with too much work and too little time to sail. She can't find anyone to buy the boat at full value, so she tries to repair it over the winter in the hopes of being able to get a better price in the spring. Working on the boat become something of an obsession to the detriment of Christine's relationships with her son, boyfriend and collegues. When the boat is finally ready to sell, she isn't sure that she is willing to part with it after all.

A small Arizona town is plagued by violence created from the tension between Anglo and Mexican-American youths. Tony (Tom Nardini) is the idealistic new kid in school who tries to alleviate long-time tensions between the rival factions. The Mexican gang is led by Paco (Zooey Hall), a hot-tempered youth with good reason to resent some of his Caucasian counterparts due to past prejudices. Bruce (David Macklin) is the leader of the white gang. Patty McCormack and Joanna Frank are the female interests who become victims of the gang struggles. Tony, formerly from San Diego, attempts to change the attitudes of the polarized and violent groups. Simms (Russ Bender) is a bigoted educator who fans the flames of hate, and Wilson (Arthur Peterson) is the school principal who is helpless to stop the violence between the two factions.