Sea Scouts Are Adrift Until a Craft Surfaces to Sub for Sunken Ketch

It has been almost a year since the Sea Scouts’ 72-foot ketch, the Mariner, sprang leaks and sank 8 miles off Santa Catalina Island, moments after the seven teen-agers and two adults aboard escaped safely.

That 1940s wooden vessel, a former oyster fishing boat that now rests about 300 feet under the waves, is missed by the Sea Scouts. And because no kindhearted boater has yet come forward to donate a replacement vessel (just as the Mariner was donated to the Scouts eight years ago), the youth group has undertaken an ambitious fund-raising project.

The group, which calls itself the Mariners, is trying to raise $100,000 to buy and fix up a 65-foot steel vessel, said Jim Wehan, the group’s skipper. So far, they have raised $16,500.

“We figure if we can do as well each year, this is going to be five-year plan,” Wehan said.

The Scouts are trying to devise incentives to reward the generosity of potential donors. For example, Wehan said, benefactors could receive sailing and seamanship instruction, be invited to social gatherings and receive a newsletter on the project.

“We’re trying to figure out ways that people would want to donate to a cause,” he said.

But Mickey Hunter, director of the Boy Scout Sea Base in Newport Beach that oversees several Sea Scout groups, is still banking on someone to donate a boat. Even though tax laws have changed, which limits the financial incentives, “people do get a writeoff,” she said.

“We still get donations. We just haven’t had the perfect one for Jim’s group,” Hunter said.

Besides, she said, part of the reason people donate boats “is pure altruism. People see the good work we do out here.”

Besides boating instruction for children--even those who are not Scouts--the Sea Scouts provide outings to children from the Braille Institute, Orangewood Children’s Home and other homes for abused youngsters, she said. All of the Scouts’ vessels have come from boat and cash donations.

The difficulty about finding a replacement for the Mariner, Hunter said, is that “it was such a special boat. It was a classic.”

The Mariner had just undergone $8,000 in repairs, including refastening and recaulking the hull, when it sank July 6. The leak was discovered after Shawn Wehan--skipper Wehan’s son--went below deck to change clothes and found a few inches of water.

An adult adviser quickly determined that the leak was major, and all the emergency procedures the Scouts had practiced in drills through the years immediately went into effect. The Scouts put out Mayday calls and evacuated into a dinghy. After they watched their boat sink, they were quickly rescued by a boater who had heard the distress call.

Jim Wehan said he believes that the leak occurred when rusting iron nails gave way, allowing the planks to pop open. While the Scouts carried liability insurance, there was no hull insurance to reimburse them for the boat’s loss.

Should no one donate a replacement, the Mariners have their eye on another ketch with about 50 feet of deck space that could take about 10 Scouts and three adults out for long voyages. It would also be suitable for taking large groups of Cub Scouts and for advanced sailing instruction, Wehan said.

“It would be a good, multiuse vessel,” he said.

The boat’s price is $85,000, but in order to pass the Coast Guard inspection for transporting groups, the Scouts will have to install “lots of extra safety things” that will pump the total price up to about $100,000, he said.

In the meantime, the Dana Point Sea Scouts are not twiddling their thumbs on land. Through donations after the Mariner’s sinking, their fleet of smaller boats has expanded, “giving us a solid training program,” Wehan said. “We have, as a result of losing the Mariner, a more comprehensive fleet on the lower end.”

The Mariners recently returned from a gathering of Sea Scouts in the San Francisco Bay Area, at which the Dana Point group received a top rating for sailing skills.

But without a large boat, “we can’t do extensive cruising or take the Cub Scouts out,” Wehan said. For this summer, they plan to rent two 38-footers--at about $300 a day--for a cruise to Mexico and to the Channel Islands. And some members will be joining cruises with other groups, he said.