HighTone - Appreciate the comments.
I see the issue from your side now. Apprears there was a communication error on the first grid of the boats. From your post below you thought and or reported them to be in 12 10 9. What you saw were the boats in the next grid over at 12 11 7 walking along the grid line. Seeing as you thought those were from the other grid square I can see where you wont have looked any further in 12 10.
The boats in the 12 10 grid were moved far to the west along the English Coast line into the bottom side of 12 10 7 and they were there when the fight started. Our fighter cap "pushed" out to the east into 12 10 8 and 9 probably further confusing the location of the 12 10 boats in relation to the other grid squares boats in 12 11.
We thought for sure you knew the location of the 12 10 boats (12 10 7) as the tail end of the fighter engagement drifted to the west over the boats and I had 1 single Hurri down low over the boats waiting for the 109's to descend and attack along with what we thought would come next a wave of JU87's.
After we were all down minus 1 AC you disengaged and I then repositioned the boats from 12 10 7 around the coast up to 12 10 8 as I thought for sure you would be back.
As AKKuya said "One of the Fog of War things". And we got lucky
I think this scenario as shown that hunting for boats even if they are close to the coast it can be difficult when there are many groups all operating in close proximity to one another and they all l look the same. Any scenario using these BOB maps and set ups are great!!!