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3rd Mosman Bay Sea Scouts

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The founding fathers of 3rd Mosman Bay wanted the Group to be called 1st Mosman Bay Sea Scouts. The present name was a World War 2 compromise between the District traditionalists (there had been a 3rd Mosman land Scout Group registered in 1927 but it had closed) and the new breed of Sea Scouts from “the other side of the Harbour” who had taken over Port Sirius.

Port Sirius, before the war, had been State Sea Scout HQ with its own Commissioner and training fleet, quite separate from the local District (initially Middle Harbour, then Mosman). The lads from 6th Sydney (formed originally as 1st Woolloomooloo in 1928), who did not have a hall of their own, came to use Port Sirius and its boats at weekends so regularly that in 1943 they took over the facility for themselves. Branch HQ staff were severely depleted by the war effort but the Sea Scouts of 6th Sydney (who had moved from St Peter’s church hall in Darlinghurst and from under the fig trees in The Domain to the first floor of the old sandstone Erskine Street police lock-up) were too young to enlist. Old log books at Port Sirius recall Friday night meetings being interrupted by air raid sirens and the boys having to race over to the underground trenches in Reid Park. But Scouting life went on and 3rd quickly established itself as a force to be reckoned with, displacing 1st Mosman as the District Competition winners by taking out the swimming carnival, athletics carnival, District Rally and District Camp honours.

3rd Mosman Bay Sea Scouts arriving at annual Garden Island Dockyard Service c.1965 (photo courtesy of The Sydney Morning Herald)

Photo of a photo of the Scouts at the Dockyard Service c.1947 (provided by former SM/GSM Ellis Dach)

With the change of name from 6th Sydney to 3rd Mosman Bay settled, the next task was to replace the rickety old Port Sirius boatshed at the foot of Richard Harnett’s Royalist Road sandstone quarry with a state-of-the-art Scout hall. This required enormous effort by the parents – in terms of organisation and labour – but the job was completed (except for the intended extra 3.5 metres to the west that to this day has not materialised) in 1955. In terms of utility, it was the finest hall in the District. Dances were held every month and old bottles were collected and sold, allowing the bank loan to be paid off in a year and a half.

3rd Mosman Bay has always prided itself on its nautical tradition. The old Port Sirius wasn’t demolished, it was scuttled. The existing building wasn’t opened, it was launched. The new Port Sirius didn’t have a Scouters’ office, or a kitchen, or a Quartermaster’s Store and downstairs boat storage; it had a wardroom, a galley and a Boatswain’s Locker below decks. It also housed some great maritime memorabilia – two ship’s cannon, a brass binnacle and ship’s wheel, a hatch from one of the Japanese midget submarines that penetrated Sydney Harbour and, over the years, a wonderfully eclectic assortment of boats ranging from an Australian champion sailing skiff to a lifeboat from somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere that must have traversed the world’s oceans like the proverbial Mary Celeste.

But, as with every Scout Group worth its salt, the strength of 3rd Mosman Bay lies not just in its history, or its building, or its gear, but in the quality of its people and its programs. The fortunes of our Group have waxed and waned over the years, and no longer can we claim to have a full Cub Pack and Sea Scout Troop, each with 36 members and a three-year waiting list, with an active Venturer Unit and Rover Crew supported by a prosperous Group Committee and Guild of Old Scouts. The halcyon years of the 1950s and 1960s that reflected post-war euphoria and energetic volunteer