MIAMI BEACH — Monkey Business, the luxury yacht on which former presidential candidate Gary Hart and his sometime companion Donna Rice once rode to Bimini, was seized by the U.S. Coast Guard on Saturday after one ounce of marijuana was found on board.

During a routine search about 22 miles northwest of Bimini, a petty officer discovered one marijuana cigarette, with a street value of about $2.75, in the pocket of a tan tweed sports jacket, said Jim McCauley, commanding officer of the Coast Guard vessel Cape Shoalwater.

The federal government’s Zero Tolerance program permits the Coast Guard and other agencies to seize any vessel with any trace of drugs aboard. None of the four crew members on the 82-foot yacht was arrested, McCauley said, and their names were not released.

“It’s just ironic that we ran across the Monkey Business out there, since it is such a famous, or infamous, boat,” McCauley said.

In fact, said Boarding Officer Jesse Schmucker, “It was a few minutes into the boarding when I realized what boat it was.”

The yacht, with an estimated value of $1 million, was seized at 10:30 a.m. and escorted to the Coast Guard’s Miami Beach base, McCauley said. Another eight grams of marijuana was found in a blue sport coat in the same closet during a search at the base, he said.

Monkey Business was the first, and last, stop of the day for petty officers on the Cape Shoalwater, whose home base is in West Palm Beach, McCauley said. It also became the crew’s first seizure under the Zero Tolerance policy that the Coast Guard began enforcing on April 15, he said.

Petty Officer Jeff Rusiecki first found a package of rolling papers on a closet floor in the front, crew members’ section of the yacht, McCauley said.

The papers led to the marijuana cigarette, and the cigarette led to the boat being turned over to U.S. Customs, McCauley said.

The three men and one woman in Monkey Business’ crew said the boat was heading back to Turnberry Isle in North Dade County after a month’s stay in The Bahamas, McCauley said. The yacht’s five owners and their guests had come and gone from the islands during that time, he said.

One of the owners, who the crew did not name, left the yacht on Saturday, McCauley said.

The Monkey Business, replete with hot tub and three staterooms, is no stranger to fame.

Its most recent bout with the media was when Donna Rice announced at a news conference that she had joined Hart, his friend William Broadhurst, and her friend Lynn Armandt for a pleasure trip aboard the yacht in March 1987.

Hart withdrew from the race for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination on May 8, 1987, after his liaison with Rice was revealed.

Hart, who also had Rice as a weekend guest at his home in Washington, insisted that the relationship and the trip to Bimini were innocent. He eventually re-entered the race, but did not do well and finally withdrew again.

Other of the rich and famous to ride aboard the yacht that leases for $2,500 a day have been Elton John, Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Nicholson and Julio Iglesias.