SEA SCOUTS Sailing Back

Boat/US Magazine, July, 1999 by Ryck Lydecker

Charting New Wuters

According to Jimmie Homberg, first female commodore of the Sea Scout National Committee, it's a sense of responsibility and accountability that parents seem to want for their kids today, more so than at any time since the peak prior to World War II.

When the war broke out, Homberg says, the Navy actively recruited Sea Scouts because of their maritime skills. Adm. Chester Nimitz reportedly credited Sea Scouting as a key factor in the Navy's ability to mount the war effort so quickly following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Sea Scouting -- and other youth programs that put kids in uniforms -- went into a slump during the Vietnam era, Homberg says, and it didn't help that only boys could join. That changed in 1970 when the program went co-ed.

"Today, the parents of a 14-year-old barely remember Vietnam and their kids are excited by the uniform," says Homberg. "Now parents want their teenagers involved in solid, structured programs like Sea Scouting."

But vessels like the SSS Volunteer or the 120-foot ex-Coast Guard cutter Reliance that Sea Scouts operate in the San Francisco area are the exception, not the rule. Most Sea Scout ships, which usually are sponsored by businesses, service clubs, churches and other local organizations, own small boats -- typically a 25-foot cruising sailboat -- that have been donated to the group, Homberg says.

The ship she skippered for six years in Bryan, TX, had several small boats for lake sailing. But the scouts in Ship 428, like most local units, raise their own money for adventures that can range from simple canoe-camping trips to ambitious bare-boat charters out of exotic ports in the Florida Keys, the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

All local units undertake fund-raising and donation activities for day-to-day operational needs as well as for travel to regattas and special Sea Scout events. Generating support can become learning experiences as valuable as navigation and piloting, Homberg says. But the key to a successful ship -- and to the future of Sea Scouting -- is committed adult volunteers.

"Adults don't have to sign on to be skippers," she says. "We just need competent boaters who are willing to teach specific skills or to serve as judges at Sea Scout rendezvous and regattas or to help the scouts to plan a long cruise.

"We need boaters who are willing to take kids out on the water, too." Homberg adds. "These kids already know about boats and the rules of the road. They know how to act aboard a vessel and they take boating safety seriously."

Positive adult mentoring, Homberg and Elroy agree, often turns Sea Scouts into lifelong boaters. And as adults, Sea Scouts bring with them the kind of seamanship skills, safe boating expertise and respect for the water that will serve recreational boating well in the next century.