SEA SCOUTS

CYC SEASCOUTS MAIL CALL

BY MARK CORTER

It’s been a fun year since Sea Scouts restarted at the CYC last summer. Let’s try to see if we can recap the year. The program was reorganized in June of 2021. We started with eight Scouts. They came over from another ship, plus a few brand new Scouts. The first goal was to get organized and come up with an action plan for the year. We came up with several activities and concentrated on uniforms for the Scouts so they can be more recognized at the yacht club. The adult leadership was secured and support for the program started to grow. The Scouts continued to use the Chicago council’s sailboat “Reflections’’ and the small red whaler. They also went out sailing on the Skipper’s boat “Maris” and helped with a Mac back delivery last summer on Lloyd Karen’s “Taipan”. The Scouts used the red whaler in the Chicago Regatta boat parade, decorated it with lights and some fairly large flags. That was probably the first time that the club was exposed to the Scouts on a larger scale. They also helped with docking several of the members’ boats that day and made pretty good first impressions. The excitement for the program was starting to build. The Scouts ended the sailing season with a fall camp out at Warren dunes. The next meeting, we discussed what we could do to help with the Christmas tree ship. We found that Captain Schuenemann’s grave marker was at Acadia cemetery near Schiller Park. We went out to the grave site and offered our respects and had a small ceremony in honor of Captain Schuenemann. Scouts helped with offloading the trees and had a great time, they even met Lee Murdock. During the winter months there wasn’t much to do on the water so the Scouts helped with swim classes, teaching other Scouts how to swim. They also visited the National Museum of the American Sailor at Great Lakes Naval Base. That’s where they learned all about tattoos for sailors and their meanings. We had a few questions to answer from the parents after that trip, especially what the pig and rooster meant on the tops of feet. A few of the Scouts wanted to head to North Chicago to get some tattoos, we’ll have to plan that trip for another day.

Once spring started to come around, the excitement of the summer season started to build, along with all the chores needed to be done for spring commissioning of the council boats. We added several new Scouts to the list of our growing ship. We are at 14 now. The new uniforms were almost complete and winter was starting to let go. The Scouts attended a Storm Trysail Foundation “Safety at Sea” class with their new uniforms which started to draw some attention to the ship. Their first and formal debut with their new uniforms was at the Children’s Museum at Navy Pier. Greg Miarecki, past commodore, invited the Scouts to assist the guests and donors of the exhibit “Boats, be your own captain”. Afterwards, at the after party, the Scouts were introduced to the members of the Foundation. They were received with a very warm welcome, especially our newest and youngest member Stella. Excitement for the ship continues to grow as the Scouts assisted with the Memorial Day ceremony at Monroe station. They looked great and represented the club very well. When a couple of 914 RC boats were completed, the Scouts started to practice with them at Belmont Harbor. Then after a long wet cold spring, the Scouts were finally able to prepare Reflections and sail her north for the summer season to Belmont Harbor. We had a nice SWW wind and sailed her up at 7 knots, which isn’t too bad for a 1984 blue water cruiser with 30 year old sails and a 9000 lb keel and displacement of 28000 lbs. They were met with waves and thank you’s from some of the foundation members who recognized them when they arrived at the harbor. hand at some 420s. We met at Belmont Station on a Friday evening where Andy taught them how to rig the boats. They really had a lot of fun capsizing the boats too. There wasn’t much wind the day they were in the 420s but that didn’t stop them from having a blast. The boats were capsized more than they were sailed that evening. The Scouts were also very involved, most recently, with SailGP. Grant Crowley assisted with some “pit lane” passes where the Scouts assisted with a group of high school kids from Chicago Maritime Arts Center and got to see the support area where the boats are kept and assembled. Plus, two of our oldest Scouts assisted as a “marshall boat” for 3 days on the council’s whaler. They spent most of the days chasing down boats that drifted into or entered the exclusion zone. They put about 5-6 hours a day on the whaler dealing with everything the lake threw at them including the boaters that didn’t want to be told what to do. Through all of it they smiled and it was a great experience. They represented the club very well, everyone should be proud of these Scouts.

There are several events scheduled for the rest of the summer including helping out “The Special Needs Cruise”, fleet review and helping with the “Race to the Mac”. The Scouts are also sailing or power boating at least once a week. When you see them out on the water wave and smile and they’ll always wave back. ✶