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SADORUS — To the owner of a vintage 47-foot yacht, the vessel hearkens back to early days when he sailed it on the Mississippi River with his wife. To neighbors near the property where it is stored, it’s a nuisance, inviting rodents and other annoyances.

Charles Lozar, who keeps the 94-year-old yacht named Chicora outside, in the back of his National Museum of Ship Models and Sea History at a restored brick building in Sadorus, said he might have to have the ship demolished.

“The city is saying it’s a place for vermin and rats to migrate,” Lozar said. “I put rat killer in there every fall.”

Lozar said he is negotiating with a demolition company in the hopes of removing the ship, “which means it would be destroyed.”

Sadorus village Trustee Jim Thompson said the village board has been asking Lozar to remedy the situation for “five to eight years” because of repeated complaints by neighbors.

Tarps covering the ship blow off and land in neighbors’ yards.

“The neighbors have been (complaining) constantly about it,” Thompson said.

“The people who live right behind him, this is like the fourth (family) that have lived there, and all of them have complained about it.”

Lozar admits the yacht is not in good condition, and he would like to find another home for it, but central Illinois isn’t the best place to accomplish that, and he noted transporting it would cost from $2,500 to $3,000.

He bought the yacht 27 years ago when he started the museum. His intention was to let visitors walk through the ship.

“Over the last 20 years some of the planking has come loose on the bottom,” Lozar said.

“The city of Sadorus is unhappy about that and requested for me to move it.”

Lozar said he bought the yacht because it was built by John Trumpy, who built PT boats for the United States during World War II.

Before and after the war, his company manufactured house boats.

Chicora has twin Detroit diesel engines that haven’t run for about 20 years.

“Some of this is my fault because restoring a ship in central Illinois has taken longer than the time I have, and I’m getting older,” Lozar said.

He has the original documentation from the time the yacht was built in South Carolina and photos of it in New York City.

It proceeded through the Eric Canal, on Lake Erie, across Lake Michigan and to Lacrosse, Wis., where Lozar bought it.

“My wife and I ran it up the Mississippi for about three years,” he said. “The interior is all mahogany from the 1930s.”

The yacht weighs 13 tons.

“It’s gorgeous,” he said. The name “Chicora” is a Native Indian tribe in South Carolina.

“It was an antique long before it got here.”

Lozar said the village of Sadorus has been patient with him.

Thompson said the village has had no recourse but to be patient.

“He keeps getting it prolonged in court,” Thompson said of Lozar. “The last I heard is they’re supposed to go back in court in May, and the judge is going to decide on the fines and all the stuff, but that’s what we’ve heard for the last year and a half.

“If anything it’s a fire hazard to the people who live in the apartments” above the museum. “Last time I seen it, it looks worse than the one on Gilligan’s Island.”