COURTESY PHOTO Before the Navy took back the boats, volunteers had worked to disassemble their towers for transport.

Sea Scout group
upset that boats being
destroyed by Navy

Navy officials say the group
did not move the boats in time
and that they are a hazard

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Volunteers with a Sea Scout program are upset that the U.S. Navy has begun destroying four boats they had hoped to use to train boys and girls for sea careers.

David Ford, president of the Tugboat Hoga Preservation Society, said the program would have given up to 20 girls and boys "a constructive outlet away from the lure of drugs and crime.

"Now there is no future for these kids," Ford said.

The Navy maintains that the Tugboat Hoga Preservation Society, which had owned the four Vietnam-era landing craft, stored on land in Pearl City Peninsula's Victory Dock 6, was told repeatedly since August that the vessels had to be moved by Sept. 15. On Monday the Navy destroyed one of the landing craft.

Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell, Pearl Harbor spokeswoman, said that after Sept. 15 the Hoga Society was no longer considered the legal owner of the four vessels. A month later the vessels were declared to be "abandoned," Campbell said, and the Navy started proceedings to demolish them.

Ford said the Navy's ultimatum was delivered last Friday. He said Pearl Harbor officials said the boats had to be moved by Monday or they would be destroyed.

"They said the boats presented a safety hazard."

Ford said, "We could have discussed the idea of a temporary fence (to keep people away from the boats) ... but the Navy would rather shoot first and ask questions later."

Campbell said Ford was "given numerous and subsequent opportunities to move the vessels."

She said the vessels are considered "safety hazards" since they were in an area easily accessible by children.

Ford has had a running dispute with the Navy since Pearl Harbor officials rejected the Hoga Society's request to use a slip of land between the USS Arizona Memorial and the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum to berth the World War II tugboat. The Hoga is one of the few remaining vessels that survived the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. It is now in mothballs near San Francisco.

Besides Ford's group, the city of North Little Rock, Ark., and a boat dealer in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., are interested in acquiring the tugboat.

A decision by the Navy is expected sometime next year.

Regarding the four Vietnam-era vessels, Ford said in a letter to U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye: "We have been unable to complete the removal as expeditiously as we would have liked. All of us are volunteers with daytime jobs, so much of the work is being done at night."

Ford's group wanted to relocate the vessels to Campbell Industrial Park.

The group had hoped to form two youth Sea Scouts units in Leeward Oahu.

Sea Scouts, part of the Boy Scouts of America, is intended to help youths learn about careers on the water, said John Mills, Sea Scouts spokesman.

He said Ford's group is in the process of getting a charter from the Aloha Council. The only Sea Scouts unit here is chartered by the USS Missouri Battleship Association.

Ford said the boats would be used for "dry-land training and a support for Navy recruitment."