Sacramento’s Sea Scouts

Posted on June 3, 2010 – 7:29 AM | by OldManFoster

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By Jackson Griffith  photos by Scott Duncan

We are surrounded by water. While it’s easy to forget that fact during those intense sun-roasted Sacramento summers, the heart of California is a maritime environment, with a multitude of Cascade and Sierra-fed rivers and creeks flowing into one big river, which expands into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta not too far south of our fair city before flowing into the Suisun, San Pablo and San Francisco Bays, and then into the Pacific.

When you’re a reasonably restless lad with a penchant for geography, you become acutely aware of place as it relates to the potentialities of adventure. Difficulty arises – how does one dial into exploring the area?

For many young people, that vehicle is Scouting. And while Scouting may have gotten a bad rap in recent years – mostly for adopting policy positions that some find objectionable – the programs it offers give young people the opportunity to experience places and things they might only dream about otherwise.

One of those programs, based in West Sacramento, is a group affiliated with the Sea Scouts, which is part of the Venturing program of the Boy Scouts of America. The Sacramento Delta Youth Maritime Association, founded in November 1955, meets every Tuesday evening in a hall owned by the Lions Club that’s dedicated to scouting programs on Park Boulevard, near the Port of Sacramento. The SDYMA serves young adults – between the ages of 13 to 21 – and gives them valuable experience in everything to do with boats, from building and maintaining to piloting and maneuvering them.

This past April, the group acquired a new project boat, a 78-foot Bender steel fishing trawler, which is currently docked in Morro Bay on the central California coast. Group skipper Nate Eckler has been leading a work party, made up of scouts and adults, every other weekend to refurbish the boat, or at least make it seaworthy enough to sail up the coast to West Sacramento, a voyage that is scheduled to take place next month. “We’re probably going to have a contingent of about a dozen adults on the cruise,” Eckler says. “We’re not going to put any kids on it; possibly when we get to the Bay Area, we’ll have the crew meet us for the final leg.”  Another group of Sea Scouts from San Diego will be escorting the S.S. Neptune, as the trawler has been christened, to be on hand should something go awry.

Once the ship arrives here, it will become the focus of a work project that Eckler estimates will take around 18 months to complete. When that’s done, the trawler – which in its working life carried a crew of five and an awful lot of fish – will have room for much more. “We’re taking the actual hold area, where the fish storage was, and that’s going to be converted to a full crew’s quarters that we anticipate to [accomodate] about 36 kids and adults,” Eckler says.

Eckler has been involved in Sea Scouts for 22 years; he joined when he was 14. Back then, he participated in a similar project. “We restored a 53-foot Air Force rescue boat from World War II,” he says. “It was a pretty unique experience for me, an awesome opportunity at the time, to be a 15-year-old kid piloting a 53-foot boat around. Not too many people get to have that opportunity, especially around here.”

According to Eckler, the Sea Scouts program offers something that has disappeared in an era of fiscal austerity and budget cuts. “How we envisioned this program here,” he says, “is that realistically, along with the sailing and the boating and the other responsibilities, and the leadership skills – what I like to call life skills – we prepare them with some tangible skills that they can use outside: welding, woodworking, metal work, electrical and engine repair. These are things that are no longer offered at high schools.”

In addition, according to Eckler, who by day is an IT analyst at CalPERS, there are leadership skills to be gleaned. “How to manage people,” he says. “How to speak in front of people. That whole area is a pretty important core of what I’d like to see learned.”

Although the local Sea Scouts program will celebrate 55 years toward the end of the year, it had fallen into disarray even as recently as last year. “In September 2009,” Eckler says, “we had two kids and one boat on loan. Now we have 12 to 15 kids and about $100,000 worth of boats.” According to the blog that serves as the group’s website, these include the trawler, a fleet of sailboats ranging from six to 27 feet, and several “classic” powerboats. “It’s been a pretty big year for us,” Eckler says, laughing.

The SDYMA, which is incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, benefits from the generosity of many local contributors, which provide everything from boats to tools and materials to help keep the program and its aspirations afloat.

For more information, contact: sssneptune@gmail.com

Tags: Jim Thweatt, Nate Eckler, Sacramento Delta Youth Maritime Association, Sam McDowell, Sea Scouts Sacramento