The Canaveral Star is not exactly a strip club, and it is not exactly the no-sex playground its young North Miami Beach owner asserts that it is.

Whatever the cruise ship is - many of the men who paid to cavort with women last week presumed it is the world's first floating bordello - the Port Canaveral Authority is attempting to evict it.

Port officials want no part of it.

The 130-foot Canaveral Star, which runs cruises organized by the Buoy Club, is so popular - sometimes drawing as many as 200 men - that its backers say they will soon add other "adult nude entertainment" cruise ships, one of which almost certainly will be based in South Florida. Men pay $50 and women pay $75 to board the ship. Everything else is extra.

THREE-MILE LIMIT

The 51/2-hour cruise out of Port Canaveral goes beyond the three-mile limit and, according to the boat's owners, outside the jurisdiction of Florida law.

A lawyer for the boat says that rules aboard ship do not allow prostitution. "There is no sex" says Ira Mihlstin, 31, who dreamed up the cruises 18 months ago.

On a recent Friday night, however, several patrons said they paid more than $200 each for a sex act in VIP areas they rented for $300 per hour and up. One woman inviting patrons to descend below decks said, "I have never met a man yet who left the boat unhappy."

Because the Canaveral Star flies the U.S. flag, it is subject to U.S. law, no matter where it sails, said Robert Jarvis, an admiralty law professor at Nova Southeastern University. But Jarvis said he does not remember the federal government ever prosecuting anyone for sex at sea.

PROSTITUTION LAW

A federal prosecutor might consider sending in U.S. marshals to "literally arrest the ship" while it is in port, arguing "that it is being used in the furtherance of a crime, " Jarvis said. Another possible scenario: prosecution under the White Slavery Act, 19th Century legislation designed to stamp out prostitution.

"We are not a bordello, " says Mihlstin, the brains behind the enterprise that he named the Buoy Club. "You can do a lap dance, and that's it." Clients cannot even touch the women, he said. The Buoy Club is all about luxury, quality and "pampering, " he said.

Mihlstin changed his comments after being told a Herald reporter on board a July 28 cruise witnessed some of the men - included a physician, an insurance agent, a car salesman and florist - running their hands liberally over every inch of the nude table dancers they hired, in full view of other clients.

'THERE IS TOUCHING'

"OK, " he said, "there is touching if the man and the woman agree." He insisted again there is no sex.

When told that several male clients told a reporter they paid for a sex act, he said, "nine out of 10 times the girl doesn't do anything."

Some men said they paid $200 to sit behind curtains on the lower deck in what is called the "VIP Lounge" for more private contact. Others boasted of spending much more - $150 to $300 paid to the woman and $300 or more paid to the club for a stateroom with a bed and a door.

Mihlstin said his staff checks carefully for illegal activity. He said the four staterooms do not have doors, but a reporter witnessed otherwise. He said previously the rooms were available to anyone. On Thursday, he said the rooms are available only to "private VIP club members who buy a $5,000 membership."

Women spotted offering sex, he said, are detained in the wheelhouse during the voyage and told not to come back. But women said the staff frowns only on sexual activity taking place outside of the staterooms and VIP area.