Did some reading in the tanker forum. Apparently if you taunt LR and don't attack his towers you can pull him to the boat. He'll be out of range of his buffs and can be taken out without having to deal with the towers at all. You could even skip the flier with this method. Whether or not this will work I'm not 100% sure, but I figure it's worth trying on the next run any of us do.
Might be an oversight by the Devs or maybe the solution to a puzzle. The final patch on the test server, before Issue 9 went live, was suppose to extended the range of the tower buffs to ship. If we are allowed to use this "trick" it would make the TF Anticlimactic. Heck, taking down the inner circle would be the toughest part of the STF now. I'm guessing this is a bug.
I've read on the forums that this trick is inconsistent (sometimes when he's reached the boat, he still gets buffed) which makes me think it's definitely a bug.