May 25, 2008 — The Pathfinders from St. Thomas Seventh Day Adventist School took a clean sweep during Sunday's annual Innovative Boy Scouts Royak Regatta at Magens Bay Beach, winning both senior and junior youth divisions and the territorial championship title.
There were 14 teams participating in the youth division this year and one in the adult division. Because of the large amount of participants, youth teams were broken up into junior and senior divisions. The junior division — with Boy Scouts Troop 156 A and B teams facing off against the St. Thomas Junior Pathfinders — went two rounds before getting to the championship race.
Both Boy Scout teams were eliminated in the first round, leaving Pathfinders 1 and 2 teams battling it out for the junior division title. Pathfinders 1 — made up of the group's more experienced rowers — took the race with a time of 5:48:49, while Pathfinders 2 fell in second with a time of 6:32.
"There was no doubt that we were going to win," said Jareal Charles, last in the boat for the Pathfinders 1 team during the relay-style race. "We have been practicing for the past couple of weeks, and we knew what we had to do. It got a little hard — when I was coming in, it got a little rough and I ended up going inside one of the buoys when I was supposed to go around it, but we made it through anyway and got to the finish line."
In the senior youth division, Boy Scouts Troop 20 A and B teams battled it out against JROTC teams from Charlotte Amalie and Ivanna Eudora Kean High Schools, along with Pathfinders teams from both St. Thomas and St. Croix in a fight to get to the second round. Eliminated in the first heat were Boy Scouts Troop 156 (out of All Saints Cathedral School), Boy Scouts Troop 20 B, the Devil Rays 3 team and the St. Thomas Pathfinders Senior Youth 2 team.
In the second round, the competitors were equally matched. Troop 20 A and the St. Croix Pathfinders: Tropical Storm made it to the third round, while the final team, the St. Thomas Pathfinders, edged out the Eudora Kean Devil Rays by less than two seconds. The Pathfinders held on for the victory in the third round, with Tropical Storm and Troop 20 A out of the J. Antonio Jarvis School taking second and third place, respectively.
Since there was only entry in the adult division, the winner was unanimously the team from the Yak Shack. The members of the group still donated half their entrance fee to the Boy Scouts, said Nathan Clark, senior district executive of the V.I. Boy Scouts Council.
"I thought the turnout was great — we had 14 teams from all over St. Thomas, scout groups, JROTC, Pathfinders from all over St. Thomas and St. Croix — and that's more than we had last year," Clark said. "And everyone's having fun out here. The weather's great, we've gotten a lot of community support, so everyone's just really enjoying everything. It's nice to see the kids and the families having fun in the sun and enjoying the day."
The council hopes to bring in about $5,000 from the event, which would go toward Boy Scout camping opportunities, training for adult leader volunteers and helping the scouts graduate scuba, sailing and ecology programs, Clark said.
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