The adaptive tracking control issue for the unmanned surface vehicle (USV) with actuator failures and disturbances is investigated. More specifically, a fixed-time high-order sliding mode observer is designed to estimate the actuator fault. Furthermore, a non-singular sliding mode controller (NSMC) is designed to solve the singular problem that may occur in the sliding mode function under certain circumstances. And then, by using the Lyapunov stability theory, we prove that the proposed control method can ensure all signals in the closed-loop system are bounded and the USV can track the desired trajectory in a fixed time. At last, the simulation example of the USV operating in the fixed-time tracking strategy demonstrates the effectiveness of the control method.