Sea Scout Ranks and Awards

What this page is

Sections 4.4.0.0 through 4.4.1.7 of the Guide to Advancement. Every item cites the topic it came from.

Sea Scouts has its own distinct language, customs and advancement track. Units are ships. Each rank marks progressive growth as a seaman and a leader, culminating in the Quartermaster rank. All requirements must be completed before the 21st birthday, and the ranks are available to registered Sea Scouts only.

The four ranks, as the Guide describes them

These are descriptions, not requirement lists. The requirements are in the Sea Scout Manual and at seascout.org, and the Guide does not reproduce them either. What the Guide does name is worth having:

• Apprentice: ideals, courtesies, procedures and responsibilities; how a ship is organised and uniformed; basic swimming and beginning seamanship; safety, emergency procedures and Safe Swim Defense; service hours.
• Ordinary: the Swimming merit badge requirements, quarterdeck training, serving as an event chair, Safety Afloat, the galley, anchoring, piloting and navigation, and an overnight cruise planned and taken.
• Able: the Lifesaving merit badge requirements, the **Sea Scout Long Cruise badge**, ceremony presentation, maritime history, and teaching others about the program.
• Quartermaster, mostly an intensification of what came before, with three significant additions: the Quartermaster service project, the study of weather and forecasting, and further electives.

The Skipper conference

Skippers hold a conference with youth who indicate they are ready to advance to the next rank. Once the conference has taken place and the other requirements are met, the application for rank is forwarded to the ship's board of review. The process is similar to a Scoutmaster conference at 4.2.3.5, and the board of review itself is 4.4.2.0, which has its own plan on this site.

The Quartermaster service project

It needs the Quartermaster Leadership Service Project Workbook, No. 420-011, from seascout.org, and approval from four parties: the Skipper, the ship committee, the project beneficiary, and the council or district advancement committee.

And the rule that catches busy young people: a youth's Quartermaster, Eagle and Summit service projects must be separate and distinct from each other.

Working on Scouts BSA advancement in a ship

A Sea Scout who earned First Class while registered in Scouts BSA is qualified until the 18th birthday to carry on, without needing to be registered in a troop. The Scoutmaster and the Skipper decide with the member who oversees it, and that decision decides which committee holds the Star and Life boards of review. Eagle boards follow the council's established procedure either way.

How to read the graph

The four ranks run in order down the middle. Nested items are part of the item above them. Dashed lines apply only in the case written on the arrow, and the three questions above the plan decide which of those you see.