There are sixteen boats out on the plas, and until today fourteen of them were scenery.
Every one of them had somebody aboard, and somebody aboard is exactly what makes a boat impossible to take. So the only hull you could ever steal was a rental sitting empty at a jetty, which is fine, but it means the fast boats, the ones actually going somewhere, were behind glass. You could pull alongside a cruiser doing nine and there was nothing to do about it but wave.
Throw an air tank at it now.
One is enough. The boat does not have to sink, it does not even have to be badly hurt: the crew simply decides they would rather be in the water than aboard, and over the side they go. What is left drifts to a stop with nobody at the wheel, and from there it is an ordinary empty hull. Pull alongside, hold Space, and it is yours. Two stars, same as any theft, and the police will come and have a look at where it happened.
It changes what a tank is for. It was a way to end an argument; it is now also a way to go shopping.
Three boats do not empty. Paula's Patatboot keeps her helm no matter what lands beside it, and so do Thea and the water police. Their hulls take no damage either (that has always been true and still is), so throwing at them buys you nothing at all.
Except stars. A tank anywhere near a patrol boat or near Thea is five stars, instantly, hit or miss, and Thea does not wait to notice: she is already on her way. One near Paula is three. There is no version of this where you get away with it and no version where you get anything for it, which is more or less the point. She sells chips.
Fourteen boats that were scenery are now a shop with an unusual door policy.
MeerBeter Vinkeveen Vice. Nine kilometres an hour, strictly enforced. Play in your browser: meerbeter.com