Kaimiloa — from ka ʻimi loa, one who seeks afar — was the name given to His Hawaiian Majesty’s Ship Kaimiloa, commissioned in March 1887 as the first and only vessel of the Hawaiian Royal Navy. She sailed for Sāmoa that May, carrying King Kalākaua’s embassy in his effort to build a confederation of Polynesian states against the pressure of European empire.

What makes the name apt for a youth unit is the crew. A large part of the ship’s company were young Hawaiians, put aboard with roughly a month’s training; Kaimiloa served as a training ship as much as a naval one. Several of them were bandsmen, and the concert they gave for the townspeople of Apia is remembered as having done more for relations between the two peoples than the negotiations did.

A sea scout unit named Kaimiloa is therefore not borrowing a grand name. It is continuing a specific one: young people taught seamanship, sent out under sail, and expected to represent their people well when they arrive.