Tugboat Annie Brennan, the shrewd and cantankerous skipper of the Narcissus , is engaged in a lifelong feud with rival Washington State tugman Captain Bullwinkle. Annie's hotheadedness places her in danger of losing her job as senior captain with the Secoma Towing and Salvage Company when the company's president, Alec Severn, is unable to pay a $25,000 bank note that has come due. When Alec leaves to discuss the note with the new bank president, he puts Annie in charge of the company, ordering her to stay away from the new shipyard owner, millionaire J. B. Armstrong. Annie stubbornly believes, however, that she can talk Armstrong into a fat contract and sets up a meeting with him. The meeting turns into a disaster when Annie, not recognizing J. B., throws him into a pile of fish and he cancels the salvage company's contract. Next, Bullwinkle sends Annie on a wild goose chase to aid a beached vessel that turns out to be a whale, but she turns her luck around when Bullwinkle is unable to float a ship that has gone aground and Annie successfully frees it for $25,000. With the company out of danger, Alec tells Annie to negotiate a job towing a dry dock to Alaska for Armstrong, but when Armstrong refuses to award the job to a woman, Annie appoints her old friend, Mike Mahoney, as captain and wins the contract. Annie is forced to take over the helm, however, when Mahoney shows up drunk and passes out. In addition to her problems with the ailing Mahoney, Annie finds that Peggy, Armstrong's spoiled daughter, has stowed away to be near Eddie Kent, Annie's ward. In the fog and rough seas, a ship rams the dry dock, and to save the dock, Annie is forced to beach it while she takes the sick Mahoney to the hospital. When a gleeful Bullwinkle claims the dock for himself, Alec fires Annie for negligence. As Annie is preparing for retirement, she remembers that maritime law declares that a dry dock is not a vessel and is therefore not subject to salvage laws, thus depriving Bullwinkle of his prize.