The Windward started her life as a fishing trawler in 1974 in the Dutch port city of Zaandam, providing a means for her crew to earn an honest day’s wage. Three name changes, two paint jobs, and 47 years later she and her Bulgarian and Myanmarese operators stand accused of smuggling nearly a ton of cocaine into SA.

Much like human cocaine mules hired by a Bulgarian syndicate to traffic drugs through Europe, she was used for similar means. SA police found 973 1kg blocks of cocaine tucked away in three compartments in her bowels when they pounced on her in Saldanha Bay harbour in the Western Cape, in a late night raid last Monday...