You’ve might have noticed him around town in his van. Or maybe you’ve seen the signs he has posted on roadsides from Goodland all of the way up to Naples. Or maybe it was his print ad.

Whatever your acquaintance with Gerry Davidson’s ads, they caught your eye, and you probably wondered what the deal is with this “free yacht” he’s touting.

Davidson says he is also known as Wizard of I (which happens to be the name of his yacht), Wizard of Wuz and the succinct Dr. Wuz. That’s the name he uses in the Bargain Trader, a national magazine devoted entirely to merchandise ads, where the boat has been on display for the taking by interested parties all over the eastern seaboard.

But make no mistake, this boat was not exactly the glory of the seas even before it met its unfortunate fate during 2005’s Hurricane Wilma, out on the mud flats just East of Goodland.

The boat is a 1956 Great Lakes, a 55-foot vessel that Davidson bought for $3,500.

It even sank once before, was pumped out and docked, Davidson said.

“I didn’t know the boat was doomed,” Davidson says of his early days at the helm. “But it was leaking so bad.”

Then, during Wilma, someone cut his anchor line, he says.

“I think the Fed did it. They’re liable to do anything like that.”

Regardless of who did it, this colorful eccentric is in a bind. He went to court in April over the boat because, as records state, he left a cruising vessel “in a wrecked, junked or substantially dismantled condition.”

At that court appearance, he says, he was warned to find a way to either get the boat moved, or to find someone else who would do it.

He has another court hearing coming up in October, and he is desperately searching for a solution. He has spiral notebooks full of names and phone numbers, and he takes people out to check over the yacht from time to time.

It would cost anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000 to have it hauled out of the bay and scrapped — an unappealing cost even for a free boat. But Davidson is committed to finding someone who has a use for it.

A few of his ideas: place it in a backyard as the coolest playhouse in the neighborhood, set it up as a houseboat for a retired parent or use the wood for any number of arts and crafts projects.

“The bottom line is the boat is fixable,” Davidson says. “I think it would make a nice retirement project.”

People who have seen the boat do not agree.

“There’s absolutely nothing he can do with that boat,” says Pete Verhoeven, one prospective buyer who drove nearly three hours to check out the yacht.

“It isn’t the fact that he’s saying ‘free yacht’ or anything, but that he’s saying it’s restorable,” Verhoeven said. “It’s like the Titanic right now. The Titanic is not restorable.”

Verhoeven made the long, hope-filled trek from Clearwater to look at the boat. He saw Davidson’s ad in the Bargain Trader, complete with a photo of the yacht.

But wait, Verhoeven says that picture is from before the yacht was wrecked.

Actually, says Davidson with a laugh, “that’s a different boat. I have to get people interested.”

George Collins, who hails from the area around Tampa, went to look at the boat Sept. 11. He was not happy about being duped into the long drive.

“I realized it was an old boat, and I assumed it was floating,” he says. “But to be lied to and to go down on that long of a trip — I was pissed.”

Steve Cummings, yet another interested buyer, drove to the area to check out the vessel months ago. Like the others, he was a little miffed at having the wool pulled over his eyes.

But when he heard Davidson’s story, he offered to go to court for Davidson as an expert witness.

“This is one of those cases where the state has a pool of money for these circumstances,” Cummings says. “He just doesn’t have the wherewithal to reverse this thing.”

Cummings, who has worked contracts for the state to get derelict and abandoned boats out of the water, says he is willing to go to bat for Davidson.

“He’s in a very untenable situation through no fault of his own — unless he cut a line on the anchor rope so it would go over there,” Cummings says.

But he says he doubts that is the case.

“This is not nuclear science,” Cummings says. “It’s a bad set of circumstances where the local authorities, for whatever reason, have taken him to task for thwarting them because he cannot afford to do anything.”

Verhoeven has another suggestion, in the absence of all other solutions, though.

It goes back to his suggestion to Davidson when he looked at the boat.

“I said, ‘The only way you’re getting rid of that boat is to cut it up with a chain saw,’ “ Verhoeven says. “And it’s a shame, because it was a nice boat. But you ain’t dragging that thing into your yard in Clearwater Beach.”

Verhoeven says he understands that such things can be time-consuming, and probably too daunting an undertaking for Davidson. But, give him a chain saw, a dumpster and free lodging, and Verhoeven said he will do the job himself.

“I’d come down there and do it. I like it down there,” he says. “If you guys paid for a hotel room overnight, a cheap hotel, I’ll go out there and cut it up, just to help him out.”

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