In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Voyage news
- Volunteer sea staff vacancies
- * Volunteer to help us from home over the winter – chart corrections
- 2027 sailing programme
- Penny Scott-Bayfield memorial service 4th November
- Sea Staff awards – nominations needed
- Adult voyages
- Planning a gap year, or not working over the winter? Join our refit core team!
- Dates for your diary
- AGM and curry booking! And is your membership up to date?
- Vessel tracking
- Financial appeal
- Painting of Prolific – prints available to buy!
- Police Dog Hogan
- Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £3,200 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
Last Friday we were delighted to welcome back a group from the siblings programme at CHASE Shooting Star Children’s Hospice – young people with a brother or sister with a life-limiting condition, or a sibling who has died. We have been working with this group for more than twenty years, though these days they tend to sail in alternate years – it is always lovely to have them back.
The young people joined the boat at 2pm and met each other in person for the first time: until now they had only met online. One of the key impacts of a voyage like this is to bring young people together who have shared similar experiences, and reduce the isolation they may feel if no-one else at their school, for example, truly understands what their life is like.
They spent the afternoon on instructions, briefings, familiarisation and getting the boat ready.
Then they set off for a short evening sail to Cowes, or so they thought! It was a gorgeous night and as they headed down Southampton Water, skipper Mark got everyone gathered around the wheel: “We could go to Cowes or …. if everyone was up for it, we could sail overnight to Portland!” This meant sailing over 60 nautical miles rather than just 12 miles to Cowes: and YES, everyone was keen!
Sails went up, the passage plan was updated, the watch rota was set, and they turned right as they left Southampton Water: there was no looking back!
Half the team went to rest for three hours while the others kept watch, steered the boat and gazed at the awesome starry, cloudless night. They left the Solent by the Needles channel with the tide racing underneath them. The watch routine continued until just before 0730 when they docked in Portland Harbour and all got some well-earned rest.
Saturday was a rest day after the long overnight sail: they had a delicious lunch and watched the World Class iQFoil sailors as they headed off for the World Championship final outside Weymouth. They went for a walk along Chesil Beach in the afternoon and on their return a kite surfer got stranded on the breakwater and had to be rescued. After that excitement, they had dinner, showers and one of the young people expertly led a game of Mafia for everyone else. They also looked at the plan for the next day:
They had to catch the early tide on Sunday in order to head round to Poole: this meant starting at 0630. They sailed downwind all day with strong winds and quite big seas. This, mixed with lots of sweets bought the day before, made it quite a challenging day for some of the young people, though apparently singing into your bucket is one way to manage seasickness! But skipper Mark seems to have enjoyed it, as did many of the young people:
They arrived in Poole about 4pm and had some shore leave. Just before dinner they were incredibly lucky to get a visit from Pip Hare, world-renowned solo yachtswoman who has raced alone round the world. Pip is one of OYT South’s vice patrons and the young people got to ask questions about how she lives and sleeps on board when at sea for 90 days continuously, going as fast as possible. Her boat doesn’t have proper toilets or a galley like Prolific! She also explained that when times are hard she tries to remember the good bits to help her keep going … and something about an inflatable dinosaur that she imagined sailing with her when she hadn’t had enough sleep…
They waved Pip goodbye and had a late dinner before games, a bedtime story and another early night for another big day planned:
On Monday they had a lie in until 7am (!) and quickly set sail back to Southampton, aiming to arrive at the Needles on a fair tide so they wouldn’t have to motor too much on the way home. It was another downwind sailing day but this time the sea was a bit calmer and not a single person was seasick, what a difference!
People were able to go out on the bowsprit and gaze down through the netting at the water below:
They sailed downwind most of the way back, through the North Channel at Hurst Point, then enjoyed pizza wraps while gybing their way down the Western Solent before they had to turn the motor on to beat the tide.
They saw a HUUUUUUGE car transport ship and a Disney cruise ship as they made their way back to Southampton, finally getting alongside just before 7pm, then straight down to enjoy their last dinner together. After dinner they had a little free time, then another story before bed.
On Tuesday they woke up, packed and got the boat clean and tidy for the next group, before certificates were awarded (everyone earned an RYA Start Yachting certificate as well as an OYT South voyage completion certificate), photos and goodbyes.
They had completed 146 miles at sea and you can see their full voyage track here.
Feedback included:
“All the sea staff were so great and supportive throughout the rather difficult voyage. They were all great fun and super nice. Still terrified of the ocean, but maybe more appreciative. Had an amazing time.”
“It was absolutely great I’m so grateful for doing this for the second time. I had the best time. Thank you so much for everything and I really enjoyed this.”
“Thank you!! I really enjoyed this and am hoping to do this again. Best bit: the night shift – now I look back on it from afar! But at the time it felt like the worst bit. The most memorable bit was yesterday’s sail because it was very calm and everyone was just enjoying themselves.”
“I’ve had an amazing time at sea learning new things. Thank you to all the sea staff and volunteers as this wouldn’t be possible without you. Most memorable bit: the stars.”
“All of this was very memorable. It is so much fun and I will definitely come back. Big thank you to sea staff. Most lasting memory: Pip – she was really inspiring.”
“Loved learning new things and knots. Some great food, and great people. Pushed on through despite 5 bonds to the sick bucket. Lovely stars. Had a cool dance on deck, and lying in the bowsprit was so relaxing.”
“Best bit: either steering the boat or the whole of yesterday, because everyone was cheerful.”
“Best bit: the night sail, you look one way and everyone is sliding all over the deck, and you look the other way and someone is singing into a bucket.”
And from the two group leaders who sailed with them:
“I’ve had SUCH a great time, all the kids have been amazing, funny, (annoying at times), hard working. I feel proud of all of us and have really had the best time. Night watch was tough. Thank you all sea staff. Best bit: I have had so many best bits, but it’s a joint winner between the stars, the bowsprit and getting to know you guys. Most lasting memory: Pip Hare, because she is really insane and amazing and I am really glad we got to meet her.”
“Wow, what a trip! It has been an amazing trip, the kids have all worked so hard together as a group, even during the first night of sailing. Even better that we got to meet Pip Hare, what a treat! Thank you to all the sea staff, you were brilliant!”
Big thanks to sea staff Mark, Sara, Graeme Findlay, Hannah Blyton, Adeana Rowan and special congratulations to Ian Hodges who completed his bosun assessment and Tyler Grant who passed his third mate assessment!
This week’s voyage is with Motiv8 which works across Portsmouth, Havant, Gosport and Fareham, engaging with young people who face instability at home and school, need support for their emotional health or wellbeing, or can be at increased risk of anti-social behaviour or crime.
They joined in Southampton on Wednesday for the usual introductions, briefings and practice drills before setting off, with young people on the helm and out on the bowsprit in a lovely golden hour.
They had dinner in Cowes and then some down-time, with some young people having quiet time on deck and others enjoying a dancing party down below.
There was a bit of shore leave in Cowes yesterday morning and then they set off: mizzen up, jacket potatoes for lunch, main and staysail up! People had a chance to steer under sail and they learned to tack the boat.
Then a man overboard recovery demonstration before all the sails were dropped.
They went into Lymington last night and had some shore leave followed by dinner and games.
More about the voyage in the next newsletter but meanwhile, big thanks to relief skipper Lauren Mackenzie, plus Sara, Tom Knight, Jack Thompson, Hannah Blyton, Sarah Kenwright and Thomas Neale.
Volunteer sea staff vacancies
Just at the moment we don’t have any sea staff vacancies which MUST be filled (thank you to all those of you who are committed to your voyages!). But as many of you will know, we normally sail with 7 sea staff but there is sometimes space for an 8th at the skipper’s discretion. If there is anyone who would like another voyage before the end of the season, do let us know at webmaster1@oytsouth.org and we can have a look at whether it’s possible to fit you in somewhere.
* Volunteer to help us from home over the winter – chart corrections
We know that not everyone can easily get to Southampton to spend a whole day or more at a time helping on our winter refit, but perhaps there may be people who would be interested in a job you can do at home and fit into odd spare hours here and there over the winter?
If you would be interested in taking Prolific’s charts away and ensuring that they are correct and up to date when we need them again in March, please email refit@oytsouth.org who will receive you with joyful thanks!
2027 sailing programme
Our 2027 sailing programme is now on the website and we are OPEN for group bookings (full-boat bookings for 12-15 young people). Please contact caroline.white@oytsouth.org to discuss voyage options for a school, charity, local authority or youth group.
There are currently a couple of voyages showing on the programme as designated for individual bookings in school summer holidays and these are now open for bookings (one is our annual shorter UK-only voyage for 11-16-year olds, the other is open to people up to the age of 25) but the intention is to add at least another four individual voyages soon – please contact us if you would like to be informed when the full set of individual voyages is confirmed.
There are also two 2027 adult weekends – ideal for new prospective volunteers to come and find out more!
Penny Scott-Bayfield memorial 4th November
Following the very sad news in June of the death of our much-loved Chair, Penny Scott-Bayfield, her family and friends have asked us to circulate the details of her memorial service on 4th November in Chelsea:
It would be wonderful to see as many as possible of Penny’s OYT South friends there. Do please RSVP to psbmemorial@gmail.com as requested but it would be helpful if you could also let us know so we have an idea of OYT South attendees.
Sea Staff awards – nominations needed
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.
Adult voyages
There’s one more adult weekend this season, and two next year:
9-11 Oct 2026, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £270 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening) – provisionally fully booked but please ask if you would like to go on the waiting list in case anyone drops out.
23-25 April 2027, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £275 per person, adult weekend voyage (Friday evening to Sunday evening)
17-19 Sept 2027, Southampton, 2 nights, age range 18+, £275 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.
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.
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 – just one left this year:
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!
AGM and curry booking! And is your membership up to date?
Our AGM and social evening will be on 7th 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.
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 Millennium who built us a whole new tracking system when the one we used to use was discontinued!
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.
Painting of Prolific – prints available to buy!
Several years ago our friend, renowned marine artist Colin Baxter, painted this picture of Prolific and people were offered the chance to buy prints. It has been suggested that we should offer another chance for people to buy one!
The unframed prints measure 370mm x 230mm plus border. They will be numbered and signed, and will cost £70 if you can pick yours up in Southampton, and £75 if you need it posted to somewhere in the UK (they will probably come rolled in a cardboard tube). See here to order. Anyone outside the UK wanting to order a copy, please email us.
Police Dog Hogan
Regular readers will know that our Trustee Eddie Bishop plays the fiddle in the band Police Dog Hogan. They are playing in Exeter on Saturday 5th December, and then three nights in London, at the Half Moon, Putney, on 14th, 15th and 16th December. There will be OYT South people at several of these shows – come and join us – tickets here. You can find the band on YouTube if you haven’t heard their music before:
Raise funds for OYT South if you’re shopping online – we’ve made over £3,200 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 £3,200 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.