Newsletter
OYT South bulletin 16th July 2021
In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Sea staff vacancies - can anyone join THIS WEEKEND – or for an August voyage?
- * Voyage news
- Vessel tracking
- Chris Ellis Award– win £££s off the price of your next voyage!
- Core refit team needed
- * Financial appeal
- Painting of Prolific - prints available to buy!
- Raise funds for OYT South if you're shopping online!
- OYT South social media - please get involved
- Branded clothing
- Raise And Sail - website for anyone looking to raise money to come sailing
- New readers’ welcome and introduction
- Receiving this newsletter by email
* Sea staff vacancies can anyone join THIS WEEKEND – or for an August voyage?
Can anyone do either of the following voyages:
Sun 18 July – Fri 23 July (starting this weekend), Brixham to Brixham
Sun 8 Aug – Sun 14 Aug, Brixham to Southampton
Email webmaster1@oytsouth.org if you can help.
We are looking for either a qualified or trainee mate or bosun – all we need is another adult whose DBS, references and other qualifications are up to date in our records or can be brought up to date in time.
* Voyage news!
Last week’s Ardingly College voyage ended on Saturday with seven people earning RYA Start Yachting certificates. One 14-year old said: “All of it was really good, like learning a load of different things, like learning about the sail cos when I first came I thought it was like just a sail that you just pulled, and it was a bit different to that. I think it's really nice to learn a load of different things and also feeling the bad bits but then it also like going really good. I think my most memorable bit was when we went out on the netting at the front, and also when it was the sunset and we just anchored and we were all sitting there having dinner with the sunset there, that was really nice.” Tim Sayers, the teacher who organised this year’s two Ardingly voyages and has sailed with us many times over the years, wrote afterwards: “Amazing couple of trips. Kids all still buzzing. Some of the older kids said it was the best thing they had ever done! (only a little bit offended as I have taught them for 5 years and taken them on many other camps and trips!)”
Sunday was a maintenance day – big thanks to Holly, Lee, Vince, Josh, Georgia, Tom, Cathy and Adam for lots of cleaning as well as doing all the daily and weekly checks (special thanks to Tom for doing the chart corrections).
We crewed up on Tuesday morning with New Beacon School boys aged 11-13 – as usual, the youngest crew of the year. After lunch and lifejacket fitting, they went out to an anchorage in Tor Bay for the rest of the briefings. Teacher Mark O’Prey, another regular, was persuaded into the drysuit for the man overboard recovery drill:
His students appeared to be delighted when he was dunked into the water:
Lee ran a chart meditation session to get people into the zone for the week:
That afternoon they sailed to Dartmouth in light winds. On Wednesday, they had a great sail, going quite a long way offshore with plenty of sails up. They explored a couple of possible anchorages in Wembury and Bigbury but decided the swell was too much, so continued into Cawsand Bay in time for a late dinner.
Next morning the boys went ashore for ice-creams and brought back pasties for everyone to have for lunch. Meanwhile our surveyor Nic Crawford, who happens to live locally, came for a quick look at some areas of the boat we have been keeping an eye on, so that we can start planning ahead for work needed in the winter.
After lunch the team sailed off the anchor and had a day of navigation without using the GPS – lots of radar navigation and three-point fixes and plotting. It was a lovely gentle sail with all the boys actively involved as they navigated all the way to Salcombe, with one of the boys doing as great job of driving into the harbour on the transit.
They picked up a buoy for the night and this morning had shore leave and time on the beach. This is a view of the beach from the boat:
Thanks to our trustee John Hicks for this photo when he spotted us in Salcombe:
The plan is for a BBQ lunch and a sail back to Brixham tonight, as the boys work hard towards completing their RYA qualifications.
Big thanks to sea staff Lee, Mark, Adam and Josh with help from teachers Mark and James.
Vessel tracking
Don’t forget you can always have a look and see where Prolific is sailing.
Just for the moment we can’t welcome visitors on board due to Covid protocols but if you discover that Prolific is in a harbour somewhere near you, please go and say hello from a safe distance. And sometimes you may be just what we need if you have local information or a bit of time to spare to help with something, or a car for running a quick errand!
Big thanks to the Graham High Charity who sponsor our vessel tracking.
Chris Ellis Award – win £££s off the price of your next voyage!
Now open for 2021 entries.
If you enjoy a voyage with OYT South and want to come again (and are aged 11-25), please think about entering for this award. You can win up to £500 off the price of another voyage, by sending in an account of a voyage you have already done with us. It can be a logbook, diary, story, pictures, video - anything which gives the judges an idea of why you had a good time and would like to come again. The prize is judged at the end of each season and the award can be spent on a voyage the following year. Entries should be emailed to webmaster1@oytsouth.org or posted to the office. See here for more details of this award, which was set up in memory of the charity's founder. You can also see some previous winning entries.
There were no 2020 winners because we were unable to sail, so it would be great to see an excellent crop of entries for 2021!
Core refit team needed
Obviously our winter plans are all dependent on what we can do in a Covid-safe manner, but all being well, we will be looking for a core team of volunteers to come and help us this winter from November to March. This is something we've been doing since at least 2002: a small full-time team offers continuity alongside all the other volunteers who come for odd days or weekends. We provide free food and accommodation for the core team as well as great experience in boat maintenance and a chance to make a real difference to a good cause while enjoying a sociable winter in the team. Many previous core team members are still great friends of the charity - some still sailing with us, others using the experience to help develop their careers. If you want to follow in the footsteps of Jake, Oran and Ian from the last full-time core team, and all the others who have gone before them, please see here for details and how to apply.
* Financial appeal
Big thanks this week to the Henry Smith Charity for a very generous donation towards bursaries for disadvantaged young people from Hampshire, and to Francis Piesse for a very kind donation.
See here for how to make a donation - you can contribute by cheque, phone or PayPal, but please do something if you possibly can. Don't forget that if you complete and return a Gift Aid form (pdf) we can claim back tax on your donation.
Painting of Prolific – prints available to buy!
Our friend, Gosport-based marine artist Colin Baxter, has prints taken from an original painting of Prolific available for you to buy.
The unframed prints will measure 370mm x 230mm plus border. They will be numbered and signed, and will cost £45 if you can pick yours up in Gosport, and £50 if you need it posted (they will probably come rolled in a cardboard tube). Order here:
Anyone outside the UK wanting to order a copy, please email us.
Raise funds for OYT South if you're shopping online!
"What a fool I was!" says Mark Todd.
"For ages I've seen in the bulletin that Easyfundraising is a good way to raise money for charity, but I never got round to doing anything about it, and when Caz told me how easy it was, I didn't listen.
I thought it might be a hassle, or that I'd have to remember to do something when I bought stuff online, or that it probably wasn't really worthwhile.
This week I finally got round to it and it turns out it's a REALLY EASY way to raise money for the charity I care about ... and I definitely should have done it sooner.
It takes a minute or two to sign up; you can do it on a desktop, tablet and/or phone, and you can install a widget that flags up when a donation is available. Once that's done, imagine you're looking to buy - say - a rainbow unicorn: just put "rainbow unicorn" in your usual search box, and the list of results shows you which sites come with donations, and how much. It's up to you what to pick and whether to accept the donation from the site, but a huge choice of sites will offer a donation - and it doesn't cost you a penny.
I don't know why I didn't do it sooner ... but if there's anyone else who has been like me and just not got round to it, PLEASE click the link now and sign up!"
OYT South is also registered with Amazon Smile which makes donations to us when people shop - Amazon will donate 0.5% of the net purchase price on eligible purchases. If you ever shop with Amazon, do have a look - once you pick Ocean Youth Trust South as your chosen charity and start using https://smile.amazon.co.uk, you don't need to do anything further, and all your other Amazon account settings remain unchanged.
OYT South social media – please get involved
One of the simplest ways you can help us while we can’t sail is to keep looking at our social media pages and share, retweet or like as many posts as possible. This all helps to make sure other people hear about us too – and the more we can keep alive the interest in our charitable work, the more people might help us now or start to think about sailing with us in future. Maybe you’ve got a community group, a local page, even a street WhatsApp where members might like to know that you are involved with a charity that could be of interest to them?
We are on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/oytsouth - please do give us a Like! If you were friends with John Laing on our old page (https://www.facebook.com/johnlaingsailing please do move to the new page now.
We are also on Twitter @oytsouth so please follow us!
And Instagram @oyt_south
And LinkedIn Ocean Youth Trust South
Please note that OYT South has a policy that our adult staff and volunteers should not make or accept individual online friend requests with crew members aged under 18, or vulnerable adults. Crew members can use the sites to stay in touch with the boat and with each other, but not with individual staff and volunteers.
Branded clothing
OYT South branded clothing available - please see here. You can buy hoodies (in a wide range of colours), fleeces, short- and long-sleeved t-shirts, baseball caps, beanie hats, polo shirts and more, all with OYT South's logo!
Raise And Sail - website for anyone looking to raise money to come sailing
Raise And Sail is a section of this website full of ideas, information and support for young people who would like to raise money in order to come sailing with us. Huge thanks to Fiona Keen and Emma Burrows for putting Raise And Sail together. We hope you will find it useful - let us know how you get on as we can add success stories and new ideas to the site in due course.
New readers' welcome and introduction
If you have recently registered your interest in OYT South, welcome to our newsletter, which is sent out almost every week, normally on a Friday, and is also copied onto the website.
If you have just started receiving this newsletter by email, it is because we believe you have signed up and consented to receive it - perhaps by emailing us to ask for it, completing a form on our website, or adding your email address to the book on board where people can sign up to receive news, as well as leaving comments. If this was a mistake or you simply decide you want to stop receiving the newsletter, just press “reply” to the email and write UNSUBSCRIBE at the top, or email webmaster1@oytsouth.org asking to unsubscribe.
Each week the newsletter includes a wide range of news from the boat and from the charity, including details of voyages available for young people; adult voyages; opportunities for adult volunteers both ashore and afloat, and much more. We find that while some people read the bulletin almost every week, many others dip in and out, and read it when it's convenient - which is why some items are repeated. New items are marked with an asterisk * so that if you did read it last week, you can see which sections you can safely skip.
Please feel free to join in any OYT South activities - nothing here is restricted to long-standing members or people who already know one another. New people are always very welcome!
If you need an introduction to the work of OYT South, you should find a lot of useful information on our website. But essentially, we are a registered charity (no. 1079959) which exists to offer adventure under sail as a personal development opportunity for young people aged 12-25, from the widest possible range of backgrounds. A high proportion of our young crew members are disadvantaged or deserving in some way: many of these sail in groups organised by other charities, youth clubs, special schools and so on, and will fill the bulk of our term-time voyages. But those from more fortunate backgrounds are also welcome to sail, either in groups or by coming as individuals on a mixed voyage. Every year we run a variety of shorter local voyages plus longer adventure trips - sometimes including Tall Ships races during the summer holidays. If you are aged 12-25 and hoping to sail as a crew member, take a look here - and this section is also useful for adults who are thinking of organising a voyage for a young person. Adults planning to organise a full group voyage should also see here. Adults who want to sail themselves should see here.
We have a professional staff skipper and engineer, but our watch leaders are normally all volunteers, who combine sailing skills with an interest in working with young people. You can find more information here - how the system works, how to join, and profiles of existing staff and volunteers.
To volunteer for OYT South ashore, please see here. To help with the vessel's annual refit, see here.
It is a very expensive business maintaining a boat, running an office and employing staff. If you want to help us, please become a member of OYT South. Or see here for information on making a donation.
If you have any questions, please do email - or contact the office.
Receiving this newsletter by email
Many thanks to all those who have given consent to receiving this newsletter by email. If you are not currently getting it by email and would like to, please just click here Newsletter Subscribe and press "send", or email webmaster1@oytsouth.org.
