Widow Brasse goes to great lengths to support her children and her elderly grandfather. Poverty and irritation are a constant state of affairs in the family, as there is not enough money to go around, even though Johanna Brasse washes clothes for strangers day after day. But as life goes, one day Grandpa Philipp is hit by a car and the widow senses a good deal. Although Grandpa is not injured, he is put to bed and given a proper bandage. All the preparations are made to extract a good deal of compensation from the remorseful driver. But everything turns out quite differently.

A rich farmer learns that the grandfather of a poor farmer owns two houses. He therefore tries to buy his grandfather from the poor farmer. However, the grandfather is even more cunning than the inheritance hunter, and so everything ends well for the poor farmer, whose son then gets the rich farmer's daughter.

Exciting things happen on Captain Brass' small cargo ship on the last day in port: a windy "doctor" turns the captain on to a strange new ship's pharmacy, in which the medicines are replenished free of charge by his staff in every port of call. The "curbside swallow" Olga has long known that this is really about cocaine smuggling...

With his human nature and good-natured character, Police Master Johannes Wilke has everything under control. For this reason, he can afford to enjoy a glass of schnapps and play chess on the phone while on duty. Both his colleague Benthin and Pastor Petersen are not at all happy with such an approach to the job. But when a floater, a naked bather and a thieving tipple brother turn up, Wilke puts his beloved chessboard to one side...

In the sailors' pub "Die Königin von Honolulu" in Hamburg's St. Pauli district in 1910, the sailors are sitting grumpily and pestering their wages master, Krischon Honolulu, to finally get them a ship, as their coffers are at low tide. Then the sailor Scharli appears and reports that an American luxury yacht has arrived, owned by the millionaire William Thomson, a "madman" and misogynist who throws his money around. Eight sailors are wanted for a voyage around the world, including to Honolulu.