 St.
George’s Church is now the homeport and sailing capital of the United States.
Its naval contingent, Sea Scout Ship 1942, has been awarded the 2007 National
Flagship Award, making it the very best Sea Scout Ship in the United States. As
such, it is the only unit in the country authorized to affix a fourth star to
its Sea Scouting flag. Ship 1942 also received the Northeast Regional
Commodore’s Regional Standard Ship award.
 Ship 1942 Sea Scouts spent over 50 days on the water during
this past year, 20 beyond the national average but now routine for the Ship. Ten
youth stormed ashore at Camp Olmstead (Goshen) for a week this past summer and
completed their remaining requirements for the Venture Outdoor Ranger Award.
During their one-week summer long cruise on the Chesapeake
Bay, 23 of youth successfully completed the Venture Kodiak Leadership Course at
sea. Three of our Sea Scouts headed off to Houston, New York, and Miami, and
joined our “long blue line” of now 14 successful Sea Scout Advanced Leadership (SEALs)
nationally trained afloat graduates, far beyond any other Ship in the country.
Ship 1942 has supplied the last three Quartermaster Sea Scouts to become Sea
Scouting’s Northeast Regional Boatswain—the highest youth leadership position in
the 13 State Region.
Leadership pays. Ship 1942 sent an extremely successful graduating crop of
six high school seniors off to college this past fall with four-year
scholarships valued at $648,000. Many of our former youth have attended military
service academies or obtained ROTC scholarships at major civilian universities.
Our college-age Sea Scouts are majoring in everything from Marine Architecture,
Marine Engineering, Naval Architecture, and Cruise Ship Social Director. Every
year we get our fair share of outstanding Sea Scouts selected to the American
Legion-sponsored Boys/Girls State, a one-week leadership experience during their
junior-senior summers.
Ship 1942 small-boat racing sailors continued to dazzle at the Northeast
Regional Championships at the Merchant Marine Academy and at the Sea Scouting
International level Koch Cup sailing championships in Miami, Florida, this past
summer. National Sea Scouting has reinstated the one-week sailing program aboard
the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s 295-foot sail training barque, USS Eagle. Ship
1942 again led the way with two of our Able-rank Sea Scouts out of the 18
selected from around the country for this prestigious one-week sailing
experience.
Hundreds of Boy Scouts in various troops within the National Capital Area
Council have benefited in earning their small-boat sailing, motor-boating,
oceanography, and weather merit badges at the Sea Scout Ship 1942 annual
intensive spring weekend known as Merit Badges Afloat. Other NCAC Scouts have
participated in the past dozen years in the Ship 1942 summer four-day BSA Life
Guard training camps held in July.
Two of our Girl Scout Mariner Ship 486 members earned their Girl Scout Gold
Awards, another three shipmates earned their Eagle Scout awards, and our Ship
1942 successfully added one new Quartermaster, bringing our total of six
Quartermasters in the last two years. We have the only Sea Scout Ship in the
entire Northeast Region to produce any Quartermasters in the past three years.
Not to be outdone, Ship 1942 Sea Scouts earned five new Venture Silver awards.
Although this could never be routine, another of our youth members for the
second year in a row has saved another life this year on the water and has
earned his BSA Life-Saving Heroism Award.
-- Tom Ballew, Skipper
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From the June 2007 issue of the
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