Here's the last note from Bob Muggelston, an author who was searching for the boat and had reviewed a couple of possibilities when I asked if he had any progress finding it:

Hi Bill, sorry for the late reply. No, that grape died on the vine. It truly is a
head scratcher. The hull number matches Zoltan's boat, but I had long email exchanges
with Zoltan, who made many huge modifications to the boat, while on paper, anyway,
maintaining that he more or less bought the boat as an amateur sailor and sailed it out
of the harbor it was in in California, bound for the South Pacific. For instance, he
installed a giant water tank under the cockpit sole, and significantly upgraded the rig.
From pictures you can see he drilled many large holes to accommodate his wind vane.
There's no evidence whatsoever of these modifications. There's just no way that all
the surgery Zoltan did could be cosmetically removed. Which leads me to believe that
either Zoltan was somehow confused as to the actual hull number of his boat, or that
someone pinched the plate off Zoltan's old boat and then re-installed it on another
white hull. After the heavy use and abuse The Way received traveling nearly around the
world, it's entirely conceivable that it was relegated to the scrap pile somewhere.
That someone (Zoltan) traveled so far in a Commander, with its low freeboard, huge
cockpit and extremely limited space below still boggles my mind.

Happy Holidays!

-Bob