The North Sea harbor was calm but cold at 7:50 p.m. as the ferry Herald of Free Enterprise pulled out of the slip at Zeebrugge, Belgium, to begin its regular 85-mile run to the British port of Dover. Darkness had just fallen, and the 543 passengers and crew, most of them British, were settling in for the 4 1/2-hour journey. Some were day trippers returning to Dover after a promotional tour sponsored by the Sun, a London tabloid. Others were British soldiers on leave from their units in West Germany. The ferry was about three- fourths of a mile from the...
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