All Adrift; Or, The Goldwing Club

Dory Dornwood is sixteen years old, broke, and his family is starving. When he's unjustly fired from his steamboat waiter job, he doesn't despair - he walks the shores of Lake Champlain looking for his next opportunity. A midnight encounter with a mysterious stranger ends in gunfire. A good deed earns a reward. And Dory spends every cent on a sailboat everyone says is cursed. The Goldwing has wrecked more sailors than any boat on the lake. But Dory sees what others don't: potential. He gathers a crew of loyal friends, forms the Goldwing Club, and sets out to prove that courage matters more than reputation. Written in 1884 by Oliver Optic, this is a story about the boldness of youth, the loyalty of friends, and the particular magic of a small boat on open water. It endures because it captures something timeless: the way a determined kid can transform a cursed thing into something glorious.