Maritime adventure: Stockton Sea Scouts chart their own course

Nestled along the San Joaquin River, behind the Stockton Rod & Gun Club, a 60-foot former government ship now beckons young maritime adventurers.

The Albacore is the home vessel for the Stockton Sea Scouts, an independent program that’s part of Scouting America, formerly known as Boy Scouts of America. The vessel was previously operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and used to monitor the coast during crab season. The Point Weber crew in Stockton is the first group of Sea Scouts to use the boat.

While similar to Scouts BSA — which helps young people share in the adventure of the great outdoors while developing a love of service and boosting leadership skills through fun and exciting challenges — Sea Scouts focuses on maritime heritage. The Stockton coed program welcomes youth ages 12-18. Sea Scouts were established as a program in 1912, with Stockton seeing its first crew in the 1920s. The current crew, SSS Pt. Weber, has been active since 2001.

Scouts learn a variety of nautical skills and are recognized for their efforts in tasks such as knot-tying and boating safety. Along the way, they can earn badges for their work, including the small boat handler badge.

The program allows for a progression of rankings: Apprentice, Ordinary, Able and Quartermaster, which is similar to the Eagle Scout rank.

Andrew McCarthy was awarded the highest rank earlier this year, the first Stockton Sea Scout to reach Quartermaster in over 20 years, regatta leader Katrina Larson said. He was able to join the Coast Guard with a higher pay grade thanks to his Sea Scout honor and prior training, said Larson, herself a Sea Scout graduate.

Larson joined an all-girls Scouts club in 1997 in Benicia. Now a Stockton resident, she embarked in a leadership role in the local program in 2024 and now helps prepare Scouts for regattas — multi-day competitions in which crews gather from across California and neighboring states to test their skills in navigation, safety and maritime knowledge. The locations change from year to year, with the crew recently participating in the Old Salts’ Regatta in San Mateo.

“Some of that knowledge stuck with me for over 20 years, and some of it, as I was relearning to teach the regatta team, I started remembering a lot of things too,” Larson said. “It was cool to unlock some things that were hidden in my brain that I didn’t realize were still there.”

Jaycee LaBarber, 18, joined the crew in August 2022. A Stockton resident and graduate of River Islands High School, she learned about the program from her brother, who was a scout at the time.

Her crew earned a participation award at her first regatta, which inspired LaBarber to push further. Most recently, the Stockton crew secured a rank of “sloop” during the long-running Ancient Mariner Regatta, held Memorial Day weekend at the Cal Poly Maritime Academy in Vallejo. There are four overall skill levels in the regatta’s scoring system: catboat, sloop, schooner and clipper, the highest rating.

“Being able to go out there and put in the hard work to actually be just as good as these other crews, it really meant a lot,” LaBarber said.

The teen said she especially enjoyed the breeches buoy competition, in which the Stockton Sea Scouts placed third. The event involves fashioning a zipline with ropes to complete a rescue. The crew also scored first in heaving line and second in ship knots.

In another big moment at the regatta, LaBarber participated in the rope climb. The personal stakes were especially high because this was her last anticipated contest.

“I was just thinking about how my arms hurt so bad,” LaBarber recalled. “I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know.’ “

But her teammates wouldn’t let her give up.LaBarber said she looked up and realized how close she was — closer than she’d ever been to the top — and knew she had to keep pushing.

“Everybody’s here, they’re like, ‘Oh, we’re going to get you up the rope,’ so I was just like, I gotta ignore the pain for like 10 seconds and just try my hardest to get up.”

And she did. It was the first time LaBarber had ever made it to the top, and her teammates roared with cheers of congratulations at her accomplishment.

Larson, the regatta leader, said the group has come a long way.

“Seeing how proud they were at the end of all of their hard work, and where it ended up, I cried at the ceremony,” she said. “None of them are my biological kids, but I feel like that Auntie, you know.”

Joaquin Escalante, 16, lives in Stockton and joined Sea Scouts in September 2024. He said he loves getting to drive the boat while also learning about safety and how the engines function.

Joaquin has big plans before he ages out of the program in a couple of years.

“I am hoping to learn about leadership, to learn how to teach the juniors how to use things, how to understand them,” he said. “My main goal is to try to accomplish being an Ordinary or possibly a Quartermaster as my two years goes on because I want to try to feel the experience of it and pass it down to the next year scouts who come after me.”

As the crew tackle its summer season, Larson wants the community to know interested youth can join any time. The program is diverse, open to all genders and offers great skill-building opportunities, she said, adding that the organization tries to make the cost as low as possible so everyone has a chance to participate. The group meets at the Albacore on Wednesdays and Saturdays year-round.

More importantly, Larson added, the memories made in Sea Scouts are lifelong.

“I have friends that are some of my best friends to this day that we met in Scouts when we were 13 or 14 years old, and we’re all in our early 40s now,” she said.