Newport Beach : Scout Flagship Returned to Water After Repairs

After being laid up in a Wilmington boat yard for more than a year, the Argus, flagship of the Boy Scouts of America’s Newport Beach sea base, is back in the water and ought to resume plying coastal waters by June.

Andy Fitzpatrick, director of the Newport Beach base, said dry rot in the stem forced the 95-foot topsail ketch out of the water for repairs in March, 1984. The rot, a fungus-caused decay that turns wood into powder, was discovered when workers were removing iron plates that had been attached to the stem.

Appeals by Boy Scout officials last year for money to help pay for repairs resulted in about $25,000 in donations pouring into the base. Replacing the stem, however, cost more than the base had, and it was forced to take a $10,000 advance from the general fund of the Boy Scouts of America Orange County Council, he said. A new drive, sponsored in part by a local restaurant, began last week. Fitzpatrick hopes the drive will raise another $20,000 to $30,000 to help remodel the ship and pay off the advance.

A part of the Newport scene for more than a dozen years, the Argus was launched in Denmark in 1905. Originally designed to haul cargoes of lumber, cement and grain, the two-masted ship was seized by the German navy during World War II and was used to ferry German troops around Danish waters, Fitzpatrick said. The ship was purchased by the Boy Scouts for about $30,000 in 1970 and was used as a training ship for thousands of Scouts before being forced out of service last year.

Fitzpatrick said the Scouts would like to add a couple of square sails to the mizzenmast, turning the ship into a brigantine. Doing so, he said, would depend on whether the base could afford to spend the $5,000 to $10,000 necessary. “If we get some funding, we’ll do this by June . . . . It’s a case of what we can beg or borrow,” he said.

Staffed by a licensed captain, first mate and a cook, the ketch is often the first taste of life at sea for the thousands of boys and girls who have sailed on the Argus. Ports of call vary depending on the experience of scouts embarking on the Argus. “If we get a squeamish group, we might just head up to Long Beach Harbor for the night and let them get their sea legs,” he said. More extensive cruises take scouts to Catalina and the Channel Islands, he said.