Perini Navi's Legacy drops keel
By IBI Magazine/Michael Howorth
Wrecked when Hurricane Wilma ripped through Florida in October 2005, and held captive inside a marine sanctuary off Key West until early 2008, the 48m (157ft) Perini Navi Legacy is yet again being held against the wishes of her owner.
This time it is not the authorities who are stopping owner Peter Halmos from sailing out of Key West Harbor towards Tampa, where a shipyard is waiting to begin the initial repair process. Nor is it the bent rudder stock that is holding her back. It is more a case of the yacht itself, which seems disinclined to move. Having been dragged from the shallows into deeper water she appears then to have dropped her keel — 40 tonnes of retractable centre board has dropped down some 8m (26ft) and is now refusing all efforts to lift it. Salvage experts Jones Boat Yard and Byrd Marine, together with representatives of the yacht's original builder, Perini Navi, have all failed to find ways of raising the keel so that Legacy can sail away.
Halmos, a Hungarian who has lived in the USA for some years, has not had a happy relationship with the yacht he reportedly bought for $16m in 1995. While involved with her salvage he was forced to hire houseboats on which he and the yacht's crew lived close by in a bid to stop the yacht being looted by wreckers. Regulatory concerns and the fact she was stranded in a marine sanctuary merely added to the misery he has gone through.
(8 January 2009)
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