Overview
Seabadge is an advanced training course for Sea Explorer/Sea Scout
leaders,
loosely equivalent to Wood Badge. Course is run as a weekend
event,
and requires that the participants have gone through basic leader
training.
Course is run at the Regional/National level.
Work on developing the course started in 1970 by a group of experienced Sea Scout officers who met at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. A curriculum was developed and the first Seabadge Conference was held in 1971 and spread from there. The National Committee on Sea Exploring then took this work and developed the first official Seabadge Conference Guide.
Despite what some might think, Seabadge is not being ended in favor of the new combined Wood Badge course.
Information on Seabadge may be found here at the Sea Scouts, BSA site.
Program
The purposes of the Seabadge experience are:
Insignia
Course insignia consists of the Seabadge medallion, and "square
knots". There are three different knots to indicate course
participant, staff, and
course director. Only a course participant knot has been approved
by
National, the rest are unofficial, but widely used. Below are
shown
some of the unofficial knots, plus the official knot. As to the
three
pins, the first was used from 1972-74, the second from 1974-77 [SE-64],
and
the third is the current Seabadge pin [SE-65]. The Sea Badge
Trained
strip comes from the Southern Region, and is semi-official.
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Literature
Course syllabus is Sea Badge Conference Staff Guide (#23-269),
which
was released in 1988 and revised in 1996 and 1998. Prior
printings had slightly different titles.
Have only seen a 2000 "printing" of the 1998 edition. Its been
replaced by the Sea Badge CD,
which contains the Sea Badge Staff
Manual (#23-270), revised for 2002.
updated: 04/07/2005mrb