In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Voyage news
- * Volunteer sea staff bookings – PLEASE help!
- Funding for sail training staff / volunteer qualifications
- Sea Staff awards – nominations welcome
- * Individual bookings for summer 2026
- Funding available for young people from West Berkshire
- Advance planning for summer 2027
- Adult voyages
- 2026 dates for your diary
- Vessel tracking
- * 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!
- Chris Ellis Award – win £££s of the price of your next voyage
- New readers’ welcome and introduction
- Receiving this newsletter by email
* Voyage news
Two weeks ago we had a very successful maintenance day – big thanks to Andy Viney, Constantinos, Sara, Cathy Ayres, Glyn Collins, Penny Scott-Bayfield, Will Durham, Linnéa Johansson, Orla Cronin, Dave Dent, Ian Hodges, Theo Bennison, Helen Yates, Cathy Lacey and Steve Lacey.
They did some work on the mizzen sail, and got the mizzen cover off to send away for repairs. The bilges had a good clean and the aft bilge alarm bracket was repaired; the dinghy was checked and run; there were some repairs to the bowsprit lashings and the jackstays; the chart plotters were updated and we had some repairs to the digital compass. The topsides had a wash; some work was done on safe practices when working aloft; the staysail had a neat stow; and JP from JPS Fuels arrived to drop off another very kind and generous donation of oil – as well as lots of other jobs!
For last week’s voyage we were joined by a group from Priory School, Southsea. After introductions, safety briefings and a chat around the table with the chart about where they might go, they set off quickly as the tide was getting low, heading for Johnny Caulcott’s buoy, just outside Yarmouth, with people learning to steer on the way:
They spent the night in calm conditions and woke up to an XOD fleet racing around them, which was good fun to watch. They did happy hour, breakfast, winch drills and practised clipping on around the boat (including going out on the bowsprit):
Then they headed off towards Poole, hoisting sails on a beautiful sunny day.
They even saw a Spitfire flying up above the Needles.
They beam reached towards Poole:
When they arrived by the Old Harry rock stack just outside Poole, they did a man overboard recovery demonstration:
Then they dropped sails and made their way into Poole harbour:
Once alongside they dinner, followed by a chat with the skipper about how best to live together as group on board. Then they filled out logbooks, played a game and got some relaxation time on deck on bean bags before bed.
The following morning the young people went ashore for showers and an ice cream. They then got ready to depart and had a chart chat: they had a very long sail planned for that day! They set off at midday to go all the way round the Isle of Wight, planning a late finish so they could experience sailing at night.
Darkness fell as they round St Catherine’s Point. They carried on to Cowes, spotting big and little ships on the way. They arrived at 3 o’clock in the morning – not before noting that it was now skipper Gotch’s birthday!
Next day they had a later start and the young people had a walk through Cowes and went to the ice cream shop. Finally it was time for the passage back to Ocean Village:
Then they had a birthday party with cake for the skipper:
They played some games in the local park and some of them also played games with the staff on board and they had a chance to relax on deck before helping to get Prolific’s flags up and dressed overall. Then it was movie night on board. They left next day with RYA Start Yachting certificates for everyone who complete the whole voyage: they had done 111 nautical miles and you can see the complete voyage track here.
Feedback included:
“I liked how we got to be like adults and we had a go making our own food and how it was all hands on. Best bit: at night when it was all nice and calm, and the lights in the distance whilst driving the boat.”
“So much fun but hard work, I learnt a lot of new things and met new people. Cook, clean and sailed. I loved it.”
“I really liked this trip and I enjoyed going round land and watching the ocean as we sailed.”
“This trip was really fun! Although I complained, the night sailing was really fun.”
“I found it interesting but the workload hard, but all round it was good.”
“Most lasting memory: steering around the forts near Portsmouth.”
“Best bit: The night sail around the Isle of Wight and getting to steer. Most lasting memory: steering the boat at night in the dark.”
“This trip was good! Everyone was nice and the food was good.”
Big thanks to sea staff Gotch, Sara, Unity Bowns, Orla Cronin, Theo Bennison, Helen Yates and Ian Hodges.
That was followed by a wonderful weekend at MDL’s South Coast Green Tech boat show. As usual, we were making bacon rolls in exchange for donations, and showing people round the boat. Huge thanks to all the people who helped over the weekend, including lots of young people who came back after recent voyages and did a great job of showing visitors round and talking about what they had done: We had fantastic support over the weekend: Constantinos, Sara, Mark, Lynne, Jo Martino, Richard Lloyd-Williams, Sue Nottingham from Testbourne School with a group of students who have sailed over the last couple of years (Eleanor Fowles, Lucas Judge, Aiden Jenvey, Ava Larsen, Lewis Williams, Matvey Buchakhchyan); Willoughby Matthews, Ian Hodges, Juno Hollyhock; William Robinson, Fiona Pankhurst, Steve Lacey, Cathy Lacey, Annette Potter, Adeana Rowan, Dom Danks, Andy Viney, Joseph Daniel, Russ Daniel, Julie Daniel, Josh Simonsen, Neal Simonsen, Will Durham, Sarah Kenwright, Armando Martino, Iris Lawson-McKittrick and dad Christopher, Alex Kotecki-King and his mum Kat. We’re very grateful to everyone and most of all to MDL Marinas for all their support.
This week’s voyage has been with The Petersfield School, who joined on Monday and began with an epic overnight sail all the way to Devon! It was a lovely sail for most of the way though conditions became somewhat challenging in the final stages.
They anchored on Tuesday morning and caught up on a bit of sleep, and later in the day they motored to Dartmouth and explored the beautiful upper reaches of the harbour, including a look at Agatha Christie’s house.
Once back on the berth they had time to explore and buy ice creams, before dinner on board. They spent Tuesday night in Dartmouth and then on Wednesday had an early start and sailed to Portland, downwind under just the ORC. In Portland, they had showers and then dinner and games on board, including the After Eight game:
Yesterday they left Portland in the morning and had a very speedy passage all the way back to Southampton:
You can see their complete voyage track here, and we’ll include their feedback in the next issue. Big thanks to sea staff Constantinos, Patrick Kelly, Michelle van den Bergh, Unity Bowns, Aoife Harringtson, Sarah Kenwright, Dom Danks and Juno Hollyhock.
* Volunteer sea staff bookings – PLEASE help!
Please do get in touch if you can help with any of these! Some of these dates are reappearing on the list because no sooner do we replace someone who has dropped out, than someone else drops out!
8-12 June, Southampton – space for a trainee mate
13-17 June, Southampton– space for a trainee mate
20 and 21 June day sails – Southampton – one more volunteer on either or both days
11-18 July, Poole to Brixham – qualified watchleader needed
31 Aug – 4 Sept, Poole to Southampton – qualified watchleader
26-29 Sept, Southampton – qualified watchleader needed
5-9 Oct, Southampton – qualified watchleader
13-18 Oct, Southampton – qualified or trainee watchleader or bosun
19-23 Oct, Southampton – qualified watchleader, and possibly space for a trainee watchleader as well
28 Oct – 1 Nov, Southampton – qualified watchleader
2 Nov – qualified watchleaders for day sail
Please send offers or questions to webmaster1@oytsouth.org.
Funding for sail training staff / volunteer qualifications
Are you a watchleader or bosun with us and committed to long-term involvement in sail training, already qualified to at least Day Skipper level, and looking to gain more qualifications in order to make progress? The Trinity House ASTO Bursaries Scheme could help you afford some courses, but under a new system starting this year, the application window is 1 April – 30 June each year, with no other rounds, and applicants MUST be endorsed by an ASTO member such as OYT South. If you are thinking of applying in this year’s window or simply want to know more about how it works, please contact us!
Sea Staff awards – nominations welcome
Regular readers will know that in recent years we have had our annual Gipsy Moth Award for Young Volunteer of the Year (aged 25 and under) – the current holder is Jack Thompson. But we have never had an award specifically for over-25 volunteers. This season, we are introducing the Brian Eyres Award, in memory of our late Skipper and Treasurer. Brian exemplified the best of volunteering, ashore and afloat, for OYT South as well as a range of other causes – he did so much in his lifetime and this award will be a way to recognise and remember his huge contribution to the OYC and to OYT South.
The Brian Eyres Award is not for long service or similar (we now have a series of long-service certificates for every five years that a volunteer spends with us). Instead, we want people to nominate volunteers if you see them doing something particularly impressive or heart-warming, ashore or afloat, in 2026. This could be something as simple as being the watchleader who took time to turn things round for a scared and unhappy young person on board; or the person who did a tough job in miserable conditions when no-one else wanted to do it; or someone who invented a brilliant activity to raise morale. It might be something which saved a voyage, but equally it could be something that no-one even noticed except you. Please email webmaster1@oytsouth.org with your nominations. Don’t worry about the age of the volunteer you are nominating – if we get anything for someone aged 25 and under, we can take it into account in the discussions about the Gipsy Moth Award (which is a collective decision by all the paid staff).
Nominations can come from anyone – other volunteers, staff, young people, parents and carers, clients, group leaders.
At the end of the year we will ask someone to look at nominations for the Brian Eyres Award and choose a winner to be announced at the next training weekend.
* Individual bookings for summer 2026
The 2026 programme is on the website and there is an availability list here.
There are just TWO voyages left this summer which have spaces – please spread the word and let’s fill the last few places!
12-16 August, Brixham to Brixham, 4 nights, age 11-16, passports not needed, £540 per person
31 Aug – 4 Sept, Poole to Southampton, 4 nights, age 11-25, £540 per person
Funding available for young people from West Berkshire
Do you know someone aged 11-16 living in West Berkshire who is having a hard time and may not get a holiday this summer? Thanks to a generous donor, we can offer one or two funded places on an exciting sailing voyage 12-16 August, starting and finishing in Brixham. Imagine dolphins, sunsets, beach BBQs (weather permitting!), making friends, sailing under the stars, taking the helm of a big sailing vessel, and earning a sailing qualification! Please spread the word. There is a nomination form here. Big thanks to the local paper in Newbury for publicising the scheme!
Advance planning for summer 2027
As usual, we plan to publish next year’s sailing programme in June this year. But we have a big decision to make first: shall we include the Tall Ships race from Bordeaux to A Coruna in July 2027 on the programme?
This will be a hugely exciting opportunity for everyone who takes part, but it’s a big decision. In order to make it work without a huge cost to the charity, we need to sell not only 15 places on the race, but also 15 places on voyages to take Prolific down to Bordeaux and bring her back from A Coruna. (The age range for Tall Ships events is 15-25).
We are therefore aiming to secure a committed group booking for at least one leg by the end of May this year, before we publish the programme.
Because the France/Spain voyages are longer than our usual voyages, they are more expensive, and there is travel to and from the boat to add to the voyage costs. So we are keen to not only to see whether any clients might be interested in a group booking, but also to give you extra time to plan and raise money if needed.
There is a lot more information here including dates and prices. Please do have a look, spread the word, and if any group (school, youth group, charity or other organisation) might be interested, please contact us and we can have an initial discussion before we make any firm decisions.
These overseas voyages would only take place for a few weeks in July 2027, so if your group still needs a local UK voyage or a shorter trip, or you prefer to bring younger participants, rest assured that we will still be running our normal programme for the rest of the season, with the usual term-time voyages plus local UK voyages in August as well as Easter and half-terms, and you will have lots of opportunities when we publish our 2027 programme in June.
If we don’t get enough early interest in the France / Spain adventure, it is likely that we will write a programme which has Prolific leaving the Solent in early July and heading west to work out of Brixham for the rest of the summer, as we have generally done in recent years.
But if your group might be interested in a bigger adventure next year, even if you just want to ask questions and consider options without any commitment on either side, do please get in touch now! We can also start a mailing list for young people who might be interested in individual bookings on this France-Spain programme, but do bear in mind we don’t currently know which leg(s) will be open to individuals – if we don’t get at least one full group booking we can’t do it at all.
Volunteer sea staff: places on any Tall Ships voyages are likely to be highly competitive, but if we sell a group booking for France or Spain thanks to your efforts and contacts, it can’t harm your own chances of taking part, so please spread the word among schools, youth groups, student groups etc. (But please note that we will organise all the sea staff bookings over next winter in the usual way – we’ve had a couple of requests already from sea staff wanting to sail; but at this stage we are purely focussed on establishing whether we can get the bookings to make this plan work).
Adult voyages
There’s one more adult weekend this season:
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! Contact us to ask about booking.
2026 dates for your diary
Prolific has planned maintenance days this year and we always need lots of help (skilled or unskilled) – email refit@oytsouth.org to book yourself in for any of these:
Monday 1st June – Southampton
Saturday 27th June – Southampton
Sunday 23rd August – Brixham
Monday 12th October – Southampton
The 2026 OYT South AGM and Curry Night will be on Saturday 7th November.
Looking even further ahead, the next shorebased volunteers’ training weekend is set for 5th-7th February 2027 – keep it free!
Vessel tracking
Prolific’s vessel tracking is available on our website – you can look at any time to see where we are and where we have been sailing. Big thanks to Andy and Nick Viney who built us a whole new tracking system when the one we used to use was discontinued!
* Financial appeal
Big thanks this week to MDL and everyone who attended the South Coast Boat Show and made a donation to us! Thank you also to the Royal Thames Charitable Trust for a fantastic contribution to bursaries; and to James Mead for a kind contribution.
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!
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, and these days we recommend Bluesky rather than Twitter/X – 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.
Chris Ellis Award – win £££s of the price of your next voyage
Open for 2026 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.
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.