The dockhand shakes his head. Someone else protests loudly. "Of course not! That's the worst part, having your little pre-settling adventures and then you see the pacification boat swing by..."

"I thought the worst part was feeding a Spectre at all."

"Prisons won't work out and guillotines' too fast."

"Then just hang these people! Then we don't have to do this and take them and keep them with the old victims, it's just over!"

Seeing Syrlya's confusion the dockhand clarifies for him. "They don't take 'im to the island isself, see? Spectres go an' reach out in ten, twelve feet of water. S' why the boat looks like it does, dunnit?"

The boat's extra, single-seat pontoon held at a severe distance does make it look very awkward, and it seems like there's some kind of mechanism of chains being inspected now - like the pontoon can be released to float on out and then a winch operated to reel it back to that distance. One of its pilots has a platypus dæmon, the other some kind of petrel. Presumably one's echolocation and the other's eyesight make them able to tell where to stop.