Small Ships Race October 2021 (c) Max Mudie

Newsletter

OYT South bulletin 8th October 2021

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


* Watchleader or bosun needed for voyage starting THIS Sunday
Owing to illness we have space for one more watchleader or bosun on the voyage Sunday 10th October to Thursday 14th October – please email webmaster1@oytsouth.org if you can help. Another female staff member would be good though not absolutely essential.

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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
OYT South’s AGM will now 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. Would anyone like to volunteer to run a quiz or another fun event?

More details in due course, but for now, please save the date!

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* Sea staff needed for day sail – Tuesday 2nd November
On Tuesday 2nd November we are going to run a day sail for our major sponsors, MDL, and we need a couple of qualified Prolific watchleaders. Email webmaster1@oytsouth.org if you can help.

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* Voyage news
 Last week’s newsletter left our crew from Cowes Enterprise College in Yarmouth, working towards their sailing qualifications. Prolific also enjoyed a visit from Richard and Marion Heming of the Island Support Group:

In the afternoon the crew sailed back to Cowes, with gybing practice on the way, and there was a skippers’ briefing ahead of the next day’s race. Meanwhile the crew enjoyed a film on board.

On Saturday the race course for the Association of Sail Training Organisations Small Ships Race was set to be very short as the forecast was for very bad weather in the afternoon, and race organisers wanted to ensure that everyone, especially the smaller boats, would be safely back alongside before the strong winds set in. The bigger, faster boats like Prolific completed the course easily and we ended up doing an extra lap rather than going in too early, while the slower boats completed the race. There was some exciting sailing with the boat reaching at least 10.5 knots at one point.

You can see some great photos of the event from UK Sail Training here, including plenty of images of Prolific and her crew. A couple of examples here (with big thanks to Max Mudie and tallshipstock.com, who also took the photo at the top of this newsletter):

Small Ships Race October 2021 (c) Max Mudie

Small Ships Race October 2021 (c) Max Mudie

Back in Cowes for the afternoon, our crew worked on their navigation skills and planned an exercise for next day; and they also had time ashore before dinner and another film. On Sunday they went out for a short sail and put their navigation planning into practice with one team taking them to an anchorage and another guiding the boat back again, before cleaning the boat and heading home having completed 68 nautical miles with a maximum wind strength of Force 8 – quite an achievement to have been on board in those conditions! They proved to be a resilient group who really put in the effort and coped impressively with challenging weather, and all ten earned RYA Start Yachting certificates.

A big theme of the voyage was friendship – the students came from different year groups and many didn’t know each other from school. One boy said “I think my favourite bit was probably like all the new friends I've made, and how we got so close so quickly.” A girl said she had learned about coping with new experiences “Spending time with strangers which became a new family. Spending time away from home”, and felt “The best part was probably after we finished the race and once we found out we were second, we were second in the race, and we all just had time to relax and eat ice-cream.” Another said her confidence bad been boosted by “Controlling the boat by ourselves on the last day”, and someone added: “Most memorable bit would be getting over 10 knots in an over a hundred foot boat.” One of the boys commented “My favourite bit was learning how to tie knots and progressing and starting to like sailing, and my most memorable bit was getting new friends and getting closer and closer with them.”

Big thanks to sea staff James Boyce, Josh, Georgia, Andy Royse, Will Parker, Tom Knight and Willoughby Matthews – and also to Ollie Bowden who joined them to take Prolific back to Southampton after the crew left.

On Monday we had a planned maintenance day – many thanks to Ollie, Josh, Georgia, Tom, Will, Chloe and Julian for lots of hard work.

This week’s voyage is for boys aged 11-13 from Bruern Abbey School, which specialises in teaching students with learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, and more. They joined on Tuesday in time for briefings and dinner.

Next morning they did happy hour and then got going with sails up and man overboard recovery drills before heading out of the Solent and across Poole Bay to an anchorage in Studland.

They had time for fishing and card games - and just enjoying the experience:

Andy Brown wrote a column for his local parish magazine while still at anchor on Thursday morning:

“I am writing this at anchor in reduced visibility and drizzle in Studland Bay on Prolific, a sail training vessel operated by Ocean Youth Trust South. We have a crew of young people aged 11-13 onboard. They are an absolute delight. Highly inquisitive, full of energy until they drop at around 9pm! They are currently learning to row the dinghy, tying knots and learning about the “points of sail”.

Sail training works. They are all from a school and each young person has special needs. The sea staff are an amazing group of volunteers who manage the young people extremely well.

Yesterday we had some fabulous sailing, had dolphins on the bow and saw the SBS (Special Boat Service) personnel being dropped parachuting into the sea, climbing into their high speed inflatable boats as dusk fell close to our anchorage. All rather cool for 11-year-olds!

We only have them for a few days, but in a smaller group they are highly engaged, learn a lot not only about the ship and the sea but also about life in general. Things can be hard in life and you can learn to roll with the blows, put all sail up in the lighter winds and reef down (shorten sail) when things get tough until the sun shines again. I believe that sail training provides them with learning towards resilience.”

They sailed off the anchor and headed for the Needles. The tides this week are enormous and the wind died so they had to motor to the anchorage off Yarmouth. There they had dinner and a chart session with hot chocolate.

The boys did anchor watches overnight and all did well. Skipper Ollie says that they are a great group, full of energy. Most have sailed before and have a really good understanding of things like wind and tide. Ollie says they all remind him of himself on his own first sail training voyage at the age of 12 – so maybe there is a future skipper in the group! All nine of the boys will certainly earn RYA Start Yachting certificates.

Huge congratulations to Ollie Bowden who completed his Part 1 Skipper assessment this week. It’s a massive achievement to prove that you are competent to take command of large vessel crewed by young people and volunteers and run a safe, fun voyage. Well done also to Julian Ware who was signed off as a third mate, and big thanks also to Georgia, Andy Brown, Steve Lacey, Cathy Lacey and Chloe Portrey.

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#ParentsinSportWeek
OYT South’s safeguarding officer Steve Lacey is keen to share some information about #ParentsinSportWeek (4-10 October) which is being promoted by the RYA to help parents keep their child safe in sport. There’s a free e-learning course which takes just 10 minutes and covers: knowing when something is wrong; poor practice vs abuse in sport; recognising the signs; listening to children; speaking out in sport. The RYA also says: “If you’re not sure whether something you’ve seen in your child’s sport is ok or not, watch this animation to find out who you can turn to for help.”

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* 2022 voyage programme
We are just finalising bookings for the last few people who had places cancelled last year or this year and then we’ll be able to accept new individual bookings.

There should be extra voyages added to this list later, once all our group bookings are finalised, but the following voyages are all open to individual bookings for young people now

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:

20-24 April, Southampton, 4 nights, £425
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!
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!

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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.

Core team

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* Financial appeal
Huge thanks this week to the Lambert Trust for a generous donation towards bursary funding for next year, and to P66 for yet another very generous donation to refit, this time raised by staff through a Wellness Wednesday walk. Thanks also to Mrs Shepherd for a donation in memory of her husband.

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