In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- First mate job ad – only 10 days left to apply!
- * Maintenance day THIS Sunday 23rd August in Brixham
- * Last few places for young people this summer!
- * Voyage news
- * Volunteer sea staff bookings – PLEASE help!
- * NEW Annual Report and accounts!
- 2027 sailing programme
- 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 £3,100 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
First mate news job ad – only 10 days left to apply!
If you have seen recent newsletters you will know that Sara Abdur, first mate and ball of energy and joy, comes to the end of her two years in post in November and is going to go off and spread her wings and look to broaden her experience beyond OYT South – which means we are looking for a great new Staff First Mate. All the details here, including job description, person specification, salary, and qualifications required. Closing date for applications is midday Monday 31st August. Feel free to contact caroline.white@oytsouth.org if you have any questions before applying.
* Maintenance day THIS Sunday 23rd August in Brixham
There’s a maintenance day on board Prolific in Brixham this Sunday – skilled or unskilled, give the boat a call on 07990 518915 if you can go along and help!
* Last few places for young people this summer!
The 2026 programme is on the website and there is an availability list here.
There is just ONE voyage left this summer which still has spaces – please spread the word and let’s fill the last few places!
31 Aug – 4 Sept, Poole to Southampton, 4 nights, £540 per person. The age range for this one was not originally specified other than our general 11-25 range; but in practice bookings so far are aged 17-24. Three places left.
If those dates don’t suit you, have a look at our 2027 programme!
* Voyage news
The last newsletter ended as our mixed crew of individual bookings aged 11-16 were leaving Falmouth and heading to Cawsand. They had the most glorious sail, getting into watches and having all the canvas up.
People were able to go out onto the bowsprit under sail:
They got to Cawsand late in the evening, dropped sails and anchored overnight.
Saturday brought an early morning start as they set off towards the East. They had quite a bit of wind in the early morning so hoisted both the main and mizzen with a reef in; however, as they went on, the wind died so the reefs were shaken out and more sails hoisted.
They did a fire drill that went into an abandon ship drill as they went round Start Point.
They arrived in Dartmouth and got onto the fishing pontoon, from where the crew got a water taxi ashore to then have a wander and walk to the beach for a paddle. Meanwhile the rest of the staff moved the boat to the town quay. Once everyone got back they had dinner, filled out personal logbooks and played a loud game of King of the Jungle.
On the last morning they had another very early wake up and immediately slipped lines while people were having breakfast. Underway the crew packed their bags and started cleaning the boat. They finished this alongside in Brixham while some people practised rowing round the boat.
They had sailed 176 miles and you can see their voyage track here.
Feedback included:
“I loved every second of this voyage! I’ve made new friends and laughed a lot. I would like to thank all the buckets I’ve thrown up in and apologise to the dolphin I may have thrown up on. I have also witnessed someone chug a bottle of hot sauce. I would definitely go on another voyage … I think the best bit was probably the first day when we saw dolphins, the eclipse and the meteor shower and like the night watches, that was really fun.”
“The experience was great. I had lots of fun and made loads of friends on Prolific. :-)”
“I loved the voyage and the opportunity to try new things. It was so much fun so thank you so much OYT South and all the amazing staff on board.”
“I had a really good time and I learned how to sail. Everyone is really nice.”
“The experience was very enjoyable and I had an amazing time – also made new friends.”
“I have gotten along with everyone really well and have gotten way more confident with working with people I don’t know.”
“So much fun! Especially leading hoists and meeting many new people and sailing in a new area.”
“The voyage was great, along with the crew and sea staff. I would love to come back next season as a trainee bosun to learn more about the boat and how it works … The best bit was probably night sailing during the meteor shower – just waking up at midnight and getting to do a first night’s sail.”
“I loved everyone here they were so energetic and it bounced off on me, lovely. The crew is so cool and I am so grateful for them.”
“My most memorable bit was seeing the eclipse and a bunch of dolphins on the same night as well as the shooting stars … My worst bit was probably the first day and night where I felt quite badly for you guys when you were all a bit seasick. But I’m glad you got better.”
“I came here not knowing anyone and dealing with my own business but instead I’ve watched people chug hot sauce, and clipping everyone on the bowsprit and watching people so high on dolphin sightings.”
“This trip has been so much fun and I have made lots of new friends. I have especially enjoyed learning new things like knots and making many memorable experiences including a solar eclipse.”
Big thanks to sea staff Mark, Sara, Josh, David Dent, Annant Shah, Andrew Page and special congratulations to Rayne Mirzababaeva who completed their bosun qualification.
This week we have been sailing with the National Fostering Agency, a new client for us: 12 young people and three fabulous group leaders, Julie, Donna and Lynn.
After introductions and safety briefings on Monday they slipped lines at Brixham Marina and headed for Dartmouth on a beautiful sunny evening. Just off Berry Head, the crew were treated to a fabulous display from a local pod of common dolphins, which stayed with Prolific for quite some time. It was a wonderful start to the voyage.
They arrived in Dartmouth in good time to give the crew some shore leave before returning on board for an excellent bean chilli made by sea staff Tyler and Josh.
After another quick run ashore the following morning, they set off for Fowey in Cornwall in a brisk westerly breeze. It was a long and busy day for the crew as they settled into life at sea: setting and handling sails, steering, preparing meals underway and learning how to work within their watch routines.
Arrival in Fowey coincided with Fowey Regatta Week (which we plan to take part in next year), so they were treated to the sight of the local Troy sailing yachts and Fowey River boats racing around the harbour, their colourful sails adding to the spectacle.
They also waved to our friends and fellow sail trainers from the Morvargh Sailing Project aboard Helen Mary R, which was acting as a committee boat for the regatta racing.
Once ashore, the crew were given a challenge. Armed with a single new potato, they had to “trade it up” while also finding and photographing letters around the town to spell PROLIFIC. Their entrepreneurial efforts were impressive: the humble potato eventually became a squeaky pig, a football and a thermally insulated cup!
When they sailed out of Fowey, they hoisted the main and mizzen in the harbour, adding Prolific to the regatta spectacle. By now, the crew were developing a good understanding of how to hoist, set and drop the sails and were becoming increasingly confident around the boat.
They had a short sail to Portmellon, adjacent to Mevagissey, where they anchored alongside our ASTO friends aboard Johanna Lucretia. They had a crew from the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust on board, another organisation which, like OYT South, gives young people facing significant challenges the opportunity to experience sailing and life at sea (and which has previously sent groups to sail on board Prolific).
Our crew went across to visit their new friends aboard Johanna Lucretia, while some of their crew came to visit us on Prolific. It was lovely to see the young people mixing so easily and sharing their experiences.
That night Prolific’s crew took responsibility for the anchor watch. During their one-hour shifts they recorded wind direction and strength, monitored the barometer and checked our depth limits every 15 minutes – real responsibility while the rest of the ship slept.
To keep themselves entertained, each watch also added a paragraph to an ongoing story. The completed masterpiece was read aloud over breakfast the following morning and caused considerable hilarity. For a number of very good reasons, the story cannot be reproduced here!
Thursday morning brought another special occasion. It was trainee watchleader Tyler’s 19th birthday!
As they weighed anchor bound for Wembury Bay – with a little friendly competition with Johanna Lucretia on the way – they had a surprise planned: Tyler was summoned to the saloon on the pretext of a fire drill, only to be greeted by a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday and, of course, cake!
The young people on board this week have been great fun: funny, enthusiastic and keen to learn. They have been pushed beyond their comfort zones, worked hard, taken on genuine responsibilities and, most importantly, had a lot of fun along the way.
Over the course of the voyage, staff have watched them become increasingly confident – not only in handling the boat, but in working together, supporting each other and tackling things that may have seemed daunting at the beginning of the week.
They leave the boat in Brixham tomorrow morning – they are currently on passage along the Devon coast – and skipper Andy says “I will be genuinely sorry to see them go.”
Andy adds “Our sea staff – Miranda, Anna, Josh, Pav, Tori, Tyler and Hope – have been, and continue to be, amazing. My thanks also go to our three group leaders, Julie, Donna and Lynn, whose enthusiasm and support have helped make this such a tremendous voyage. Another reminder that sail training is about far more than learning to sail. It is about challenge, teamwork, responsibility, friendship and discovering just how much you can achieve when given the opportunity.”
We will include the end-voyage feedback in the next issues, but in the meantime, big thanks to sea staff Andy Brown, Josh, Miranda Camping, Anna Owen, Tori Pickles, Tyler Grant, Pavan Kumar and Hope Haynes-Coote.
* Volunteer sea staff bookings – PLEASE help!
Please do get in touch if you can help with any of these!
30 Sept – 4 Oct, Southampton – qualified or trainee watchleader or bosun needed. ASTO race against other sail training vessels on the Saturday!
28 Oct – 1 Nov, Southampton – qualified watchleader
Please send offers or questions to webmaster1@oytsouth.org.
* NEW Annual Report and accounts!
OYT South’s Annual Report and accounts for the year ending 31st October 2025 is now available on the website – do have a look! It contains far more than the financial statements – there are fact, figures and feedback from the year plus all sorts of information about the Trust and some of the people involved. Enjoy!
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!
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 for any of these:
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!
* 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
Huge thanks once more to all the people who are so kindly donating in memory of our friend and Chair of Trustees, Penny Scott-Bayfield.
Thanks also to a donor who prefers to remain anonymous, for a very generous contribution towards bursaries for young people who could not otherwise afford to sail.
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 £3,100 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 £3,100 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.