In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Kit Power – thanksgiving service
- 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
- Winter refit volunteer weekends – help needed!
- Shorebased training weekend February 2026 – bookings open
- 2025 individual voyage available – LAST place for a young person 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
Kit Power – thanksgiving service
There was a great Ocean Youth Club and Ocean Youth Trust turnout this week at the thanksgiving service for Kit Power, who died in the summer at the age of 91. Kit had been involved with the charity since the start in the 1960s, and was still raising funds for us earlier this year: no-one has been an engaged supporter for longer. As the absolutely packed church demonstrated, Kit had filled his 91 years with activity and made friends wherever he went: he was a truly lovely man and will be so much missed.
The family has very kindly been raising funds in Kit’s memory and this will create opportunities for many young people who would not otherwise be able to afford to sail with us.
There were many tributes to Kit at the service but we wanted to share the poem by Robert Louis Stevenson which was read at the service by two of his grandchildren:
Success
The man is a success who has lived well,
laughed often, and loved much;
who has gained the respect of intelligent men
and the love of children;
who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
who leaves the world better than he found it,
whether by an improved poppy,
or a perfect poem,
or a rescued soul;
who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty
or failed to express it;
who looked for the best in others
and gave the best he had.
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
Feedback from the voyage with the Charter School North Dulwich, supported by law firm HFW, which was only just ending as last week’s issue was sent out:
“It was really nice being in a small community. I got really excited whenever we’re putting up the sails and the more sails we put up the more excited I got. ‘Cos I thought the boat looked really cool with the sails.”
“I was able to steer the ship. I worked as a team to raise the sails. I could cope with being on a ship for a week. I continue sailing despite the ice cream shop being shut.”
“I can help the team and enjoyed the experience. This is the best boat I have ever seen in my life.”
“It was really fun and the best part was the sunset and I went to the front of the boat. Thank you for inviting us! One of my best memories is probably steering the wheel on the boat and probably the banana game when (the skipper) was smashing the banana like crazy.”
“My favourite moment was the banana game even though the green team won I still liked it. My other favourite moment was when we threw Bob (man overboard demonstration buoy) over and Will (trainee bosun) had to get it.”
“I liked it there even though it could get a bit cramped with all the people. But I like it there. I managed to deal with a shutdown I was having. I have a really good memory and I think that I’ll remember the whole thing.”
“The trip was really exciting! I’ve learned to overcome my fears of the sea on the voyage and the staff were so nice.”
“This was a good ride because it was fun and we all sail the ship! The best bit was when I got to steer the ship. I thought I was going to crash it but I didn’t.”
“Loved it! Like a big slumber party! Lost hat though :-( Would recommend!”
“Sailing was the best bit, going on the bowsprit and raising the sails was amazing but there were no cows in Cowes. My favourite bit of the boat is probably sailing as we had really a lot of fun with the winch like turning it and pulling it. It was also really fun seeing all the sails out, like all three of them.”
And from the two school staff who came with them:
“Thank you to all the crew for making this experience a totally memorable and enjoyable one. The food was good and I know the young people have gained something valuable from this. Thank you. My most memorable part is watching each of the young people navigate this large Prolific ship and get stuck in to every aspect of anchoring it, putting the sails up and learning new skills.”
“Thank you for providing an amazing opportunity for a group of kids who may never have had one otherwise. Loved my time on deck! My favourite moment was just watching all the kids just take on new opportunities and new skills. Learning new things and going way out of their comfort zone. It was amazing.”
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 who was doing his last voyage as an active member of sea staff.
That was followed by an adult weekend, including a number of people interested in finding out more about what’s involved in volunteering with us. They had two days of sail training in the eastern Solent, and a night in Cowes. You can see their track here.
Feedback included:
“It was a great weekend getting to know the boat and the charity’s great work. I did the mizzen hoist and seeing everyone lined up along the side of the boat, pulling the mizzen up, that was really great.”
“Prolific is a truly inclusive and safe space. Loved the chilled friendly approach where everyone is open about learning and accepting mistakes. Loved it. Most lasting memory: the support that I got as I was very nervous about going on the bowsprit. But I got fantastic support so I felt super safe and in the end I was trampolining on it. Thank you, it was great.”
“I have truly had an amazing weekend. The staff are awesome and the boat is so full of character. The work that this crew does is truly admirable and I hope to spend time with them in the future. Best bit: meeting such a lovely bunch of people that are very accepting and have a similar interest to myself of getting out on the water.”
“A great experience, these kids are very lucky.”
“Excellent. Learned a lot about sailing Prolific, working with different people and safeguarding. Fab weekend. Thank you!!”
“Great trip. It was good learning how to handle a big boat. Great people.”
“Great trip, thanks for teaching new skills in an enjoyable way. It felt busy at times but it was clear instruction and equally there were times when you could stop and chat to people and that was fantastic too. Worst bit: the fact that it’s only been two days. I think I’ve just got into the routine of it now and another day would be nice … Lovely memories to have.”
“Best bit: seeing all the sails flying up with 15 adults on the halyard. I’ve never seen them go up so fast and so far without having to winch. It was amazing.”
“it just proved my point that as a person with a visual impairment that you can go on a sailing boat without having to worry if you know what to do. If people know how to explain things it’s perfect, it works. I just didn’t need to worry about if anyone was worried about me doing anything. I found it very refreshing.”
Big thanks to sea staff Constantinos, Sara, Patrick Kelly, Steve Lacey, Unity Bowns, Si Brammer and Katie Hamlet.
That was followed by a planned maintenance day. We had wonderful support from friends during the day – working alongside the staff team of Constantinos, Sara and Josh we were very grateful to Barry Walker, Chris Vialls, Will Durham, Bryn Marsh, Garreth Bridgman, Sam Cottrell (our new surveyor), Andy Brown and Unity Bowns. They got lots of jobs done! They cleaned lots of bilges, sorted and counted paint in the store to get ready for the winter, did a main mast rig check, did an inflation test and re-packed all the lifejackets, got the dinghy down and ran it, did a big galley clean (including giving the oven some long needed love!), cleaned and lubed all blocks on deck, and moved the boat from next to the hotel to the far end of the marina in our usual berth.
On Tuesday we were joined by a crew of girls from Greig City Academy in north London. They started with all the usual briefings including the use of lifejackets and harnesses – followed by a race round the boat using their harness clips.
Then there was a “dry” man overboard recovery demonstration, featuring Josh overboard on the pontoon and Iori lowered over the side to rescue him!
After dinner and washing up, people headed to their bunks – but then there was an abandon ship drill! Back on board the lights went off and there was a bedtime story to end the day.
Next morning there was a quick wake up and breakfast (brioche and yoghurt), before leaving Ocean Village, hoisting sails as they went down Southampton Water.
They made it out of the Needles and headed towards Freshwater Bay to practise some tacks and gybes before doing a couple of man overboard recovery drills. Then they went off towards Poole – this involved lots of dancing and singing on the foredeck, as well as people taking turns to steer and keep a lookout:
Once alongside in Poole they put the boat to bed and then had dinner. Around the table they listed 80 nautical words they knew (it apparently takes 80 words to be fluent in any language! So as a crew they are all fluent in Boat Speak). They washed up after dinner and wound the day down by filling out some voyage logbooks and eating some chocolate mousse.
On Thursday they woke up at 0700 and saw a very pretty sunrise right before breakfast. Then most of the crew went for showers while some of the more experienced members of the group did some dinghy rowing so we could tick that off their RYA Competent Crew qualifications (those newer to sailing were working towards the RYA Start Yachting certificate instead). Then they all went to have a wander (and an ice cream) ashore. When everyone was on board again they got the boat ready to leave and eventually slipped Poole.
They got sails up and made our way back towards the Solent.
Once past the Needles, they gave the teak on deck some loving with a saltwater deck wash. As they approached Stokes Bay they dropped sails and then anchored for the night, watching a pretty sunset and then having dinner. After dinner they had a bit of a hair saloon session where the crew did some of the sea staff’s hair! After that they got ready for an anchor watch, had a drawing session and played the after eight game. Last night everyone took a turn to spend two hours on anchor watch!
One of the crew this week is 18-year-old Loreto Rodriguez from Greig City Academy, leader of the girls team on the Scaramouche Sailing Trust. We discovered during the week that Loreto has been shortlisted in the Yachting Journalists’ Association 2025 YJA Young Journalist of the Year Award. So of course we had to ask if Loreto could write up the crew’s impressions so far:
“We have been on board Prolific for three days now and the vibes have stayed intact. We are 20 people on board and have managed to keep up the team work and sails up!
The sun has come out for us today which led to a few dance parties from the girls. Everyone has had chances to do all the different jobs/roles sailing entails, from helming and doing chart work to cleaning and cooking.
It has been an amazing opportunity for the girls to see what sailing is really like and get a chance to develop a wider range of transferable skills like teamwork, responsibility, communication and leadership which are all key elements for their development and will help them grow and achieve loads of things in the future.
We are really grateful to have this opportunity to come out sailing, experience and learn all together while getting to know each other in a different environment to school.”
Thank you Loreto and we wish you all the best in the YJA vote!
We’ll complete the story of their voyage and include their feedback in the next issue. Big thanks to sea staff Andy Brown, Sara, Josh, Unity Bowns, Lucinda Neall, Iori Kent and Harry Lack.
Michael Campbell – thanksgiving service 17th November
We recently reported the 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.
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 place for a young person this year!
Our 2025 programme still has ONE remaining voyage with a space – please spread the word!
29 Oct – 2 Nov, Southampton, 4 nights, age 11-25, £545 per person – half term – 1 last place left!.
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
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.