In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Fundraising event in Goodwood House on 6th November with Libby Purves – NOW ON SALE! Details (and volunteers needed)
- * Kit Power Thanksgiving Service 16th October
- * Voyage news
- Volunteer sea staff vacancies – can you help?
- * 2025 individual voyage available – LAST FEW places for young people this year!
- 2026 voyages
- 2025 and 2026 adult voyages
- Planning a gap year, or not working over the winter? Join our refit core team!
- AGM and curry night 2025 – a date for your diary
- Shorebased training weekend February 2026
- Vessel tracking – see where Prolific is sailing as we go on our adventures!
- Prolific maintenance days – help needed
- 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 £2,800 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
Fundraising event in Goodwood House on 6th November with Libby Purves – NOW ON SALE! Details (and volunteers needed)
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!
We also need another couple of volunteers to help on the night – handing out drinks and leaflets – is anyone interested? This creates an option for someone who would love to come but might struggle with the ticket price – including young or unwaged volunteers. Email caroline.white@oytsouth.org.
* Kit Power Thanksgiving Service 16th October
Two weeks ago 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.
* Voyage news
Last week’s newsletter left our crew from MACS (Microphthalmia, Anophthalmia & Coloboma Support) for children born without eyes or with under-developed eyes, just leaving an anchorage in Cawsand. They had a downwind sail to Salcombe and along with preventers on the main and mizzen, they got the cruising chute up – perfect for light winds as they would have struggled to make progress without it. It is a beautiful sail and people really enjoyed flying it.
The idea is that it goes up in a sock like this:
Then the sail comes out of the sock which is pulled off upwards so the sail is filled from the bottom first:
They got to Salcombe at 3pm, to find it was Salcombe Week and there were 70 Salcombe yawls racing in the entrance. After dodging all of those, they tied up to a mid-river mooring buoy and the crew went ashore by water taxi to enjoy the beautiful town and some ice creams, surrounded by nature and turquoise coloured water.
After the shore leave they got permission from a local resident to have a barbecue on their private beach facing Prolific – a special experience.
They had a great time at the barbecue and then watched the sky slowly turn red as the sun set.
The following day they had to stay in Salcombe until 3 pm when the tide was high enough to get over the sandbar at the entrance. They did a further run ashore for more ice cream. The harbour was buzzing with activity and looked stunning.
They hoisted staysail and mizzen and set off downwind in 23 knots of wind. It was very rolly for the first hour until they got around Start Point and the sea flattened out.
They were finally alongside in Brixham (great park by the first mate) at 9pm and had dinner around the table with a lot of fun and laughter.
The voyage ended after 167 nautical miles and you can see their voyage track here.
A lot of their feedback expresses how much it means to them to have this week each year with friends who also have MACS conditions – a week where they can be themselves and not feel any different to the people around them:
“An absolutely brilliant voyage as always! Sea Staff were wonderful & it was lovely to see old faces again as well as meet new! Thanks so much – can’t wait to come again!”
“I love everything about the trip. It was fun and great. Best bit: meeting every single person and getting to know everybody and enjoying the fun. And I made a new best friend that I’m going to keep forever.”
“The Sea Staff were amazing and funny interacting with the young crew. Had lots of awesome time on the trip. Seeing the dolphins was great.”
“The Sea Staff were really friendly, the food was amazing. Thank you for having me on this voyage. My favourite part of the voyage has to be going on the bowsprit – and doing the radar!”
“I enjoy this trip every time I join I am really excited to join next year. Thanks so much! Most memorable bit: doing the Macarena on the deck., because it just got chaotic the more people joined!”
“I had such a good week and I made a lot of new friends.”
“I loved working with everyone. Loved it!”
“The care and support from sea staff heave been fantastic, one of the best weeks! Thank you!”
“Best bit: when we went on the beach and we had a swim, even though it was freezing. That whole day I don’t think I stopped laughing.”
“I enjoy this trip it was fun and the Sea Staff are great. I loved driving and making new friends.”
“The care and attention from Sea Staff was amazing – a real team, in it for every person on board! Most of this crew I’ve known since like 5 years old and seeing them now as almost adults and seeing how grown up they are is amazing.”
Big thanks to sea staff Constantinos, Adam Lane, Sara, Jack Thompson, Hannah Blyton, Tyler Grant and Theo McKay, and special congratulations to Lizzie Miller who completed her third mate assessment!
This week we have another voyage for mixed individual bookings, but this time aimed at people aged 16 and under. After a discussion about what everyone wanted to do, this has turned into the voyage of two long passages – Brixham to Tresco in the Isles of Scilly, and then back again. This is a rare treat as it depends on getting just the right weather for the voyage: wind in the right direction both there and back, and settled conditions while anchored there.
They set off on Monday evening and sailed right through the night – the passage took almost 24 hours in total. Although the winds went up to 28 knots and Prolific was sailing really fast, they were going downwind so it never felt particularly windy on deck.
They were rewarded with beautiful scenery and crystal-clear water:
They went ashore to explore and found a great place for coffee with a view:
Some of the staff went to an art gallery, while the young people went looking for souvenirs. They enjoyed the white sand beaches, and had a barbecue ashore.
They set off again yesterday afternoon and it was downwind again but this time with lighter winds. They saw dolphins and bioluminescence in the water. This morning they were sailing along with the cruising chute up, making great progress on their voyage back to Brixham.
Big thanks to sea staff Constantinos, Sara, Jack Thompson, Annant Shah, Dave Dent, Lizzie Miller and Katie Hamlet.
Feedback in the next issue!
Volunteer sea staff vacancies – can you help?
These are the spaces still available this season – please let us know if you can help with anything.
Berths listed for “trainee mates” or “trainee bosuns” MAY be suitable for people who earned new recommendations last year or this year to join our volunteer team, even if you have never sailed in a staff berth before – please ask whether any particular vacancy might be appropriate for you.
Dates on this list are when young people are on board – please note that we normally need volunteers the afternoon before, to help get everything ready.
27-30 Sept, Southampton – qualified or trainee watchleader or bosun
6-10 Oct, Southampton – qualified or trainee watchleader or bosun
14-19 Oct, Southampton – we’ve had an offer from a new volunteer but a qualified watchleader would be better if anyone can help?
24-28 Oct, Southampton – qualified or trainee watchleader or bosun
Contact caroline.white@oytsouth.org if you would be interested in sailing on any of these voyages.
For those who are new to the process, do please remember that if you commit to a voyage booking then we do really need you! Sometimes people assume that with several staff and volunteers on each voyage, it won’t be a problem to drop out; or you may think that if you’re not a qualified volunteer, you are not essential to the voyage. But in practice, we need a certain number of adults on every voyage in order to be able to sail – and you may, for example, be the only female member of sea staff on a voyage which has girls in the crew. It’s quite possible that a voyage can’t go ahead without you, which is why we need to avoid people dropping out and if it is absolutely unavoidable, we need as much notice as possible. It is also why we appreciate you all and the time you give to the charity very much indeed!
* 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 8 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
Do you know a school or youth club or another organisation which might like an exclusive booking for 12-15 people?
The 2026 programme is now available on the website but at this early stage it is still subject to changes. If you are interested in a 2026 booking, please ask.
2025 and 2026 adult voyages
This year’s October adult weekend (10-12 Oct, Southampton) now has a waiting list – email for details or to be added to the list.
2026 volunteer 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)
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.
AGM and curry night 2025 – a date for your diary
Our AGM and social evening will be 8th November – save the date! You can see the details and book your curry here.
Shorebased training weekend February 2026
Next year’s OYT South training weekend for staff and volunteers will run from 7pm on Friday 6th February to 4pm 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.
We will announce a schedule and prices in due course, once we have a full programme, but we can already confirm that we will be offering the RYA First Aid course (updates required every three years – check when yours goes out of date) and an accredited Mental Health First Aid Awareness course. There will also be a course on sail repairs, splicing etc., and a session with a behaviour expert recommended by one of our school clients, with a great track record of showing how to get the best out of young people. And there should be an opportunity to do the GMDSS exam for your radio licence.
Very soon we will be able to publish a detailed programme (some of these courses will run at the same time so you will have to choose) and start taking bookings!
Vessel tracking – see where Prolific is sailing as we go on our adventures!
Prolific is away from our home base in Southampton for the summer!
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.
Prolific maintenance days – help needed!
We have planned maintenance days this season on the following dates – please put them in your diary and 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.
Friday 22nd August – Brixham
Monday 13th October– Southampton
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
Big thanks this week to a kind donor for a very generous contribution toward bursaries for young people who cannot otherwise afford to sail.
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 £2,800 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. This week we heard from a volunteer who 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 £2,800 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.