The story of sea Captain Henry Rose tells of 19th century sailing ships carrying troops to the Crimea War, Indian labourers to Central America, convicts to Australia and immigrants to New Zealand. Based on the captain's memoir, penned a year before he died in 1912, Driven by the Wind tells of a boy born to English parents in Colombia, who became an apprentice in the Merchant Navy at the age of 14 and rose to the rank of master mariner and captain of his own ships by his mid 20s. He first sailed into Lyttelton in 1863 just as digging for the Lyttelton Tunnel was underway, and later became a foundation member of the newly constituted Wellington Harbour Board.