By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

In Scarborough, 17-year-old Alec Sirocki told his friend Roscoe Thomas, 17, about it. Then he told 15-year-old Brian Stevens. Dylan Price, 15, heard about it from his father Steve Price, who read about it in the newspaper. 

Eventually word traveled to Portland, where 15-year-old Matt Tasarz first heard about it. In Falmouth, Bill Newberry – Yachtsman of the Year in 2008 – heard about it after he bought his new sailboat.

It’s viral, but it’s not the latest YouTube posting, video game release or new girl in school. 

It’s the Sea Scouts. 

Cape Elizabeth resident Dan Davidson has fostered the Sea Scouts program, a subsidiary of the Boy Scouts of America, for South Portland, Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough since 2004, a process he said had to start with the right people. Davidson said the Sea Scout program, founded in 1912 by the Boy Scouts of America, focuses on teaching young adults seagoing and leadership skills, which often requires them to work as a team. After obtaining sponsorship from the South Portland / Cape Elizabeth Rotary Club and the Boy Scouts, he said the next task was to find a sailor who was willing to share some sea stories.

“I put the word out there that I was starting this up, but I wasn’t looking for just any volunteers, I wanted to interview and find out all I could about our skipper,” he said. “The fact that Bill and Steve were so willing to be a part of it was, to me, stunning.”

Steve Price, a lifelong sailor who was raised on a number of different types of sailboats and has cruised extensively, said he was happy to teach the scouts what the ocean had already taught him. 

“The first thing is to be safe, don’t just jump in. A lot of times all you have to do is wait, watch and listen,” he said. “There’s a lot to sailing these things.”

Steve Price said the program helps boys and girls ages 14 to 21 “learn an appreciation” for the sea, and life in general. Davidson said the program has had up to 12 members, and currently there are approximately 10 inactive and active Scouts, several of them girls.

“We’ve got a great boat and a wonderful skipper, what we really need is Scouts,” Davidson said. “It’s a chance for kids who normally wouldn’t’t get on the water to do something unique.”

Learning maritime lessons is just one part of being a Sea Scout, Steve Price said.

“It’s all about the Scouts making decisions on their own,” Steve Price said. “They have to take responsibility for the way they do things. They are high school kids, so you have to push occasionally but its still a good thing for them.”

Davidson said the group meets with Steve Price to discuss and practice “all things nautical” – including line work, sailing terminology and boat building tactics – at the South Portland Coast Guard station once a week, but to get on-the-water experience they needed a boat. For the past three years, Newburry has welcomed the Sea Scouts aboard County Girl, the 36-foot Beneteau sailboat he said he named after his wife. While County Girl is enough boat to require a crew, Steve Price said he and Davidson were also hoping to find a smaller boat to help the Scouts get a feel for sailing a lighter, more responsive type of sailboat.

“They’re out there, it’s just a matter of finding one,” Steve Price said of increasing the Sea Scout fleet.

Davidson said Scouts take the boat out at least once a week during summer and help Newburry with maintenance in the off-season. Last summer the scouts traveled from Portland to Southport aboard County Girl – an overnight experience Sirocki said he won’t soon forget.

“I was the only one to get seasick the whole trip,” he said with a laugh. “It wasn’t very nice.”

Last weekend, the scouts learned more about applying wax to County Girl’s topsides than harnessing the wind with her high-tech rigging. The scouts accepted Newburry’s guidance, and his trust, as they polished white fiberglass atop scaffolding and ladders surrounding the boat.

“You have to go real slow,” Newburry said as he handed Sirocki an electric-powered buffer. “If you go too hard you’ll blur the name and my wife will be very angry.”

Thomas, the Sea Scout bosun, said he hopes lessons he has learned through the Sea Scouts program will help him if he is accepted to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., after graduating high school.

“There’s not a lot of programs where people let you go sailing with them,” he said. “A lot of my friends all compare it to a speedboat.”

 Sirocki said the best way to learn about sailing is to do it. 

“People don’t know what to think about it, you don’t know what it takes until you’ve done it,” he said. “Racing is intense, but it’s all a lot of fun.”

For more information on the Sea Scouts program contact Davidson at 767-4682 or Steve Price at 885-9176.

Staff Writer Nate Jones may be reached at 282-4337 ext. 233.