In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- Prolific maintenance day NEXT MONDAY 13th October – help needed
- * AGM and curry night 8th November – book now – and is your membership up to date?
- Goodwood House event on 6th November with Libby Purves – get your tickets NOW!
- * Voyage news
- * Michael Campbell – thanksgiving service details 17th November
- Kit Power – thanksgiving service details 16th October
- Winter refit volunteer weekends – help needed!
- Shorebased training weekend February 2026 – bookings open
- 2025 individual voyage available – LAST FEW places for young people this year!
- * 2026 voyages – bookings open for groups and individuals
- * 2026 adult voyages
- Planning a gap year, or not working over the winter? Join our refit core team!
- Vessel tracking – see where Prolific is sailing!
- Chris Ellis Award – win £££s of the price of your next voyage
- * Financial appeal
- Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £2,700 through Easyfundraising! Are you aware of the size of donations available?
- OYT South social media – please share as well as liking! NB we are now on Bluesky instead of Twitter/X
- New readers’ welcome and introduction
- Receiving this newsletter by email
Prolific maintenance day NEXT MONDAY 13th October – help needed!
Can you help with our maintenance day next Monday 13th October in Ocean Village, Southampton? Some of the sea staff on board around that time are unable to stay for the maintenance day (thank you very much for letting us know in advance) so we are looking for a few extra helpers for the day.
Please email us if you can help. Skilled and unskilled tasks available – or maybe a chance to learn a new skill. Over-18s only, please, except for 16- and 17-year-olds who have sailed with us already and been recommended to return as volunteers – you MAY be able to attend maintenance days with the skipper’s permission depending on what jobs we are doing.
AGM and curry night 8th November – book now – and is your membership up to date?
The mailing with the formal notice of the AGM, with the agenda, candidates for election and so on, has now gone out. If you are eligible to vote at the AGM then you should have received it – contact the office if you haven’t got it but think you should have been on the list.
It’s not too late to join and become a voting member if you are not already. You can pay your membership fee here – either as a non-sailing membership, or as part of your annual mates’ fee for sailing volunteers. There are reduced rates for under-25s, and sailing volunteers of any age who can’t afford to pay their annual fee can talk to us about bursary support – no-one should be deterred from sailing as a watchleader or bosun by the cost. But anyone who is regularly involved with the charity ought to be a member, able to have a say at the AGM, elect the Trustees and influence the future direction of the charity.
The AGM is open to anyone (though only members can vote) – all welcome. It’s in Southampton on 8th November – you can see the details and book your curry here.
Goodwood House event on 6th November with Libby Purves – get your tickets NOW!
Come and join us on 6th November at 7pm for this amazing event – BOOK NOW and please spread the word. We want to sell lots of tickets!
Goodwood is the seat of the Dukes of Richmond whose family art collection is one of the greatest in any English country house. You will be able to enjoy drinks and canapes, and visit the State Apartments as well as enjoying a talk by renowned journalist, broadcaster and author Libby Purves. If you saw Libby’s recent article in the Times about us, you will know that she is passionate about sail training. But there is a special reason why Libby is speaking at this event.
The entire evening has been set up by our great friends at Ned’s Fund, who have made many generous contributions towards the cost of voyages for young people who couldn’t otherwise afford to sail. They support a number of different charities but this year’s Goodwood event is all for OYT South. Ned’s Fund was set up in memory of a brilliant young man who took his own life in 2017. Libby also lost her son, Nicholas, to suicide in 2006, when he was 23. Nick was a lovely and talented person and a great sailor who had done a voyage with OYT South in our previous boat, John Laing.
So the combination of Ned’s Fund, Libby Purves and OYT South will make for a very special and unmissable evening. Tickets now available for £45 per person!
Thanks to those who have volunteered to help at this event – at the moment we have enough volunteers but if you really want to come and can’t afford a ticket, email caroline.white@oytsouth.org and we can see what might be possible.
* Voyage news
Last week’s voyage was with Bruern Abbey School, which works with students diagnosed with dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADHD and other issues. We had eleven boys aged 12-15 on board, plus a group leader. Unfortunately, the forecast was looking tricky with storm Amy heading towards the UK!
After introductions it was straight into safety briefs before readying Prolific for sea.
They motored (fast) towards Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth, with winch drills under way.
By 1920 they were alongside in Gunwharf. Meatballs for dinner and then time to look at a plan for the week:
On Thursday everyone was up by 0700 for breakfast followed by Happy Hour (boat cleaning). The full main and mizzen were hoisted as they exited the main channel out of Portsmouth. There was a fresh and increasing W/SW wind blowing as they headed towards the western Solent. It wasn’t long before Cowes on the Isle of Wight was behind them and some tacking practice started as they headed towards Yarmouth, with people taking turns to steer or go out on the bowsprit:
Then man overboard recovery drills before dropping the sails and heading into Yarmouth harbour. Skipper Andy took Prolific astern onto the pink pontoon. Once the crew had tidied the deck it was time for showers ashore before dinner and games – including the banana game and a Moo-Off (where crew try to make another crew member laugh without laughing themselves) followed by bedtime.
It was another earlyish start on Friday and the crew were given some shore leave to explore the seaside town of Yarmouth. Then off again with two reefs in the main and mizzen and a course set for Hurst Castle, which meant some upwind sailing. Then a gybe to head downwind for Cowes against the tide as the wind strength built. By mid afternoon they were alongside in Cowes and it was time for some tea and cake. Sadly, staff then had to explain that Storm Amy’s arrival meant that the ASTO Small Ships Race scheduled for sail training vessels on Saturday had to be cancelled for safety reasons.
Although the crew were disappointed with this news they understood why the decision had been made. However, there were lots of other sail training vessels in the same marina, creating a fun atmosphere.
Saturday started at 0800 with a full English breakfast followed by a scavenger hunt around Cowes with young people from the Rona Trust, another sail training charity. After lunch everyone headed to the Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club for activities with the crews of other boats from the cancelled race. Lots of fun was had with games and quizzes as well as fancy dress from some of the sea staff. Our crew enjoyed the spaghetti and marshmallows construction challenge:
Then back to Prolific for fish and chips before heading to bed.
Saturday saw an 0500 start for the crew, made all the better by a beautiful sunrise as the worst of the storm had passed and a sail in company was planned with some of the other sail training vessels.
It was a quiet start in the Solent in blustery conditions, but it wasn’t long before other racing yachts were out in the Solent.
After a good sail the boat headed back to Ocean Village for 1200 and baked beans with cheese on toast. The last Happy Hour was completed before packing, a sum up of the voyage, and the award of certificates.
They had sailed 109 miles and you can see their voyage track here.
Feedback included:
“It’s awesome activities.”
“Best bit: The sunrise in the morning. Worst bit: waking up early to see the sunrise.”
“Most lasting memory: the whole trip. I used to winch wrong but then I got it right! If I can live here I can live with a lot of people.”
“The best part of the trip was when we did the scavenger hunt! Most lasting memory: seeing the sunrise.”
“[Feeling more confident because] very homesick [at first] – and it was fun.”
“Best bit: putting up the sails. [Learning new skills]: how to pull up a sail; how to use a winch; how to tie a bowline.”
And from the staff member who sailed with them:
“I really enjoyed seeing everyone grow in confidence and skill as the week went on. Best bit: working with you all and learning too and we’ve all had a good laugh at the same time.”
Big thanks to sea staff Andy Viney, Andrew Wilkes, Josh, Tom Knight, Sandy Garrity, Lucy Mitchell and Iori Kent.
This week’s crew has been a new client, the Charter School North Dulwich, supported by law firm HFW. They joined on Monday and settling in took us a while, because there was too much excitement! The briefings began and there were two people who initially said they preferred not to speak up in front of everyone – and then found the courage and were brilliant at the name game!
Then the crew were keen to get up and be moving around the boat so we did heads, galley and waterproof briefings before dividing into watches and getting on deck to fit lifejackets. The clipping on exercise went really well, with everyone deciding to give the bowsprit a go!
They had dinner alongside and then had a late motor across to Ryde to anchor for the night, with all the crew getting ready for bed before we got there.
Tuesday brought lots of sunshine and happy faces during happy hour, and then winch drills and deck preps before lunch. After lunch they raised the anchor and headed out through the forts, raising both the mainsail and staysail.
After a lovely sail through early evening they anchored in Sandown Bay for a beautiful sunset and overnight.
On Wednesday they left the anchorage and hoisted the main, mizzen and staysail. They had a pesto pasta lunch and everyone had a go at tacking as they came back in through the eastern Solent and back to Cowes. It was a big sailing day and everyone was very tired, but once they were tied alongside the crew went to have a look round Cowes town. They had breakfast for dinner, with bacon, fried eggs, hash browns, mushrooms, baked beans and chip shop chips! Everyone was able to choose their favourite elements to mix and match.
Yesterday they had a quiet morning with breakfast and happy hour and then shower time. Shepards Marina kindly allowed them to stay on the berth later than usual, so the crew went to find the local park and see the town in the daylight. They had lunch of pies, salad and baked beans and then set off for Ocean Village. Fajitas for dinner, followed by a small celebration for watchleader Sandy Garrity who is retiring as an active member of sea staff having been with us since 2017. He’ll stay involved in the other ways and remains a friend of the charity but it’s time to say special thanks to Sandy for all his time on board as a watchleader!
We’ll put their feedback in the next issue, but meanwhile you can see their complete voyage track here – they sailed 80 nautical miles. Skipper Constantinos says: “I loved this group – I think they got a lot out of it, and lots of them said they would like to come back!”
Big thanks to sea staff Constantinos, Patrick Kelly, Steve Lacey, Unity Bowns, Will Durham, Hope Haynes-Coote and of course extra thanks to Sandy Garrity!
* Michael Campbell – thanksgiving service 17th November
Last week’s newsletter sadly reported the recent death of our lovely vice patron Michael Campbell. There will be a Thanksgiving Service for Michael’s life in Winchester Cathedral at 11am on Monday 17th November. All OYT / OYC people very welcome but his office is trying to keep a track of numbers so if you wish to attend, please confirm to office@elliscampbell.co.uk.
Kit Power – thanksgiving service details 16th October
Recently we were sad to announce the death at the age of 91 of Kit Power, the last of the group who established the Ocean Youth Club in the 1960s and still a great supporter of OYT South right up to the last few months.
A Thanksgiving Service for Kit will be held at St John’s Church, West Meon, Hampshire, at 2:30pm on Thursday 16th October 2025. All welcome and it would be lovely to see lots of OYC / OYT people there. You can find more details here and a link to click to tell the family you are coming.
You will also see that the family is very kindly raising funds in memory of Kit to create The Kit Power OYT South Bursary so that we can offer more places on board Prolific for young people who could not otherwise afford to sail.
Winter refit volunteer weekends – help needed!
Dates for your diary! We’ll be looking for help on refit weekdays but for those of you who can only come at weekends, these are the dates when we’re currently planning for the team to be working and needing loads of support:
8th and 9th November (AGM weekend) – lots of volunteers needed to clear the boat for refit, get sails off and so on.
29th and 30th November – aiming for this to be topside painting and capping rail repairs
17th and 18th January – no specific jobs list yet… watch this space!
There won’t be a refit weekend in February because we have the training weekend. There will be a refit weekend in March and lots of help needed to get all the kit back on board and put everything back together, but we’ll announce the dates for that in due course/
Email refit@oytsouth.org if you can help. Refit volunteers should generally be aged 18+ but if you are 16 or 17 and have already received a recommendation to come back and train as a volunteer, it’s always worth asking as we may be able to include you.
No experience needed – plenty of unskilled jobs and plenty of skilled jobs which we can teach you!
Shorebased training weekend February 2026 – bookings open
Next year’s OYT South training weekend for staff and volunteers will run from 7pm on Friday 6th February to 4.30pm on Sunday 8th February at a new venue, Foxlease Park, Clay Hill, Lyndhurst, Hampshire, SO43 7DE. As last year, all accommodation and meals will be available on site. Accommodation will be in bunk rooms.
This weekend is open to current staff and volunteers as well as new volunteers who have started the process of getting involved with us and are hoping to sail on our voyages next year.
See here for details and booking form.
Saturday 7th February
0900 – Welcome / housekeeping
0930 – Youth Mental Health First Aid Awareness
1230 – Lunch
1330 – Behaviour Buddy – strategies for managing behaviour
1430 – Office update (Booking system/ membership consultation)
1530 – Tea/coffee Break
1600 – Safeguarding
1700 – Free time
Sunday 8th February
0900 – First Aid OR Sail Repair (these are both full-day courses)
1230 – Lunch
1330 – First Aid OR Sail Repair continued
1630 – Finish
Time TBC – GMDSS
GMDSS involves an online course which MUST be completed in advance, followed by a short practical session and exam on the day, to get your radio licence.
Price list
This year we have simplified things – instead of a separate price for every course, meal and overnight stay, we can offer all-inclusive prices as well as some separate options. The booking form is available here, but prices are shown below for information.
Whole weekend including sail repairs – £120
Whole weekend including first aid – £150
Day rate (including lunch) – £50
Day rate plus dinner and evening – £65
Just First Aid (including lunch) – £80
GMDSS – £40 course fee plus separate exam fee (cost tbc – currently £76 but it may increase in January) payable to the RYA
Optional add-ons
Bedding and towels – £7
Friday evening meal – £5
2025 individual voyage available – LAST FEW places for young people this year!
Our 2025 programme still has a few exciting opportunities to join us this year on the ONE remaining voyage with spaces – please spread the word!
29 Oct – 2 Nov, Southampton, 4 nights, age 11-25, £545 per person – half term -– up to 3 places available tbc.
Other voyages are all fully-booked but there is always the possibility of a cancellation, perhaps even at the last minute if someone is ill, for example. So do please let us know if you would like to go on a mailing list to be contacted about short-notice vacancies.
Email voyageadmin@oytsouth.org to ask about individual bookings.
* 2026 voyages – bookings open for groups and individuals
Do you know a school or youth club or another organisation which might like an exclusive booking for 12-15 people? Are you looking for an individuals’ voyage in the summer holidays?
The 2026 programme is now available on the website and there is an availability list here. If you are interested in a 2026 booking, please ask.
* 2026 adult voyages
2026 adult weekends are open for bookings:
24-26 April 2026, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £270 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening)
9-11 Oct 2026, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £270 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening)
These weekends are ideal for people who want to find out more about the possibility of volunteering with us – but you are also welcome if you simply want to come along and enjoy a sail on board Prolific!
Planning a gap year, or not working over the winter? Join our refit core team!
If you are planning a gap year, or you are between jobs or for any other reason potentially available for several weeks or months this winter, might you be interested in joining our full-time refit team? We will need a couple of full-time volunteers between November and March. More details here. Plenty of our previous refit volunteers have gone on to great jobs in the marine industry – it really helps to have maintenance experience as well as good sailing skills when applying for sailing jobs! And any refit volunteers who want to sail in Prolific can be offered berths as watchleaders, bosuns, or relief engineers. So it’s a great way of developing useful experience, contributing to a good cause, securing free food and accommodation for a few months, and having a positive experience with a fun group of people! If you’re interested, please read the web page and email us with the details requested at the bottom of the page.
We’ll also need lots of casual volunteers helping for a day, a few days or a weekend, but we can get people booked in for that much nearer the time – at this stage we are really just thinking about the core team.
Vessel tracking – see where Prolific is sailing !
You can always have a look and see what we’re up to. This site updates every six hours so don’t worry if the vessel doesn’t appear to be moving! There are other sites (like Marine Traffic) which update more often; but especially for families of a young person on board, the tracking on our site allows you to have a look two or three times a day and see what’s going on.
Chris Ellis Award – win £££s of the price of your next voyage
Open for 2025 entries.
If you have enjoyed 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 one of the charity’s founders. You can also see some previous winning entries.
* Financial appeal
Huge thanks this week to the Honourable Company of Master Mariners for another very generous donation; to all the people kindly donating in memory of Kit Power and of Michael Colles; and to all those fantastic donors who prefer to remain anonymous.
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, bank transfer or PayPal, but please do something if you possibly can. Don’t forget that if you complete and return a Gift Aid form we can claim back tax on your donation.
Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £2,700 through Easyfundraising! Are you aware of the size of donations available?
We mention Easyfundraising in the newsletter each week and we’re really grateful to those people who are using it regularly, but there must be people who haven’t looked at it, or often don’t remember to do it.
Here’s what it DOESN’T do:
- Require you to buy from sources you wouldn’t normally use
- Take lots of time
- Ask you to do anything complicated at all!
- Produce donations so small you would barely notice
- Cost you a penny!
You simply have to buy whatever you already planned to buy online, from whoever you choose to shop with – but having signed up with Easyfundraising, just click to accept a donation if it’s offered when you shop. It’s often a percentage, which means the donations can be really significant for bigger items – a holiday, a flight, an expensive train ticket etc. For example, one volunteer got a £17 donation when renewing their home insurance. Someone else earned nearly £10 from a VistaPrint order. A few donations like that from a hundred supporters and it starts looking like a really significant total each year.
Do tell us if you’ve got a really good donation from something you bought – these stories help to inspire others. Maybe you even order things online for business purposes and your employer would agree to donate to us like this – at no cost to them but a way to feel good every time they need new boxes of business cards or train tickets to get staff to a conference!
It takes a minute or two to sign up to Easyfundraising: 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, often including the site you would normally choose to use for all your rainbow unicorn requirements – and it doesn’t cost you anything, you pay the same price you would pay anyway.
PLEASE click the link now and sign up!
We have already raised over £2,700 through Easyfundraising – huge thanks to everyone who has used it!
OYT South social media – please share as well as liking! NB we are now on Bluesky instead of Twitter/X
If you look at the top left of any page on our website, you can click on icons for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. We are also on TikTok.
We have now updated the social media links on our website, replacing Twitter/X with Bluesky – please come and join us there!
Please share our social media posts as widely as you can – with the help of all our supporters, this charity is doing some amazing work and we need more people to hear about it. You don’t need to do anything more than share a post, or perhaps add a comment which could be as simple as “I’ve sailed with this charity!” or “I volunteer for this charity!”.
Please note that OYT South has a policy that our adult staff and volunteers should not make or accept personal online connections 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.
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 11-25, 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 11-25 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, mate 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.