The Toronto Port Authority will ask a federal court next week to approve the seizure and sale of Captain John’s for scrap.

But the owner of the former floating seafood restaurant is seeking a delay in hopes that an unlikely saviour will come to his rescue — Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board.

“Captain John” Letnik has managed to win an unusual hearing April 10 before the board, which usually mediates disputes between apartment dwellers and their landlords.

He will argue that he was a “tenant” in the Captain’s quarters of the ship since sailing it here from Yugoslavia in 1975. That is, until its “landlord,” the Toronto Port Authority, which owns the watery slip at the foot of Yonge St. where it floats, “withheld or interfered with vital services” by cutting off water to the ship in June, 2012.

Letnik is seeking compensation of $18,000 for, in essence, being forced out of his home, where he says he had been paying rent, albeit to his own business.

But, really, the board hearing is just another legal effort by Letnik, 75, to save the ship. He now owes a staggering $1.7 million in realty taxes, insurance, berthing, mortgage and other fees, some going as far back as 2002, according to documents filed with the Federal Court this month by the Toronto Port Authority.

“They may have the right to shut off the water to my business, but not to my home,” says Letnik. “Everybody knows that I was living on the boat.”

Last December, Letnik launched a countersuit against the port authority, seeking more than $1.2 million in damages: He claims that the authority has effectively sabotaged his efforts to find a buyer for his now-defunct business by refusing to provide a long-term lease at the foot of Yonge St. for the ship or on an alternative waterfront site.

The TPA is now asking the court to throw out that counterclaim and put the rental board hearing on hold until the bigger issue can be considered first — the request by the TPA that the ship be seized and sold in “as is, where is” condition, most likely for scrap, for nonpayment of berthing and other fees.

The port authority notes that it could cost up to $20,000 just to have a court-appointed sheriff handle the advertising and other efforts needed to find a buyer to haul the rusting relic away from its prime waterfront site.

The TPA will ask the court during the hearing set for April 1 to confirm its priority under the Canada Marine Act to the rest of the money generated by the sale. Anything left over — the authority is owed more than $251,000 — would go to cover debts owed the City of Toronto and Waterfront Toronto.

But the court filings make it very clear the ship is now in such a state of disrepair, its value is marginal, and most likely only as scrap.

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The TPA has had the ship appraised, but doesn’t disclose the value in its court filings, asking that the number remain private until the court has ruled if the seizure can go ahead.

Some five interested buyers have approached the TPA over the last year or so, inquiring about possibly making a purchase, says the authority in its legal documents. But all walked away after discovering the ship’s state of disrepair, it notes.