The 100-year history of
the San Francisco Sea Scouts presents a cautionary tale that could have
ensnared the Dolphin and South End swimming and boating clubs. Thanks to the pioneering women in the 1970s
who insisted on joining the clubs, we dodged a bullet.
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| Tamara Sokolov, skipper of Ship 100 |
Tamara Sokolov came to
Sea Scouting in the footsteps of her older brother. The family lived
about a ten-minute walk away from the current Scout Base at the west end of
Aquatic Park. At fourteen years old, her brother was raised as a
"free range" kid and left the house one morning with only the strict
admonition to "be home by dinner." As he walked by the Base, he
saw a group of kids getting ready to go sailing and they invited him to go
along. When he returned home, he regaled the family with his sea-faring
adventure. As Tamara tells the story, "I'm from a family of five
kids—pretty low income—and at the time, Sea Scouts was $60 a year so it became
the one extra-curricular. All of us kids joined after that and went
through the program. When I turned 21, I started running it and I'm still
here." She is now the Skipper of Ship 100. In Sea Scout terms, a ship is the group
equivalent to a Boy Scout "troop." She is also the Vice
President on the executive committee of Scouting in the Bay Area.
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| The boys' boat, the Corsair |
The Sea Scouting program
in San Francisco is one of the most vibrant in the country. The program
currently has around 100 active scouts and, as reported by Heather Breaux in
the August '23 edition of Latitude 38, "It's important that the
families living in San Francisco understand that the Sea Scouts is a low-cost
resource: The wild joy and disciplined seamanship the kids possess from
their time in Sea Scouts is an invaluable part of the continuing history of the
waterfront." And the program wins national recognition. Ship
100 was recently honored with the 2023-2024 BoatUS National Flagship Award in
recognition as the best ship in the country. This honor is awarded not
only for seamanship, but also for volunteer contribution to the community and
leadership in water-based education. Among other contributions, at
Tinsley Island in the Delta, scouts from Ship 22 and Ship 100 helped to clear a
former landslide site, retiled a roof, and installed a new sprinkler
system. They provided nautical education to young kids at Aquatic Park on
Junior Ranger Day and to visiting cub scouts throughout the year. The
scouts also provide volunteer services to the National Park Service. One
recent example was a Quartermaster Service project in June, 2024 when scouts
went aloft on the Balclutha to tar the rigging and help preserve the
shrouds and stays of the masts.
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| Crew of the girls' boat, the Viking |
The red Viking is
the boat for the girls’ Ship 100. The boys' vessel is the blue Corsair.
Both boats started life in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in the 1930s as
lifeboats for an Indianapolis-class cruiser. The Navy donated the boats
to the Scouts in the 1950s. Now known as whaleboats, these vessels have
no motors, but can be sailed as well as rowed. However, unlike modern
sailboats, the sheets do not lead aft where the tiller is located. This
means that a crew must manage the sails. While the adult skippers provide
supervision and guidance, the boats are commanded by a Sea Scout. Steve
Welch, the current Commodore, says, "The real masterstroke of Sea Scouting
is the leadership skills you get while you're having these adventures like
sailing up the Delta on a two-week summer cruise, camping on
islands." Tamara says, "We're cruising with 40 kids in 5 boats
together and being able to run and play 'Capture the Flag' on an abandoned
island. We don't allow any electronic devices. The kids go through
weird withdrawals the first 48 hours. But two days into the cruise,
they're playing cards; they're busting out ukuleles and singing. It's fun
seeing teenagers act like kids again." With no motor, the kids sail
back against the wind through the narrow Carquinez straits sometimes doing as
many as eleven tacks an hour and facing six-foot swells in San Pablo Bay.
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1958 picture of Aquatic Park
Sea Scouts and
High School Cutter location
SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER
SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY |
Commodore Steve Welch
came to the Sea Scouts when he was 14 years old. While picking up
newspapers at 24th and Valencia for his paper route near his home in the
Mission, a friend told him he'd heard that "boys sailed and rowed their
own boats" on the Bay. Deciding to investigate, they rode two buses
from the Mission to the Marina, walked through the Ft. Mason railroad tunnel,
found a building they'd never seen before, and were promptly set to sanding a
boat. Steve says, "It was such a cool experience that I came back
every weekend all through high school" riding the buses for an hour each
way. Initially afraid of the water, he soon "became a lifeguard, got
jobs teaching small-boat sailing, and getting a pilot license at 16."
The SF Sea Scouts were
originally based in Marina harbor in the 1920s along with the High School
Cutter Program. In 1938, the Marina Harbor expansion caused the scouts to
move to Gas House Cove and the High School Cutter Program to move to the foot
of Van Ness. With the start of WWII, the army was uncomfortable having a bunch
of small boats roaming windward of their embarkation pier at Fort Mason.
Fortunately, the scouts were able to relocate to share the school district
pier. They built little storage shacks
near the Ft. Mason tunnel. A small gap in the Muni Pier parapet, now
plugged with plywood, provided a gate to a gangway leading to floating docks
and pilings that formed the pier at the foot of Van Ness Avenue. Many
Dolphins now refer to this early scout location as “the goalposts,” or “Farnsworth
Gap.” As WWII revved up, the scouting
program deteriorated significantly. Many adult leaders and older scouts
joined the Navy or merchant marine. The army posted sentries throughout
the park, the motorpool area was fenced off, and Aquatic Park became
"off-limits" to the public.
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Proposed Sea Scout Base, 1936
San Francisco NHP Historic Documents |
In June, 1936, City
architect William Mooser, Jr. began to develop designs and draft plans for the
buildings intended for the nascent Aquatic Park. The central building was
the Bathhouse, now the Maritime Museum.
In a sign of the respect that San Francisco held for the Sea Scouts, he also
developed plans for a boathouse for them in the same Streamlined Moderne
style. Because of complications and delays during the three years of
construction at Aquatic Park, plans for the scout boathouse (and new buildings
for the rowing clubs) were abandoned.
According to Stephen
Canright, Curator of Maritime History, in the Fall 2017 San Francisco
Maritime Sea Letter, “The structure that now houses the Sea Scout Base …
was built by the Army Port of Embarkation in 1942.” When the war ended, the Army transferred use
of the building and wharf to the Sea Scouts in a deal with the San Francisco
Recreation and Parks department. By
1950, the scouting program was back in full swing. A 1948 aerial
photograph shows the Sea Scout building, dock, and wharf in spiffy condition
and surrounded with perhaps six active whaleboat ships and three or four
powerboat ships.
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 | 1962 picture of functioning wharf
with dinghies ready to launch
SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER
SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY |
In 1977, the City and
County of San Francisco, headed by mayor George Moscone, handed over to the National Park Service (NPS) the real property that is now
known as Aquatic Park. This transfer included the Sea Scout building
and wharf. The cable car turnaround property remained in city hands for
obvious reasons. The swimming and rowing clubs almost went over to the
NPS too. In September, 1977, the SF Progress reported that just
prior to City approval of the transfer, the NPS "sent the matter back to
committee for further hearing." The reason given at the time,
according to Supervisor Dianne Feinstein, "is that the transfer has been
complicated by pending court action involving private rowing clubs located in
this part of the City's northern waterfront. The litigation involves
questions of public access and membership discrimination." She was
referring to the lawsuit that Joan Brown and five other women successfully
pursued to require the SERC, the Dolphin Club, and the Ariel Club to admit
women. The June, 1980 version of the Cultural History of GGNRA states,
"Today the Dolphin and South End Clubs are the only nineteenth century
rowing and swimming clubs still active in San Francisco County. Although now
under city control the rowing clubs at Aquatic Park will be transferred
to GGNRA after legal complications are corrected [emphasis added].
Recommend their inclusion in the National Register nomination for Aquatic
Park when they are under National Park Service management." Thankfully,
that didn't happen. Otherwise, the
clubs would have been vulnerable to the whims of the National Maritime
Historical Park (NMHP).
 | NPS space occupied for over 30 years and
still unavailable for scout use |
A good example is what
happened to the Sea Scouts who operated fairly independently under the
National Park Service until 1988 when Congress established the NMHP and it took
over the Aquatic Park environs. Within a short time, the convenience
stations were shuttered leaving the scouts (and the public) with no readily accessible
restrooms. For a while, an outpost of the Park Police was housed at the
Sea Scout base. Although the police quickly relocated, the space has
remained under NMHP control to the present day and has been unavailable for
scout use for over a quarter century. The
space currently appears unoccupied and a bit disheveled but Paul DePrey, Superintendent
of the National Maritime Historical Park maintains that this space is
earmarked for future use in a sailing education program managed by the NMHP
in concert with a partner that has yet to be identified. Compare that to our building in 1988. What
is now the Zahler Hall, women’s locker room, and Sancimino Room was a
recently constructed empty shell.
Imagine what a tempting morsel that might have been to the Superintendent
of NMHP at the time.
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The April, 2009 issue of Argonaut360.com (Vol. XXVII No. 4955) reported on one of
the darkest days for the scouts with the NPS.
The Superintendent of the SF Maritime National Historical Park had sent
a non-negotiable and apparently vindictive Special Use Permit, in January of
2009, to the SF Sea Scouts with the following operating parameters which would,
in effect, shut down the Scout Base.
- No
vessels may be hauled out
- No maintenance work of any
kind, including sanding and painting, may be done
- The ongoing historical
whaleboat restoration project must be relocated
- The storage lockers, sail
lockers, and workshop must be emptied
- Removal of all maintenance
tools and material from the Base
In the couple of months following
issuance of the Special Use Permit, assistants from the offices of Senator
Dianne Feinstein and Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as retired admiral Tom Brown
of the Navy League attended a meeting between the Sea Scouts and George
Turnbull, the Assistant Regional Director of the NPS. “After the meeting,
the NMHP Superintendent rescinded the order to vacate lockers and buoys by
March 31. She reinstated the prior agreement
which was a Cooperative Use Agreement.”
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Condemned Sea Scout wharf
days before destruction |
Since 1948, the Scout
Base has had a wharf connected to the concrete dock by a wooden trestle. As
late as 1998, when it was fully operational, the wharf provided a handy place
to stow the sailing dinghies—used for training and fun—out of the water and
free of sea scum. The wharf had davits which
made launching and retrieving the dinghies a simple, dry operation as opposed
to having to fetch them from moorings in the cove. Over the intervening years, due to a
complicated history of neglect, the wharf disintegrated and was closed for use
in 2106. With a functioning wharf, the
scouts could double or even quadruple the number of kids participating in the
scouting programs. In June of this year the wharf, already in a state of near
collapse, was destroyed and removed on a barge.
Paul DePrey expresses
optimism for the future of the Scout Base facilities. He fully expects the capabilities that the
wharf provided will be replaced following a process outlined by the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). He
expects this process to begin at the end of the year with a “public
conversation.”
The lease agreement
between the Dolphin Club and the City of San Francisco has a current term of 25
years with an option to renew for an additional 24 years. In contrast, the
agreements between Sea Scouts and NPS have had a standard maximum term of 5
years. Many times, an agreement with the NPS will expire years before a
replacement offers some peace of mind for the scouts. This fallow period was
true prior to the most recent instrument—a Special Park Use Permit, just signed
in June, 2024. This current accord, like the 2009 Special Use Permit comes
with a zinger. The Sea Scouts must pay a use fee in the unprecedented
amount of $18,000 per year and their hours of access to the Base are restricted unless they give 24 hours notice.
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| Iron bars installed for the Park Police outpost |
The Maritime Park
General Plan of 1997 says, “The Sea Scout base would be rehabilitated for
continued use by the San Francisco Sea Scouts. In cooperation with the San
Francisco Sea Scouts, the park would explore options to provide sail training
at the Sea Scout base. An appropriate
agreement would be established with the Sea Scouts for operation and use of the
facility.” When asked about the change
in instruments from agreement to permit, Paul DePrey responded flatly that “The
instrument now being used is a Special Park Use permit. The park had a
management review several years ago which determined that the previous
agreement was not an appropriate instrument due to the substantive involvement
aspect (among others).” However, the
recently expired Cooperative Agreement only committed the NPS to monitor Sea
Scout operations and ensure compliance with statutory requirements. To a lay observer, this hardly seems
substantive involvement.
When asked why a General
Agreement could not replace the expired Cooperative Agreement, DePrey points to
a recent Director’s Order prohibiting “financial assistance in any form
(including subsidizing) through a General Agreement” and refers to the use of
“utilities such as electricity” as a subsidy. However, the most recent agreement held the
scouts solely accountable for all utilities (including electricity, water,
sewer, telephone, and garbage disposal). It also made them responsible for maintenance
and repair of all the facilities used in their operation.
The reason these responses seem confusing is that Superintendent DePrey is befuddled on the topic. When asked for clarification, the Section Chief of NPS Financial Assistance states clearly, "General agreements effectively replaced MOUs [Memorandums of Understanding]. A General Agreement cannot be used to exchange funds. Substantial involvement is a condition of financial assistance cooperative agreements, not general agreements." Of course, the decision to issue a Special Use Permit is a management decision and
the NMHP is well within its power to decide how to engage with the scouts, but
the visuals are not very attractive.
Despite ongoing shabby
treatment by the NMHP, the San Francisco Sea Scouts continue to offer a
healthy, thriving program predominantly serving kids from lower- and
middle-income families. May it long continue to do so. And the rowing clubs can continue to thank
Joan Brown and her intrepid group of friends for helping to keep us free of
federal control.
