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Grandma1 - 13A - the wordplay builds up the elements of the answer - start of a play + short word for 'aboard' + word meaning 'ship'.

Thanks jbird. I'll have another hour with this later today. I think it's a clever topic and the reveal of the decoy etc was fun but, tbh, I'm finding it a bit tedious after working those out!

Actually, just had a light bulb moment and now have 13a.

That'll teach me to be gender-specific about certain terms. 😄

Thanks again.

...or NOT to be gender specific!

Had a very busy weekend, but I managed to finish this one up yesterday. Despite not knowing much about the theme I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks Craft!

Great construction this one, and an interesting feature with the wrapping clues in a carte blanche. One of my favourites of the year, despite the amount of cold-solving needed at the start and a few definitions and synonyms stretched a bit taut. I had a few clues I was struggling to parse, but resolved them all with comments already made here — thanks all — and a bit of hard staring. Thanks Craft.

I have everything apart from the unclued entry, which must be reasonably straight forward as I can't see anyone else struggling with it - is there a gentle nudge that might help me?

Got it! Post and solve...

Well, I have a full grid, just got to incarcertate the victim. Came close to DNF/binning it a few times and wouldn't have got close in the 2 weeks before the solution is published without help from here. My earlier comment about, maybe I'll just start colouring in would have been pretty close though!

Thanks all. 👍

I have answers for many clues, including 1ac, 3 ac, 6ac, 28ac and 29ac, in other words 3 rows that must (I think) contain 3 sequential letters in 25d (also solved); but they don't. Any help gratefully received.