The Retriever

The Retriever sitting in her home port Mackinaw City flying Boy Scouts of America flag

(Michigan Crossroads Council)

GENESEE COUNTY, MI – For the first time in six years, Boy Scouts of Genesee County and the Midwest will have the opportunity to learn to sail and how to live out on the waters of the Great Lakes on a week-long voyage on the Michigan Crossroads Council's new sailboat, the Retriever.

"We want every kid to get a chance to learn," said David Rowe, chairman of the Michigan Crossroads Council Sail Training Committee and avid sailor. "We give every kid a chance to learn how to do everything on the boat, from rigging sails to cooking aboard. To truly live aboard the boat."

The Michigan Crossroads Council's central office, located in Flint, oversees resources for the Boy Scout field service councils of Michigan, which are the councils that oversee the districts.

The Retriever, a $300,000 52-foot ketch, was constructed in 1980 as an aluminum racing boat, which when on to win the Chicago to Mackinac Race twice. It has been fully upgraded with new masts and sails and wiring and radio equipment in Saugatuck.

The group was originally planningto raise money to build an aluminum boat for the program, but that thanks to charitable donations from Reinhardt Jahn and The Jahn Family Foundation, as well as the Retriever's original owner Dr. David Verdier, they acquired the Retriever.

While normally a 10-day voyage on the Great Lakes with 14 passengers and two crew would cost well over $10,000, not including additional expenses such as food, each trip costs scout troops $6,500.

The scouts sailed the Great Lakes from the 1960s to the mid-2000s in their sailboats, the Prevailing Winds and its sister vessel, the Prevailing Winds II.

In 2008, after the U.S. Coast Guard conducted a certification inspection, the vessels were no longer allowed to go out with the scouts because the boats' fiberglass hulls had a high moisture content.

Due to the nature of the boats' use, they are required to be inspected by the Coast Guard and certified as a "school ship."

The group spends time teaching the 14 scouts aboard everything they need to know to survive on a boat, including how to react to someone falling overboard.

"Kids learn and do things many kids outside the (Scouting) program don't get to do," said Michael Thorp, vice president of the Michigan Crossroads Council. "This program has helped keep the sailing community in Michigan alive."

Thorp, who has been with Scouting since 1962, recalled his first time stepping aboard the Prevailing Winds II in the early '70s, and how he and his fellow scouts learned teamwork and shared an experience not many have.

The sailing program, like many of the other outdoor programs the Boy Scouts of America offers, teaches the children to be prepared and to work together during the week-long voyage.

"This is not a sailing cruise, they are going to learn" said Frank Reigelman, director of the outdoor program for the Michigan Crossroads Council.

Reigelman said there are a few smaller sailing trips in the Lower Peninsula that some scout troops use, but they sail on smaller lakes of only a few hundred acres and that does not compare to the experience of sailing out on the Great Lakes.

The group is planning on hosting week-long trips out on the lakes with the Boy Scouts.

The boat is docked in Mackinaw City, a port the group chose for its central location to get to both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

The program has already booked dozens of week-long sailing voyages with scouts throughout the summer and will be opening up slots for the 2015 sailing season soon.

The boat will be heading take its first trip with Scouts in early July.