KEY WEST, Fla. (AP)–Looking like Noah's Ark after the flood, a sleek, 158-foot yacht driven aground by a hurricane two years ago lies just offshore, mired as deeply in an environmental dispute with the government as it is in the ocean floor.
For most of the past two years, the boat's owner, Peter Halmos, has been arguing with federal officials over how to free the ship without doing too much damage to the seagrass around it. Through it all, Halmos, has stubbornly insisted on staying aboard or living close by on a cluster of houseboats so he can guard his beloved Legacy against pirates and thieves plying the calm green-and-azure waters off Key West.
A Hungarian emigre who made a fortune selling theft protection to credit-card holders, and later forged a warrior's identity by helping companies engage in complex legal battles, Halmos estimates he is spending more than $1 million a month maintaining the houseboats and moving the Legacy, which is finally – though slowly, very slowly – being pulled free.
"After two years, you kind of get numb to it," said Halmos, who bought the boat in 1995 for $16 million. "It used to make me physically sick."
NOWHERE TO RUN
Plastered with "No Trespassing" signs, the sailing yacht with a gleaming white bridge sits upright in less than a foot of water about two miles offshore, a tattered American flag flying above. Its mast and boom are gone, its dark-blue hull is scuffed, its wooden deck weatherbeaten.
But the hull is intact – and Halmos says it will float.
Halmos, who is in his early 60s, was aboard the Legacy with six others, searching for a sunken Spanish galleon, when Hurricane Wilma struck in October of 2005. Legacy had weathered Katrina and her 80-mile-per-hour winds without trouble. So instead of heading out for the open sea when Wilma arrived, he decided to drop anchor and ride out the storm near shore.
Since Legacy's grounding, the owner and crew have worked to free her – and to protect her from salvage crews.
It would prove a terrible mistake.
Halmos recounted that fateful night in a Vanity Fair article published in January. Halmos was in bed, shortly after midnight, when he said he felt the massive yacht lurching, movements so powerful that he was thrown down the stairs as he tried to reach the wheelhouse, according to the magazine. The ship's anchors had broken free and Legacy was being dragged backward into the storm at a speed of 10 knots.
Calls to the Coast Guard went unanswered, Halmos told Vanity Fair, because personnel had already evacuated. Aboard Legacy, the crew was fighting a losing battle as Wilma's winds began rocking the boat so violently that water was seeping into the lower cabins through the air vents. As seawater sloshed through the corridors, mixing with the electronic circuitry, the galley filled with smoke. Fearing a fire, the captain gave an order to shut off all the electricity and Legacy went dark in the midst of the raucous storm.
Assembled in the wheelhouse, terrified, waves crashing 20 to 30 feet over the boat, there was talk of launching the life rafts.
"But that would have been suicidal," Capt. Ed Collins told Vanity Fair. At 3 a.m. the yacht's 160-foot mast crashed directly into the wheelhouse, shattering windows and popping light bulbs out of their sockets, before toppling into the surging waters below.
Halmos told the magazine that he gathered everyone in the salon where they took hold of each other's hands. "I was so scared I couldn't cry," he said. "I don't know how the boat held together. I thought, 'Just end it.'"
Around 5 a.m. Legacy literally struck bottom as winds carried the boat across the tidal flats of the Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge.
RUN AGROUND
When the storm had passed, Legacy was aground miles away from where it had anchored, stuck in the sand in a federally-protected area where sensitive varieties of seagrass provide a habitat for fish. If Halmos were simply to drag the Legacy out, it would damage the grass and he could be hit with millions of dollars in fines.
