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Mr. Letnik is challenging that debt in court. He argues the city has no right to charge him property taxes for a boat that remains in the water. But he also seems, at this point, mostly resigned the fact that the floating home of Captain John’s, which was closed down in June 2012, is soon to be sold.

On Monday, Mr. Letnik took a National Post reporter and photographer through the Jadran, where he still lives at least part of the time.

One condition of the Jadran’s sale is that any buyer take it as is. And after two years of mothballed decline, “as is” isn’t very pretty.

On the main deck, once home to the Captain John’s dining room, the smell of mould is nearly overpowering. The wall nearest the prow has been stripped away and dirty pink insulation sits piled on the carpet.

One floor up, in the Dubrovnik Room, where weddings and banquets were once held, the ceiling has partially caved in. Black mould is creeping up the walls. The smell is, if anything, worse.

Mr. Letnik still keeps an apartment on the top deck. Like everything on the Jadran, it is a tremendous mess. Boxes of dried food are stacked loosely on the floor in one room. In another, a makeshift pallet of blankets and sheets serves as a bed.

Mr. Letnik wouldn’t say what he plans to do if the sale goes through next week. He has relatives in Mississauga and Scarborough. He also owned, as of last year, an apartment complex in Scarborough.

In any case, he plans to be there next Thursday when the bids are unsealed. Several interested parties have already toured the Jadran, said Erin Mikaluk, a spokesperson for the Toronto Port Authority, although what any of them would do with the aging, now engineless craft remains to be seen.

Whatever it is, they won’t be doing it at 1 Queen’s Quay West. Unless a new deal is reached, the new owners will have only until Aug. 22 to drag the boat away, whether to a scrap yard or to some new home.