At least one mystery surrounding the theft of a luxury sailboat and its ill-fated voyage was solved this week — how the thieves were able to start the vessel’s engine to begin their brief journey.
The last person to use the 82-foot Darling left the keys in the cabin, police told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Beyond that, however, investigators said they were still at a loss to know how a romantically involved couple with minor criminal records teamed up with a Wyoming man to ease the boat out of the Sausalito Yacht Harbor without a scratch in the middle of the night and sailed it through the Golden Gate.
The $2.8 million sailboat, with three cabins and onboard satellite TV, made a beeline down the coast before running aground just before dawn Monday off Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica, according to the website MarineTraffic.com.
