In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Voyage news
- * Honour for an OYT South Trustee
- * Welcome to a new member of the office team
- * Volunteer sea staff – voyages still available
- 2025 individual voyages available – individual bookings for young people
- 2025 group voyages available – group bookings for young people or adults
- Adult weekend voyages – including opportunities to look at joining our volunteers’ team
- Events needing volunteers – in Hampshire and in Devon
- Keeping our website up to date – can you help?
- FREE boat show and a chance to visit Prolific – please spread the word
- Prolific maintenance days – dates for your diary
- Advice on careers in the marine sector for young people
- Financial appeal
- Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £2,400 through Easyfundraising!
- Vessel tracking – see where Prolific is sailing
- 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
* Voyage news
Last week’s newsletter left a crew of young people from The Petersfield School doing activities in Cowes – a treasure hunt ashore, a tour of the lifeboat station, more work towards their sailing certificates and ending with a movie night on board.
On Saturday there were discussions about sailing right round the Isle of Wight but the sensible plan seemed to be to set off out of the eastern Solent and go as far as Sandown Bay where they could decide whether to continue or to anchor for lunch and come back.
There was plenty to look at, with big ships at anchor; but the wind became stronger and it was very cold, especially for some quite small young people; and there was a bit of seasickness. So the decision was made to go back, and they reduced sail as the wind grew – so they had lots of practice at reefing and then lowering sails, as well as some tacking and gybing. The final leg up to Southampton was completed under just the staysail.
Staff said “The very young crew dealt admirably with the cold and long days. Many kept their spirits high – and those who didn’t had their lows, but soon bounced back – well done them all!” The skipper added that it was a fantastic group of young people with lots of enthusiasm and he really enjoyed having them on board.
They completed 87 miles at sea and you can see their full voyage track here.
Feedback from the young people included:
“Honestly, I have not felt as happy this year as I have on Prolific. I would go on Prolific again.”
“It was a lot of fun sailing, just transported me into another dimension. Highly recommend.”
“My best bit was probably getting us out of the docks steering and then in the night, navigating. My most memorable bit was seeing the sunset.”
“Had a great time and learnt great life skills. Would come again”.
You can see more feedback here.
Big thanks to the sea staff: Mark, Josh, Glyn Collins, Lucinda Neall, Dave Dent, Theo Bennison and Aaron Arnold.
This week’s voyage has been with students from Applemore College. The entire week had easterly / north easterly winds, force 6 gusting 7.
The crew joined on Monday and after briefings, set off for Portsmouth, with the young people taking turns to steer before they headed in to Gunwharf Quays.
Dinner, extreme washing up and games were followed by going on deck to look at the lights of spinnaker tower. Next day they had a winch drill and chart chat:
Then they headed out into the Solent, hoisting the ORC (our small headsail) in order to sail almost down to Yarmouth – before motoring back to Cowes.
The crew had time to fill in their personal logbooks before a walk to the beach, dinner, and the after eights game.
Wednesday began with showers ashore and then training towards their RYA qualifications.
After lunch they set off for a choppy afternoon sail and some tacking practice under ORC and double-reefed mizzen.
Back into Cowes for fajitas and a birthday party for one of the young people!
Yesterday there was another chart chat and a windy sail under staysail and mizzen with two reefs.
They also did a fire drill and then motored back up Southampton Water amidst quite a bit of small boat traffic. The evening ended with dinner and games. The young people left this morning with all fifteen of them having earned RYA Start Yachting certificates. They sailed 80 nautical miles and you can see their complete vessel track here. We’ll include their feedback in next week’s newsletter.
Big thanks to sea staff Gotch, Michelle van den Berg, Lucinda Neall, Mark Dent, Iori Kent, Harry Lack and Linnéa Johansson.
* Honour for an OYT South Trustee
Big congratulations to OYT South Trustee James Stevens who has been made an Honorary Member of the Royal Yacht Squadron for life.
This is a very rare and significant honour. It has been granted in recognition of a combination of James’s outstanding contribution to the sport of sailing over many years, in particular at the RYA, in combination with his continuing work for the RYS IOW Foundation, the Squadron’s charity which promotes opportunities in the marine industry for young people living on the Isle of Wight.
* Welcome to a new member of the office team
A big welcome this week to Richard Lloyd-Williams who has joined the office team as Administrator, following interviews for the role we advertised here in February.
Richard says: “I’m excited to be the newest member of the office team and delighted to be back in the world of sail training having previously worked for Tall Ships Youth Trust. My passion for the sea started by signing up to crew a yacht back to the UK from Bermuda which I loved. After that I went to the UKSA to gain my Yachtmaster Offshore and have sailed about 12,000nm since then including another Atlantic crossing. Joining Tall Ships ignited my passion for youth development and seeing the change it can make to young people. When relaxing we love walking our mad Cockapoo called Tippi.”
We hope everyone will want to make Richard feel very welcome and help him quickly settle into OYT South’s ways so that he can enjoy his job and use all his skills and experience to help us move forward!
* Volunteer sea staff – voyages still available
Whether or not you already have voyages booked as a volunteer this season, these are the spaces still available – 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 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.
23-27 May, Southampton, qualified or trainee watchleader or bosun. This one doesn’t need sea staff joining the day before.
2-6 June, Southampton, preferably an engineer but possibly a bosun – please do ask if you aren’t sure whether you have enough bosun experience. Ideally able to stay for the maintenance day on 7th June.
23-28 June, Southampton, qualified watchleader. Ideally able to stay for the maintenance day on 29th June.
18-23 July, Poole to Brixham, female volunteer needed
16-21 Aug, Brixham, qualified watchleader – must be available to stay for the maintenance day on 22nd Aug and to help with an evening event that day
1-5 Oct, Southampton, watchleader or bosun
6-10 Oct, Southampton – qualified or trainee watchleader or bosun
14-19 Oct, Southampton – qualified or trainee watchleader or bosun, ideally able to join for maintenance day on 13th October.
24-28 Oct, Southampton – qualified watchleader
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 voyages available – individual bookings for young people
Our 2025 programme has plenty of exciting opportunities to join us this year!
Please spread the word!
These are voyages for young people who want to join a voyage as individuals or smaller groups, and mix with others:
10-15 April, Southampton, 5 nights, £630 per person – 1 place left – Easter holidays
28 May – 1 June, Southampton, 4 nights, £525 per person – 1 place left – half term
30 June – 6 July, Southampton to Le Havre, £735 per person, 6 nights, age 15-25,. Ends with time at a Tall Ships festival – an amazing experience with the fleet!
18-23 July, Poole to Brixham, 5 nights, age 11-25, £630 per person
24-29 July, Brixham to Brixham, 5 nights, age 11-25, £630 per person
30 July – 4 Aug, Brixham to Brixham, 5 nights, age 11-25, £630 per person
11-15 August, Brixham to Brixham, 4 nights, age 11-16, £525 per person. A lot of our individual voyages attract keen young sailors, over-18s, people doing the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, and people wanting to test themselves with a challenging adventure; and, weather permitting, longer passages such as Channel crossings. But this doesn’t suit everyone! So for next year, we have designated this one shorter coastal voyage as a gentler opportunity, ideal for the younger end of our age range (11-16-year-olds) and passports not required. If you know anyone who is unsure about coping with a more ambitious voyage and wants an easier introduction, this is the voyage for them!
30 Aug – 3 Sept, Poole to Southampton, 4 nights, age 11-25, £525 per person
4-9 Sept, Southampton to Southampton, 5 nights, age 15-25, £630 per person
Email voyageadmin@oytsouth.org to ask about individual bookings.
2025 group voyages available – group bookings for young people or adults
Do you know a school or youth club or another organisation which might like an exclusive booking for 12-15 people?
We can also consider the occasional adult voyage if anyone has an idea for an adult group.
Dates currently available:
15-19 Sept, Southampton, 4 nights, age 11-25 (plus adult leaders if required), 15 places available, £525 per person
22-26 Sept, Southampton, 4 nights, age 11-25 (plus adult leaders if required), 15 places available, £525 per person
Email caroline.white@oytsouth.org to ask about group bookings and funding help if needed.
Adult weekend voyages – including opportunities to look at joining our volunteers’ team
We have adult weekends (18+, no upper age limit) available as follows:
2-4 May, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £265 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening)
10-12 Oct, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £265 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening)
Come and enjoy sailing our beautiful boat, or maybe find out what it takes to become a sailing volunteer – these weekends are a chance to find out if you might enjoy volunteering and, if so, for the skipper to recommend you for further volunteer training.
Email seastaffadmin@oytsouth.org to ask about adult weekends.
Events needing volunteers – in Hampshire and in Devon
This year Prolific will be open to visitors at the South Coast Boat Show in Ocean Village on the weekend of 10th-11th May, and at the Gosport marine festival on 17th May. We will need lots of people to show visitors around the boat and talk about our work – please put the dates in your diary and contact webmaster1@oytsouth.org if you are interested in helping!
We are also hosting an event on board at the end of the maintenance day on Friday 22nd August in Brixham, Devon – let us know if you can help with that.
Any of these events could be suitable for under-18s who have sailed with us: it is always good to have a few enthusiastic young people to talk about what they did on board, and encourage others to try it!
Keeping our website up to date – can you help?
OYT South’s website is quite big and has a lot of pages – it’s possible that someone may be looking at a page which none of our staff has re-read for quite a while, or clicking a link we haven’t tried recently. So if you spot any broken links, errors or anything out of date, PLEASE tell us. We can only put things right if we know about them. This is a great way for someone to help us, especially if you can’t easily volunteer on voyages or help with events or maintenance. The odd hour or so in the comfort of your own home, looking through the website (and trying to imagine how it would work for someone new to us) is always very much appreciated! This is an ongoing task, not something that needs to be done on or by a specific date.
FREE boat show and a chance to visit Prolific – please spread the word
Are you coming on a voyage, or organising a group of young people to sail, and wanting a chance to look round the boat beforehand? Have you been on a voyage and want to show the boat to your family and friends? Are you thinking of sailing with us but not sure what it might be like? Or interested in finding out more about sailing as an adult volunteer?
MDL’s South Coast & Green Tech Boat Show 2025 could be the answer. It’s FREE show with lots to see – and Prolific will be at the heart of the show and open to the public on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th May. Do have a look at the website – and come and say hello to us!
Prolific maintenance days – dates for your diary
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.
Monday 21st April- Southampton
Sunday 18th May – Gosport
Saturday 7th June – Southampton
Sunday 29th June – Southampton
Friday 22nd August – Brixham
Monday 13th October– Southampton
Advice on careers in the marine sector for young people
We have created a page on the website for links to a huge variety of careers in the marine sector – at the end of every voyage, there will be a link to this on the back of the voyage certificates given to the young people, to give them ideas about opportunities both afloat and ashore, with options for people with different interests, skills and levels of education, and hopefully including ideas that many will never have considered, alongside the more obvious maritime roles. The page is a work in progress and we are keen to add more links, so if you have any suggestions, please send them in.
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 £2,400 through Easyfundraising!
“What a fool I was!” says Mark Todd.
“For ages I’ve seen in the bulletin that Easyfundraising is a good way to raise money for charity, but I never got round to doing anything about it, and when Caz told me how easy it was, I didn’t listen.
I thought it might be a hassle, or that I’d have to remember to do something when I bought stuff online, or that it probably wasn’t really worthwhile.
This week I finally got round to it and it turns out it’s a REALLY EASY way to raise money for the charity I care about … and I definitely should have done it sooner.
It takes a minute or two to sign up; 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 – and it doesn’t cost you a penny.
I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner … but if there’s anyone else who has been like me and just not got round to it, PLEASE click the link now and sign up!”
We have already raised over £2,400 through Easyfundraising – huge thanks to everyone who has used it!
Vessel tracking – see where Prolific is sailing
Vessel tracking has been switched on again for the season – 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.
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.