Every winter, Japanese whaling ships hunt in the Southern Ocean under a scientific-research permit, and every winter Sea Shepherd tries to stop them. This film follows the group's Antarctic campaign aboard two aging vessels, the Farley Mowat and the Robert Hunter, neither built for pack ice, as founder Paul Watson and first-time captain Alex Cornelissen search the Ross Sea for a fleet that does not want to be found. Locating the Japanese ships turns out to be the hardest part of the mission, and the crew, mostly volunteers with little formal training, improvise tactics on the fly once contact is made. No government backs the campaign or will enforce the international whaling moratorium on their behalf, so the confrontation plays out entirely between the two fleets, with the smaller, slower Sea Shepherd ships trying to outmaneuver and obstruct rather than outrun their target. The footage is shot from the deck in open water and ice, with the crew's own doubts and improvisation left in rather than smoothed over.