How to sail with us
Bursaries and sponsorship
If you are keen to sail with Ocean Youth Trust South but cannot afford the voyage fees, there may be a variety of ways in which you could raise the money. Some people take part in sponsored activities. Others manage to arrange for a local company to make a donation, or apply for funding from a local grant-giving body such as a Rotary Club.
If you are hoping to raise money in order to come sailing with us, one place to look is Raise And Sail – an area of OYT South’s website full of ideas for young people about fundraising.
It might well be worth applying to the James Myatt Trust, who fund people aged 16-25 to take part in sail training.
IdeasFundraising is a website with loads of ideas for how you couild raise money for your voyage, or to support our work with young people who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to sail.
Ocean Youth Trust South occasionally has funds available to offer bursaries to crew members. This money may be restricted to specific types of people (for example, one recent donation was designed to encourage people from different nationalities to sail together, and was aimed at young people from outside the UK). Restricted bursary funds will be advertised in the weekly email newsletter and anyone who might be eligible is encouraged to apply.
Where the donor has not particularly specified how bursary money should be used, OYT South will aim to give priority to applicants who meet one or more of the following conditions (listed in no particular order):
- Young people whom we have identified as future mates and bosuns and who have been recommended by an OYT South skipper as suitable for bursary funding.
- Young people who have assisted the Trust in some way (e.g. with substantial refit help, organising new bookings etc.) and who have been recommended by a Trust member as suitable for bursary funding.
- Young people who belong to a group which has the potential to make regular group bookings in future if we provide a successful taster voyage for one of their members.
- Young people whose personal circumstances make them exceptionally deserving.
We particularly welcome bursary applications from other registered charities on behalf of young people they may be working with.
We also have a siblings programme which recognises that brothers and sisters may be deserving, as well as the young person directly involved with another charity.
It is rare for OYT South to offer bursary funding to cover the full cost of a voyage. Applicants who can demonstrate that they have personally made the effort to raise at least part of the voyage price through hard work or imagination will get priority over those who have put little or nothing into it.
If you think you might be eligible for bursary funding, or you want to nominate someone else, please contact the office.
“OYT South is an excellent provider of the sort of thing we want to see: supporting under-privileged young people, developing their leadership skills and building self-esteem.” Rear Admiral Derek Anthony, Worshipful Company of Shipwrights