Torquay Harbour
5 a.m.
April 19th
Torquay was an open harbour, walls around, but no blocks to entry. Stanton was nearly out of fuel when he entered the seaward gap. It was dark and the sun wasn’t due to rise for at least an hour. He turned on the light on the top of the boat and steered his way into an empty berth. There were three empty berths near the sea wall. There was a heavy bump as the prow of the boat hit the wooden jetty. Stanton had cut the engine when he’d steered it in, so there was no reverse power to hold off hitting the woodwork. He switched off the light, ran to the back of the boat, grabbed a line and tied her up.
Stanton stood quietly on deck looking and listening. The harbour was quiet. Some distance away there was an inner harbour with smaller boats. There was a little traffic on the road, lone car lights, the street lamps polluted the pre dawn dark, aside from that there was nothing.
Back in the cabin, aware of time as he was Stanton took a break to eat and drink. A pack of digestive biscuits from a cupboard and a large mug of tea helped him feel stronger.
Refreshed he gathered some useful tools in a bag and walked the jetties looking at berths. There were plenty of yachts and most had engines. He couldn’t really sail a yacht, not alone. There were very few cruisers. There were five sprigs of floating walk ways and along the third he found what he was looking for. There was a clean looking Fairline Phantom 38 three berths in from the walkway.
Stanton climbed aboard and broke through the back door using a crow bar. Glass shattered as he levered the door open, he was acutely aware of the noise as it echoed off the water. The harbour seemed unwatched and no alarm went off when he broke in. He was twenty minutes getting to the wires behind the control panel. He found the starter wires and fired up the engine, it started first time. He went to the back, cast off and as the boat began to drift he gave it power and steered his way carefully around the sprigs of jetties and into the open sea. He checked the electronic panel, fuel tanks were full. It was a nice little boat, lounge, berths, kitchen, very plush, but unlike the Nelson Landguard 33 there was no ‘autopilot control system’, he’d have to steer it all the way.
To that end he motored around the bay, checked the depth sounder and anchored just off Oddicombe beach, just under the Babbacombe cliffs. He took of the aft cabin doors and threw them over the side, putting the back covering up. He cleaned up the glass and checked the boat over. He found no clothes left there except for a blue Berghaus coat with a hood and a woolly hat.
It was lovely really, a real floating home. He found the paperwork for it in cabin storage, the berth ticket for Torquay and owner’s papers. Not for the first time he blessed the complacent laziness of the average human being. They hadn’t thought that anything would happen to them. In his line of work you spent everyday assuming that bad things were going to happen and watching out for them. The alarm system hadn’t even been switched on. At last clear that he could pass muster with a harbour master at Dover, as he knew he’d be arriving in daylight, the Torquay ticket showing he hadn’t come from abroad, he could cruise in, tie up and wait until nightfall to get out and head for the Thames estuary.
It was getting on for six am and there was a pale light in the sky to the East. He hauled anchor and pointed the boat out of the bay and into the channel. The Fairline could do 30 knots and Stanton pushed it as hard as he could, knowing channel traffic would slow him around the Dover area.