In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Welcome to a new member of the office team
- * Shorebased training weekend February 2026 – programme and prices
- * Voyage news
- 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 – NOW ON SALE! Details (and volunteers needed)
- Kit Power Thanksgiving Service 16th October
- Planning a gap year, or not working over the winter? Join our refit core team!
- * AGM and curry night 8th November – book now
- Vessel tracking – see where Prolific is sailing!
- Prolific maintenance days – help needed – just one date left this season
- 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
* Welcome to a new member of the office team
Big welcome to Jo Martino who will be joining us on 15th September as our new Bookings Administrator, following last month’s interviews. Please make her feel very welcome whenever you have dealings with the office!
Jo says: “I’m beyond thrilled to be joining the OYT South team as bookings administrator. I’ve previously worked many administrative roles in financial services, HR, and payroll. But after receiving a second chance at life when my amazing husband, Armando, donated a kidney to me, I knew I really wanted a job that gave back to my community. A good friend of mine volunteered for OYT when she was younger and she talked so fondly of her time on the boat, so when I saw the advert to work here I absolutely had to apply! I can’t wait to meet everyone on the team and who knows, I might be able to convince my kids to join a voyage in the future!”
* Shorebased training weekend February 2026 – programme and prices
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. 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.
Saturday 7th February
0900 – Welcome / housekeeping
0930 – 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 will be available on the website soon, but prices are shown below for information.
Whole weekend including sail repairs – £120
Whole weekend including first aid – £170
Day rate (including lunch) – £50
Day rate plus dinner and evening – £65
Just First Aid (including lunch) – £80
GMDSS – TBC (course fee plus separate exam fee payable to the RYA)
Optional add-ons
Bedding and towels – £7
Friday evening meal – £5
* Voyage news
The last newsletter ended just as our crew from St Brelades Youth Project from Jersey were finishing their voyage.
Their feedback included:
“Learnt lots of new things about boats and how to be in control of a boat. Went through challenges like being sick but enjoyed my time visiting different places. I would do it again, the sea crew were lovely and helped me along to learn so many new things.”
“I had a lovely week, it was very interesting learning about the different ways of boating compared to Jersey + the crew was very good + interesting. Best bit was the pilotage, going in at night.”
“I had an amazing week, really enjoyed it and learnt lots. I hope to come back soon and thanks for such an amazing crew.”
“Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to do this. it’s been so fun. Best bit: the stars and learning how to sail. Most lasting memory: the dolphins and seeing them leap over the sea.”
“Amazing week, I have had so much fun!!”
“Had a great time, fav part was the rocking.”
“Best bit: working with everyone up on deck in our watches.”
“Such a fun time, good experience thanks guys. Best bit: Seeing J eat five plates of carbonara.”
“Amazing week 10/10 would definitely do it again. Boat was lovely, staff even nicer. Was fine with our horrendous humour. Thank you so much!! Most memorable bit: last night with the fireworks and everyone outside, everyone watching.”
And from the three adult leaders:
“Had the best time, thank you for giving young people the opportunity to learn + support them through the week. I’ve had a great time. Looking forward to coming back + building our relationship :) Best bit: Seeing the dolphins at night swimming through the bioluminescence, that was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. They were like zooming past, totally lit up. Always remember that. Most lasting memory: When I was a young person I went on a trip with my youth worker and I always remember that. So this is the most memorable bit, the journey we’ve all gone through together to plan this, raise money and find funding and then to see it all come together is something that you’ll all remember in years and years to come. So having the opportunity to do this with you is the most memorable bit, so thank you.”
Epic experience, lots to learn and do. Working and living with YP is magic! Thanks to the OYT team. Best bit: the night sail. Really really enjoyed that. it was also a chance for me with the young people as a leader to just to join together and sort of get to know each other at the start of the trip.”
“Great to see everyone bonding and becoming more resilient. Thank you so much. Best bit: there was a point where the bit at the front, the jib is it, it was really really windy and me and R were trying to pull that in and almost taking off. That was just pretty wild.”
Big thanks to sea staff Mark Todd, Adam Lane, Josh, Anna Owen, Pavan Kumar and Harvey Snook, and special congratulations to Clara Theil who successfully completed all the elements on the second mate assessment form but is short of a few RYA qualifications to be fully signed off.
The next voyage was a mixed group of individual bookings but with a number of returners, including last year’s Chris Ellis Award winner plus several who had previously done well on school voyages and were interested to see if they might be able to go down the route of training as volunteer sea staff.
This week had a combination of strong winds and a weather forecast that changed significantly every six hours or so. At times we were worried we might be stuck in harbour due to very strong winds on all but a couple of days, but in the end we sailed every single day except that we didn’t set off on the first night after the crew joined.
The voyage began in Poole on Saturday, and after introductions and safety briefings it was agreed that due to the wind we would wait till next morning before setting off. Some people were tired from long journeys to the boat so we had an early night ahead of a 7am start next day to make the most of what looked like a better weather window.
As the young people helmed out of Poole harbour, the wind was 20 knots gusting 30, but due to the south westerly direction we were sheltered all the way to Studland Bay where we hoisted the staysail only for the sail across Poole Bay. Prolific handled the moderate sea state very well but a number of the young people were struggling with seasickness during this two-hour passage. However, this was definitely the best chance to get into the Solent!
As we approached the Needles Channel, the young people started to feel better, with the waves behind us, and as soon as we got past Hurst Narrows the sea state became calm and everyone felt much better. Everyone did very well, staying positive despite the conditions.
And it’s (nearly) always possible to eat fishfinger wraps:
The initial plan was to anchor In Osborne Bay overnight: however, the forecast changed and showed that the anchorage would become too windy as we moved into the next morning, so we sailed across into Cowes, arriving in mid-afternoon – which meant we had enough time to get ice creams! So the entire team went ashore and celebrated making it through on a windy passage.
On Monday morning the weather forecast improved considerably but it looked as though it was going to be too windy to sail on Tuesday so we decided to let the young people look around Cowes. We then had lunch alongside and left the dock at around mid-day. We motored around to Osborne Bay and on the way the young people set up a “boat murder” game – all super excited about this!
Once in Osborne Bay we carried out a man overboard drill:
Then we set the ORC (a small storm sail) and two reefs in our mizzen as it was still windy in the Solent, and went for a short sail towards the forts near Portsmouth.
Then up the north channel to Ocean Village, our home port, after two months away! That evening we had a birthday party and celebrated two birthdays among the crew with cake.
The following morning after happy hour they did some sailing theory sessions and a fire drill. There was a weather front blowing through and it was quite wet! Then we set off for the western Solent where we did lots of tacking practice. We had to avoid two large ships on the way back in before docking in Ocean Village again for a movie night on board (the original Italian Job).
They had completed 131 miles at sea and you can see their full voyage track here.
Feedback included:
“The voyage was incredible and something I will never forget! It was such an honour to be back and I will most definitely be back again. it was great to be back sailing. I also very much enjoyed meeting new people. I know at the start I was quite nervous because it was a lot of people I didn’t know, but everyone has been really nice. Thank you so much for an amazing voyage! The fun we had! :)”
“I loved the voyage. It was an amazing opportunity to improve my sailing and the staff were wonderful. They taught me lots and went into detail which was so helpful. 5/5 stars! Thank you so much OYT South! Most lasting memory: sailing over the waves when on the first day I got to go on the helm for a bit and it was just really fun being up there and really fun steering and learning and feeling more confident, as I was not confident before.”
“A wonderful experience that helped me learn a lot about myself & meet amazing people.”
“Thank you for the voyage. It has been such a pleasure and I hope I can go again.”
“The voyage was amazing and I loved it and it was my first one and I would definitely be back again. Best bit: getting to know everyone – came on board, first time, not knowing anyone – and making all those friends was lovely.”
“Thank you for the unforgettable experiences aboard! Loved it :)”
“The voyage has been amazing and the impromptu dancing the highlight of the trip. The best bit was doing the sailing and tacking yesterday, because we got into the swing of things and were able to do it quite fast by the end. The worst bit is the ending because I think it would have been great to spend even more time. Thank for being so kind, encouraging and supportive.”
Many thanks to sea staff Gotch, Steve Lacey, Glyn Collins, Tom Hounsham, Lizzie Miller, Hannah Blyton and Si Brammer.
A new crew joined yesterday but we’ll cover their voyage in the next issue.
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 7 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; but if anyone else would like to come but can’t afford it (including young or unwaged volunteers), do get in touch as it may still be possible to get you in as an additional helper on the night, handing out drinks and leaflets. Email caroline.white@oytsouth.org.
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.
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 8th November – book now
Our AGM and social evening will be 8th November – you can see the details and book your curry here.
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.
Prolific maintenance days – help needed – just one date left this season!
We have one more planned maintenance day this season: Monday 13th October– Southampton.
Please put the date 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.
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 Peter Binning for another very generous donation.
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!
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.