Prolific

Newsletter

OYT South bulletin 29th October 2021

In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *


* Voyage news
Half-term is split into two short voyages in order to create opportunities for as many young people as possible. We had a mixed group joining on Saturday – some people who had been waiting to sail for almost two years after last year’s voyages were cancelled; a couple of returners who had already sailed this year; and others who were new to us.

After introductions and safety briefings they sailed down to Cowes on the first evening. Next day the forecast looked good for a passage to Poole later in the day when the tide was in their favour, expecting southerly winds around Force 4. In the event, they got to the Needles and found south westerlies around Force 6, making for a far more challenging passage. To their credit, despite seasickness, the young people were all prepared to continue and conditions improved as they flew across Poole Bay – exceeding 10 knots at times.

During the passage Prolific had to avoid an oil tanker which was also heading out of the Solent and our crew heard later that an hour or so after passing (and long after any manoeuvres they might have undertaken for our sake!), they had run aground not far from the Needles and were stuck for several hours – not the best start for a voyage from Southampton to Egypt. Fortunately they were later refloated and all on board were fine.

Meanwhile Prolific had an evening in Poole with some games on board. Next day conditions were far more comfortable, though it was still windy. Seasickness was forgotten and they had a good sail back to Ocean Village.


On the way they did a man overboard recovery exercise and 16-year-old trainee bosun Harry had his first chance to try going over the side in a climbing harness to recover the “casualty”.  

They had a movie night on board in Southampton and the voyage ended next day after cleaning the boat and debriefs, having completed 85 nautical miles. You can see the full voyage track here. A 14-year-old crew member said: “My favourite memory of the trip was probably steering in and out of bays while the sun was gleaming on the back of my head” and a 13-year-old added: “My favourite part of the trip was probably sitting at the front of the boat on the bowsprit, when it was like really sunny. And my most memorable moment was when I was sailing the boat, like steering it.” One mum wrote afterwards: “Thank you so much to everyone involved - our son had a fantastic time, he said he is going to miss everyone and was sad it came to an end.”

Big thanks to sea staff Andy, Rooby, Josh, Tom, Becky, Danny and Harry.

On Wednesday we started the last youth voyage of the season with a welcome return for east London charity Ambition Aspire Achieve. It was a poignant moment as AAA was founded by Kevin Jenkins to provide opportunities for children and young people in the London Borough of Newham and surrounding areas: Kevin had worked with OYT South for almost twenty years, with AAA and in his previous role, and was one of our most longstanding clients; but very sadly he died in April. He would have been so pleased to see this voyage going ahead and to hear how much the young people got out of the experience. We are delighted that AAA are continuing to work with us and the partnership will live on as a tribute to all that Kevin did to support young people in his area.

They joined us on Wednesday and motored to Osborne Bay after introductions and safety briefings, and had dinner at anchor. Yesterday morning began with winch drills:

Then they retrieved our anchor – and found that someone else’s long-lost small anchor came up with it! They had a great day’s sailing with deep-reefed sails:

The crew were all super-keen and did a man overboard recovery drill and lots of tacking and taking turns on the helm:

They ended the day in Cowes. Holly says this is a lovely crew and so enthusiastic about everything. Last night some people were offered a break during cooking dinner and didn’t want to take it as they were enjoying cooking and wanting to make a great job of it.

Today it is very windy so they may not be going out, but there is plenty to do in harbour – including carving pumpkins and planning costumes for a hallowe’en party!

Big thanks to sea staff Holly, Josh, Georgia, Andrew, Lucinda, Tom and Patrick.

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* John Pennefather, 1947 - 2021
Regular readers will have seen several mentions in recent editions of this newsletter of donations made to Ocean Youth Trust South in memory of John Pennefather. His friends and family have raised a substantial sum which will allow us to offer bursary funding to some disadvantaged and vulnerable young people next season.

His sister has kindly written something for us on John’s life to give us some background on his links with our charitable work and to show why OYT South was the charity chosen for donations in his name.

John Pennefather pictured in the early 1970s

“John was introduced to dinghy sailing as a small boy in the 1950s on the Thorpeness Meare in Suffolk. A spark was ignited which was to become his interest and hobby. He ‘clicked’ with sailing, joined the school sailing club and in term time sailed on the Thames at Wargrave. In the holidays, he would regularly sail his Albacore dinghy on the water at Bosham where he was a member of Bosham Sailing Club. On leaving school and before University, John spent a part of his gap year on the Crystal Cube, one of the Tate & Lyle Fleet transporting sugar from Barbados.

Later, he returned to the UK and was offered a role as a volunteer with the Ocean Youth Club, as it was then, helping with the refitting and varnishing of the two boats owned by the Club at that time.

University provided long summer vacations and he always sought opportunities to crew for owners. One memorable summer was spent in the Mediterranean with Hammond Innes [writer who later left the bulk of his estate and the lending rights on his novels as the principal funding behind the Association of Sail Training Organisations] and his wife aboard their yacht, Mary Deare. He gained sufficient sailing skills and time on the water to qualify for the Royal Ocean Racing Club and regularly crewed on their offshore races; he would charter yachts with friends and head to the West Country, the Channel Islands and Brittany. More recently he kept his boat on a mooring in Rye Harbour in Sussex. Finally in 2010, after crossing the Channel single handed, he took it into the French canals and down to Marseille. In a letter from a friend after his death, she wrote “John was a quiet, gentle, unassuming person with a twinkle. However, put him in charge of a boat and he was someone else. Fully in control as the captain, commanding all he surveyed, we did as we were told and looked up to him with great respect! We had such fun".

John had many challenges with his health, but sailing gave him independence, freedom, pride in his navigation skills and seamanship. He won the respect of friends and he was always happy on the water or around boats. John’s sister asked that any donations in his memory should be for Ocean Youth Trust South, where he was a volunteer all those years ago. She specifically asked that the funds should be shared out to give an opportunity to disadvantaged or vulnerable children and teenagers so they might experience time at sea on Prolific with all that this can offer to a young person in terms of team building, confidence and life skills.”

OYT South will be proud to use the funds next year to honour John’s memory.

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Refit news and plans - help needed NEXT weekend 6/7 Nov
Prolific’s winter refit starts on 4th November. For those who haven't been involved before, this means several months of servicing, repairs, cleaning, modifications, sanding, painting and much more - and we need plenty of help!

This is a big refit as we need to have Prolific’s five-year survey. The boat has to come out of the water and there is a huge amount to do.

We are still looking for one or two more people for our core refit team – please do share this with anyone who is not working, on a gap year, or otherwise available for up to four months this winter. It will be a fun, friendly team and it offers free accommodation and food over the winter as well as lots of useful experience.

However, as well as the full-time team, we need plenty of casual volunteers coming for a few days spread over the winter, or a short block of time, or even just one day. We normally need helpers on weekdays but for those of you who aren’t available during the week, we are planning some volunteer weekends, including:

5-7 November (getting as much gear as possible off before the boat is lifted out of the water)
3-5 December
21-23 Jan
… and more to be decided.

We’re always pleased to see people with maintenance and technical skills but there are plenty of jobs for people with no experience – whether it’s as simple as helping to move things between the boat and the store, or an opportunity to learn something new. We can find a suitable task for anyone who is enthusiastic, reliable and prepared to muck in.

We can't have people sleeping on board during refit but – with huge thanks to Fred Cole for organising it - the core team has a rented house and other volunteers can always ask us about accommodation - it just depends what space we have available at the time.

Refit volunteers should generally be aged 18+ but it may occasionally be possible to include 16- and 17-year-olds who have sailed with us and earned bosun recommendations - it depends what jobs are being done, who is around and what supervision is available.

Volunteer sea staff please note: if we get multiple applications to sail on popular voyages next summer, then people who have helped at refit (or raised funds, or brought us new bookings, or supported us in other ways) may well get priority over people who haven't been involved over the winter!

To keep everyone safe, we’re looking at asking refit helpers to do take Covid tests (the free lateral flow version) before coming on board, as we have been doing with everyone on voyages this season.

Please email refit@oytsouth.org to book yourself in to help.

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* Refit house furniture update and thanks
Big thanks to everyone who has been in touch with offers of items for the refit house but extra-special thanks to Glyn Collins and Anna who with extraordinary generosity have offered to pass on and deliver the contents of an entire four-bedroom house! The staff team and all the volunteers helping at refit will be immensely grateful.

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Core refit team needed
We are 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.

Core team

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Georgia leaving present – please give generously!
One of the most enthusiastic and capable core team refit volunteers we have ever had is Georgia Watson, who did so well in the role that she was invited to become one of the staff team on board. However, she is now coming to the end of her final season as OYT South’s Staff Cadet. She’ll be helping Holly and Josh get the refit off to a good start over the next few months but after that she will be moving on – though she has promised to stay involved as a volunteer. We are hugely grateful for all that Georgia has done for the charity as our Staff Cadet, and it’s been amazing to watch her progress as she worked through her qualifications. So we’d like to send her off with a really nice leaving present – please contribute if you can!

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First mates next season - and beyond - job advertisement
One of the longer-term consequences of Covid for the charity has been an interruption in sea staff training and progression: this season we have had three first mates moving up to skipper and others wishing to take a break or retire; but at the same time our second mates lost a season and a half of sailing and most needed to consolidate their 2M skills this year – which means we haven’t had opportunities for new 1Ms to be trained and assessed.

OYT South is committed to using volunteer first mates in the long term. But for the moment we believe we do not have enough volunteer first mates to cover a full season, and we are therefore now advertising a job for a seasonal first mate for 2022.

We will still be using volunteer 1Ms on every voyage possible, in order to retain their involvement and keep up their skills and enthusiasm, and in the meantime we will be having a major push to get our most experienced 2Ms through training and qualifications, so that we can return to a full list of volunteer first mates. We’ll be looking for the seasonal first mate to support the training of other sea staff, and we are also putting together a group of our most experienced 2Ms for extra support, mentoring and training, plus practical help for those still needing to complete RYA qualifications.

So we are now recruiting for a seasonal first mate from January to November next year, and there is a job advertisement here. Please do spread the word to anyone who might be interested and suitable: we are looking for someone who is at least a commercially endorsed RYA Yachtmaster with experience on larger sailing vessels as well as the ability to work well with young people and volunteers, and the personality to be a great addition to the team.

We did something similar when Prolific was new to the charity, recruiting a Sailing Support Officer, and in successive seasons we brought in Peta and Holly, both of whom went on to skipper Prolific. We are now looking for someone who will be just as much of an asset to the team as a seasonal first mate as Peta and Holly were in the SSO role!

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* OYT South AGM – online – Thursday 9th December – all the details
OYT South’s AGM will take place on the evening of Thursday 9th December, on Zoom – all welcome! There will be a very short formal meeting followed by a review of the year from our Chief Executive Mark Todd. After that people can stay online and chat.

The formal mailing to members went out this week – if you think you are a member and you haven’t received it, please let us know! But the meeting is open to anyone (and if you are not a member but would like to be, you can join now – it is not too late). Please note that only members can vote at the AGM, or propose or second a motion.

All the details and papers for the meeting are available here.

It would be helpful if you could email caroline.white@oytsouth.org to say whether you are hoping to come and whether you would you stay online for a social event after the meeting.

Would anyone like to volunteer to run a quiz or another fun event?

Anyone who is unable to attend or can’t manage a video call can submit questions in advance, and members can vote by proxy: in both cases, you need to email office@oytsouth.org by 1700 on Tuesday 7th December with details of your question or your appointed proxy.

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February training weekend
We still haven’t decided whether to run a normal face-to-face shorebased training weekend next February, with a dinner on the Saturday night as usual, or whether it will need to be another largely online event. However, there are certain things that must be done face-to-face and one of those is the RYA first aid course. Everyone who did an online extension last winter needs to renew as that was only valid for one year, and then there will be all the other people due their three-yearly update this winter, and new volunteers doing the qualification for the first time. So Tony Salmon will be running a course on Saturday 26th February in Gosport, with an option for a second course on Sunday 27th February if we have enough people. Email caroline.white@oytsouth.org if you are interested.

We will also look at running other things on the same weekend – please email caroline.white@oytsouth.org with any thoughts on other courses you would like us to run!

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2022 voyage programme – OPEN for individual bookings
We are now able to accept individual bookings for young people on the following voyages:

15-19 April, Southampton, 4 nights, £425
9-15 July, Poole to Brixham tbc, 6 nights, £625
23-27 July, Brixham tbc, 4 nights, £425
17-23 Aug, Brixham tbc, 6 nights, £625
24-29 Aug, Brixham to Poole tbc, 5 nights, £525
30 Aug – 4 Sept, Poole to Southampton tbc, 5 nights, £525
21-25 Oct, Southampton, 4 nights, £410 (voyage starts later on Friday so people can join after schools break up for half term)

If you are interested in any of these dates. email webmaster1@oytsouth.org stating the age of the person who will be sailing. Our voyages can be open to people aged 11-25 but in practice we aim to divide people into compatible groups and not have 11-year-olds and 25-year-olds sailing together. If you are around the middle of the age range, any voyage on the list could work, but for younger or older people we will advise if your chosen date looks appropriate or not – sometimes it is hard to be sure until we have a reasonable number of enquiries.

If none of these dates are suitable, then we MAY also open up one or more of the following to individual bookings, depending on the levels of demand for individual mixed voyages versus group voyages. So do let us know if you would be interested in a place on any of these voyages once the decision is made:

2-8 July, Southampton to Poole, 6 nights, £625
10-16 Aug, Falmouth to Brixham tbc, 6 nights, £625.

People who are aged 18-25 can apply for places on youth voyages but would also be eligible for adult voyages (18+ with no upper age limit). We have adult weekends scheduled as follows:

1-3 April, Southampton, 2 nights, £215
7-9 Oct, Southampton, 2 nights, £215
There will also be a longer adult week – date to be decided once more youth groups have chosen their dates. Again, email webmaster1@oytsouth.org if you are interested in an adult berth.

Please don’t contact us yet about sea staff bookings – we’ll ask for volunteer bids from late November or December.

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2022 voyage programme – OPEN for group bookings
We are just finalising bookings for the last few groups which had places cancelled last year or this year, as well as for our regular clients; but if anyone else is looking for a group booking (12-15 crew, including young people and any accompanying adults), please email webmaster1@oytsouth.org a.s.a.p. and we can discuss available dates.

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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.

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Chris Ellis Award – win £££s off the price of your next voyage!
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!

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* Financial appeal
Big thanks this week to #WillDoes which has once again made a very generous donation towards bursaries, for next season.

We need a regular flow of funds to cover at least three major areas: bursaries for young people who could not otherwise afford to sail; vessel maintenance and equipment; and staff salaries - please help, or pass on our details to anyone you come across who might make a grant, large or small.

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.

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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.

Painting

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:

Postage / collection options

Anyone outside the UK wanting to order a copy, please email us.

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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!"

Easyfundraising

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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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“To be honest I never wanted to come, but I'm glad I did because I have learnt and seen so much!" Charlotte