[Scientology’s 440-foot ship was last in the news for a measles quarantine.]

by Jeffrey Augustine

The Church of Scientology is presently trying to make news by having its ambulance-chasing and photo-op-opportunists — a/k/a the Volunteer Ministers — rush emergency supplies to The Bahamas in the wake of Hurricane Dorian. In one photo not intended for publication, we see a smiling young man posing casually in a VM T-shirt on the deck of a yacht:

In this next official Scientology PR photo we see two young women posing on the same yacht with a look of grim determination. Scientology TV scriptwriters will spin the video something like this, “When every second counted, Scientology’s Volunteer Ministers rushed desperately needed supplies to The Bahamas!”

The yacht used by the VMs to haul supplies for the photo shoot appears to be in the 75-foot class. The shortest sea route would be from Fort Lauderdale to Freeport. This is about 50 miles and the scheduled fast ferry makes the run in about 2.5 hours. Here is another PR photo of VMs unloading supplies from the stern of the vessel:

This pleasure yacht simply can’t carry much in the way of supplies, as it was not designed to do so. However, given the enormous cargo-carrying capacity of the MV Freewinds, we ask why this ship and its Sea Org crew have not been pressed into service ferrying desperately needed emergency supplies.

The Grand Celebration, a 733 foot cruise ship owned and operated by the Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line, ceased normal for-profit activities and the ship and its crew have now made their second run to ferry emergency supplies from the Port of Palm Beach in Florida to The Bahamas. This is real humanitarian work when it matters the most.

Why is the $3 billion dollar Church of Scientology pretending to do charity with one small chartered yacht when it has a cruise ship with significant cargo-carrying capacity at its disposal? Why isn’t Scientology stepping up and doing what the Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line is doing?

The answer is that the Freewinds works to make money for the Church and can’t be diverted from that task. Of course, the Freewinds and its crew dropped everything last year and made a run to Barbados so that Captain Miscavige could receive a dubious medal from a retired Colombian police general.

The Freewinds was used as a self-glorifying prop at the order of David Miscavige — and this was all paid for with tax-free income — but the Freewinds can’t be spared for actual humanitarian work.