He also lets Nita live because her family will pay a reward for her. He easily disarms her, but he lets her live because he owes her mother, Sadna, a blood debt for saving him from the storm.

Richard decides to kill Nita for the salvage on her ship, but Pima attacks Richard with a knife.

However, their luck runs out when Richard discovers the teens and their find. There is only one survivor: a corporate heiress named Nita, who calls herself “Lucky Girl” after learning that Nailer’s nickname is “Lucky Boy.” Both Pima and Nailer believe their luck has changed because the salvage on the clipper ship is worth more than they’ll make in their entire lives. While they fish and crab on a barrier island, Nailer sees a luxury personal clipper ship that has run aground. After two nights, Nailer and Pima return to the beach, which the storm has scoured clean of all buildings, and begin to scavenge for food. Sadna rescues Nailer’s father from the storm as Nailer and Pima seek shelter in a cave. Nailer’s father passes out from drugs and alcohol as a hurricane approaches. Sadna, Pima’s mother, sews him up and tells him “the Fates” have something in store for him. Nailer escapes by opening a hatch that shoots him and the oil out through a tear in the ship’s hull however, a rusty shard of metal stabs him in the process.

His fellow crewmember, Sloth, discovers him there, but leaves him to drown so she can take his place as the “scuttle duct” (43). While hunting through an unexplored part of a ship, he falls through the ducting into a small room filled with oil. Nailer’s boss is Pima, a 16-year-old girl who is also his best friend. Nailer dreams of sailing on the new clipper ships, but he must support his father by crawling through the service passages of the wrecked ships, stripping pieces of copper wire to meet the daily quota. He lives alone with his father, Richard Lopez, who has an addiction to drugs and alcohol, on “Bright Sands” beach his mother died of a fever when he was young. The protagonist, Nailer, is a small-framed boy of 15 who works on the “light crew” of a team that scavenges the tankers. This guide references the 2021 edition of Ship Breaker published by Hachette Book Group.Ĭontent Warning: This guide contains references to violence (including child abuse), drug and alcohol addiction, and enslavement.

Ship breaker