Sea Scouts of San Francisco

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.