In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * AGM and curry night 8th November – book now – and is your membership up to date?
- * Prolific maintenance day 13th October – help needed
- * Winter refit volunteer weekends – help needed!
- * Voyage news
- Shorebased training weekend February 2026 – bookings open
- 2025 individual voyage available – LAST FEW places for young people this year!
- 2026 voyages
- 2025 and 2026 adult voyages
- Fundraising event in Goodwood House on 6th November with Libby Purves – ON SALE! Details (and volunteers needed)
- 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 £2,800 through Easyfundraising! Are you aware of the size of donations available?
- Kit Power Thanksgiving Service 16th October
- 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
* AGM and curry night 8th November – book now – and is your membership up to date?
Our AGM and social evening will be 8th November – you can see the details and book your curry here.
Don’t forget that although anyone can attend the AGM, you can only vote if you are a member of the charity. If you are unsure about whether you are a member at the moment, please ask. 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.
* Prolific maintenance day 13th October – help needed!
Can you help with our maintenance day on 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.
* 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!
* Voyage news
Last week’s voyage involved a mix of young adults from Fairthorne YMCA and the Amber Foundation. There was plenty of enthusiasm around the table during introductions despite the windy forecast for the week ahead. After safety briefings and chart chat to discuss the plan for the week, it was off to Cowes for the night in windy conditions.
A few hours later they were safely alongside, and dinner was served. The busy day finally caught up with the group, with some struggling to stay awake at the table so there were no complaints about an early night!
They woke to a forecast of hight winds so spent the morning learning some of the skills for their RYA qualifications, followed by lunch and then the boat was readied to sail, including rigging the ORC, our small headsail:
By now the tide had risen allowing Prolific to hug the shoreline and safely shelter from the high winds. They headed out towards Osbourne Bay for four hours of hard-core sailing, experiencing winds up to gale force 8 and lots of rain. After a few manoeuvres the sails were dropped to allow for a MOB practice amongst other sailing school vessels which had the same idea of sheltering from the worst of the weather. It was then time to head back into Cowes for the night.
Once back alongside it was time for dinner and then the group unanimously decided they just wanted to relax, rather than play games as they were all tired after the busy day. It wasn’t long before they were off to bed in preparation for the next day.
The crew woke to another windy day, although not quite as windy as the previous day, as it was now gusting F7 rather than a constant F8. The plan was to leave after lunch so the morning was spent covering more of the Start Yachting syllabus. The sail plan was just the storm jib to take them towards Ryde, east of Cowes. The headsail was then dropped to motor into Portsmouth Harbour with a final destination of Haslar Marina.
It was tricky berthing due to the wind, but the marina staff were on hand along with their tender to give Prolific a push into her berth.
Dinner was prepped, cooked and eaten around the big saloon table. After some initial reluctance the young people got into the game playing and everyone ended up laughing and enjoying the evening.
The following morning it was time for the first full day of sailing in bright sunshine and a more comfortable F6 blowing.
The day was spent doing lots of tacks and manoeuvres as well as giving people time on the bowsprit and an opportunity to get involved in navigation:
They took advantage of the high tide to sail over East Knoll to enter Southampton Water heading for Ocean Village, our home port. Sails were dropped and lines and fenders set for arrival:
The heavens well and truly opened as they approached Ocean Village and came alongside and it continued to rain as the boat was ‘put to bed’. Despite the rain the whole crew sang songs and there was a great atmosphere on board.
The following morning it was time for debrief before everyone headed home, the sea staff feeling that everyone had enjoyed the trip and got lots of positive things out of it. They had sailed 62 miles despite the weather and you can see their voyage track here.
Feedback included:
“This voyage has been a once in a lifetime experience, and to some degree I think it has helped save my life. Thank you all. The best part of the trip is meeting new people and making new bonds with people and also having the chance to learn new things, that I thought that I’d never learn in such a safe and fun environment. Most lasting memory: being in the downpour on the deck, I think it’s quite a nice feeling being at the hands and mercy of mother nature, so that was quite humbling and I will not forget that.”
“A truly beautiful experience from start to finish. Wonderful, enthusiastic and energetic staff. Magnificent views and beautiful food. Views that are engraved into my mind forever. Best bit: the rough sea. It was quite exhilarating… To be honest as well it’s nice to have some silly fun and to be a little bit childish again. Most lasting memory: definitely the banana game. that was great. The bedtime stories … and also how enthusiastic all of the staff are. Volunteering your free time, the energy that you guys brought, I am very appreciative and grateful for such a wonderful experience. And again it was lovely to be out in mother nature. Lovely, beautiful experience. Thank you so much. I recommend it to anyone!”
“It was an amazing experience and wish it didn’t end and want to come again.”
“I learnt so many new things and by the final day I don’t want to leave. Most lasting memory: a tie between thoroughly enjoying meeting everyone here, and sailing through the choppy seas the first time I was at the helm, both were incredibly enjoyable and incredibly fun.”
“Loved being able to make friends. Been amazing experience. I’d love to come back.”
“Lots of fun. New experience but couldn’t have imagined any other crew to do this with. Would definitely love to come back. Worst bit: The weather, the rain wasn’t the worst actually to be honest, it was quite nice to experience all sorts of weather whilst on here. So I’d probably say that now it’s come to an end. I wanted to go out and do more.”
“Worst bit: leaving, wish it was longer. Most lasting memory: helming yesterday during perfect weather conditions. The whole experience that I’ll never forget, including the crew.”
Big thanks to Constantinos, Sara, Patrick Kelly, Robert Lawrence, Aoife Harrington, Lizzie Miller, Sasha Taylor and Andrew Hilton.
Big thanks to Constantinos, Sara, Patrick Kelly, Robert Lawrence, Aoife Harrington, Lizzie Miller, Sasha Taylor and Andrew Hilton.
This week we have a new record: the school group we had expected to see on this voyage had to drop out, and the Priory School in Southsea did an incredible job to take over, setting up an entire group voyage from scratch in less than ten days – including all permissions and risk assessments, selecting some really deserving young people, completing booking forms and arranging accompanying staff. An incredibly impressive effort which saved us from a cancelled voyage!
They joined on Monday to a mixed weather forecast – the initial introductions and briefings took place with rain showers, sunny spells and rainbows.
It was very windy indeed so the decision was taken not to sail that day, so they completed lots of training, had dinner and played games before bed.
On Tuesday they set off, getting the sails up in Southampton water – main, mizzen and ORC – before heading out into the Solent. Arriving in Cowes, they fuelled up and then moved to Shepards. The young people had some time ashore and were back on board for fajitas and a game of Werewolf.
On Wednesday they had hoped for Lymington but 40 knots of wind out in the Solent meant that really wasn’t an option. So they did some training towards their RYA certificates:
They also had a massive session of making pizza wraps, and then went ashore – starting with a tour of the RNLI station (thank you very much to them) and then ice creams and beach football. Back on board, they had dinner and then watched a movie (Finding Nemo), with popcorn and hot chocolate.
Yesterday the weather was kinder and they hoisted all sails and did tacking and gybing practice in the eastern Solent, and a man overboard recovery drill. They anchored for dinner, plus some free time and a chance to enjoy the sunset, and planned their pilotage back to Southampton. Once it was dark the watches took over and piloted Prolific all the way back to Southampton, avoiding big ships on the way.
They finished with 14 RYA Start Yachting certificates (and one RYA Competent Crew for trainee watchleader Sasha). You can see their voyage track here.
This was a lively group of young people with supportive leaders, and they really made the most of an unexpected short-notice voyage opportunity. We’ll include their feedback in the next issue.
Big thanks to the sea staff, headed by Sara who was doing a practice week of skippering supported by Gotch, plus Michelle van den Berg, Nige Bush, Hilary Croft, Lizzie Miller, Sasha Taylor and Andrew Hilton.
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 5 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 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!
Fundraising event in Goodwood House on 6th November with Libby Purves – NOW ON SALE!
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.
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 £2,800 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. 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 £2,800 through Easyfundraising – huge thanks to everyone who has used it!
Kit Power Thanksgiving Service 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.
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.