Crossword Genius

Night boat involved in nasty end, colliding with ship (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

darkness

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'night' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'boat involved in nasty end colliding with ship' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'boat' could be 'ark' (ark is a kind of boat) and 'ark' is found within the answer.
an anagram of 'end' is 'dne' which is located in the remaining letters.
'ship' could be 'ss' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain) and 'ss' is found in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for darkness that I've seen before include "Better to light a candle than to curse it, they say" , "Absence of light" , "Evil; lack of light" , "Period of no light" , "See 19" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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