In this Bulletin
Sections which have changed since last time marked *
- * Sea Staff awards – nominations welcome, including a NEW award
- * Voyage news
- * Volunteer sea staff bookings – two NEW summer vacancies!
- Funding for sail training staff / volunteer qualifications
- * 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
* Sea Staff awards – nominations welcome, including a NEW award
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 going to introduce 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. Today would have been Brian’s 81st birthday so it is a fitting moment to announce that we are now open for nominations!
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.
* Voyage news
The last newsletter left our crew of MDL Award Winners and Romsey Young Carers leaving Weymouth bound for Poole.
It was another sunny day and they left at 0930 to head back east to Poole. The sails went up as soon as they cleared Poole, with some great teamwork demonstrated and lots of ‘2-6-heaves’ to help with the hoists. Another sail training vessel, Merrilyn, operated by the Rona Trust, was close by so the crew exchanged Mexican waves and three cheers.
Prolific had a great sail into Poole with everyone taking turns to steer as well as learn the names for different parts of the boat and some knot-tying practice.
Once alongside in Poole the crew were invited by Merrilyn’s crew for soft drinks, nibbles and warm popcorn which went down well. Both crews enjoyed a good chat and some fun. Before long it was time for dinner followed by some games, a review of the chart and where they had been and would be going, and reflections for their personal logbooks.
It was an 0700 start on Friday with breakfast followed by a good boat clean in preparation for the crew of Merrilyn to come aboard for a look around and some cake! The visit was finished off with crew photos.
Prolific’s crew then visited the RNLI training centre for a tour and a go on the lifeboat simulator. They were back on board by midday to allow for a motor out of Poole harbour while enjoying lunch. Once clear of the harbour, all three sails were hoisted and a course set back to the Solent.
The First Mate and a member of crew planned a radar entry via the North Channel to simulate fog, which went really well. This was followed by a talk about tacking and gybing the boat, which was then put into practice in watches with lots of enthusiasm before heading into Lymington. Once dinner had finished the crew still had some energy for a game of ‘pass the slap’ (slapping the table) followed by two simultaneous bedtime stories read by the First Mate and Engineer.
Saturday morning involved a cooked breakfast followed by a talk on weather and reminders of knots and parts of the boat before heading ashore for showers.
There was time for an ice cream before some foredeck dancing back on board followed by lunch. After lunch the two watches learned about buoyage and passage planning, looking at their night navigation exercise for later on. Then they sailed to Osborne Bay where they anchored. Once dinner had finished and it had got dark the two watches navigated back to Ocean Village, with good communication and helming in a rolly sea state and busy Solent. Once safely alongside it was off to bed!
The last morning of the voyage included packing, boat cleaning and the usual feedback and debriefs, followed by team photos and some of the families who had come to pick them up had a tour of the boat.
They completed 129 miles and you can see their voyage track here.
Feedback included:
“It was an amazing experience. I met so so many new friends – it has made me so much more self-confident.”
“Amazing experience! Having been worried beforehand, this has left me wanting more voyages. I feel significantly more confident and this has been the best time of my life. The best part was probably when we first started sailing and you could just feel, like, freedom – I think that is how I would describe it – and that was very interesting, very fun.”
“I loved this week so much. We all had smiles and laughs. I would come back 50 times if I could.”
“My best part was making friends. All this time at school I didn’t make friends.”
“Everyone is so sweet and lovely. I hope we can go sailing with the SAME people again!”
“The voyage was incredible! When I got on board I thought that I wouldn’t get on with people and I’m glad to be wrong. The staff are all friendly and helpful.”
“Everything was my best bit.”
“It was brilliant and we are now all really closer friends.”
Big thanks to sea staff Vaughan Marsh, Josh, Andrew Wilkes, David Dent, Mark Dent (whose RYA Watchleader qualification was signed off), Keri Hammond and Pippa Turton.
Next we were joined, last Tuesday, by a crew of 11 and 12-year-olds from Grieg City Academy in Haringey. The weather wasn’t very good that day but staying in harbour was no hardship as we had a visit from a very special guest. Our wonderful vice patron and inspirational round-the-world racing sailor Pip Hare came along to meet the crew!
Before she arrived, the young people watched a video about Pip so they knew all about her amazing achievements and what things look like when racing through the Southern Ocean. Skipper Mark was blown away by how engaged and interested they were, asking lots of thoughtful questions and really curious about Pip and everything she has achieved. Especially for such a young crew, they really represented themselves well and it was fantastic to have Pip on board again.
After some very extreme washing up it was time for bedtime stories and sleep.
On Wednesday people were all on deck in some grey weather learning how to use the winches:
Then they set off, hoisting the mizzen and staysail and heading down Southampton Water while people took turns on the helm.
They did some tacking in the eastern Solent and got used to working in watches (and lots of singing down below when not needed on deck).
Eventually they headed into Cowes and had some shore leave and a look at the chart, and then dinner and a session filling in their personal logbooks before bed.
An early start on Thursday gave time for showers and a session covering some of the theory for their RYA Start Yachting qualifications.
Then they headed out towards the Needles, hoisting main, mizzen and staysail and spending the whole afternoon sailing back and forth in the western Solent.
Lots of learning but also lots of dancing, singing, conga lines, sunshine, tying knots and a man overboard recovery demonstration:
They finally picked up the buoy outside Yarmouth and had dinner and a chat about where they were going next day before coming back on deck to try and see the stars.
A fire drill got the crew going on Friday and then they headed out through the Needles and breaking into watches for the long sail to Weymouth in time for dinner.
On Saturday morning they had shore leave to explore Weymouth, and then a lovely sail back:
Everyone was on deck to enjoy a beautiful sunset going through the Needles:
That was followed by a chance to experience sailing and steering in the dark. They dropped sails and motored up the Solent and back to Ocean Village, spotting boats and enjoying a beautiful sky full of stars.
The voyage ended on Sunday. They had sailed 165 miles and 12 people earned RYA Start Yachting certificates. You can see the complete voyage track here.
Feedback included:
“Absolutely brilliant! The complete opposite of a waste of time.”
“My favourite bit was when I was on night watch and the moon started to go crescent shape and it went really, really red and it just lined up with a power place and it looked really beautiful.”
“This trip is brilliant. I wish came more and more with Prolific because Prolific is great. :-)”
“My best moment was going on the bowsprit ‘cos like the view was amazing … My most memorable was like seeing the sunset and like meeting Pip Hare.”
“New challenges every day! … My best bit would be at night when I was, like, looking out at the stars and see all the new moon.”
“It was really fun and exhilarating … The best part of being on Prolific was getting to go on the bowsprit.”
“It was really fun and everyone was so supportive.”
“The staff were really nice and I had so much fun.”
“Most memorable bit: well, to be honest, everything. I will remember everything from Prolific ‘cos I enjoyed it so much.”
Big thanks to sea staff Mark Todd, Sara Abdur, Cathy Lacey, Keri Hammond, Martin Bayfield, Gina Seller, Pippa Turton and special congratulations to Sarah Kenwright who completed her third mate assessment!
This week Prolific is sailing with Muntham House School – we will write about their adventures in the next issue.
* Volunteer sea staff bookings – two NEW summer vacancies!
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!
17 May, Southampton – one more volunteer for day sail
28 June – 3 July, Southampton – qualified or trainee watchleader or bosun (ideally including maintenance day 27 June)
19-24 July, Brixham – female volunteer needed (qualified or trainee) – essential
24-30 Aug, Brixham to Poole – qualified or trainee watchleader or bosun (ideally including maintenance day 23 Aug)
31 Aug – 4 Sept, Poole to Southampton – qualified watchleader
16-20 Sept, Southampton – qualified second mate or experienced third mate
5-9 Oct, Southampton – qualified watchleader
9-11 Oct, Southampton – one more experienced member of sea staff needed for mates’ training and selection weekend
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
Some of the later voyages will inevitably sort themselves out in due course because people who aren’t currently qualified watchleaders will have qualified by then, and we hope to have some good new trainee watchleaders to add to the team after the imminent mates’ weekend!
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!
* Individual bookings for summer 2026
The 2026 programme is on the website and there is an availability list here.
You may be aware that most of our voyages are filled by organised groups, often including disadvantaged and vulnerable young people. Currently all 2026 group voyages either have confirmed bookings or have been pencilled by a client (but anyone still interested in a 2026 group booking for up to 15 people, please ask, just in case one of the pencilled voyages becomes available again).
However, in school holidays we always reserve a few voyages for individual bookings, where young people can mix with others and hopefully make new friends while enjoying an adventure, earning a sailing qualification, perhaps completing a DofE Gold residential, or even earning a recommendation to join our team of young sailing volunteers. If you know anyone aged 11-25 who might enjoy a voyage, please do spread the word. There is a leaflet here which you can print out and share with people, or you can direct them to the availability page or the introduction to sailing with us.
The current list of individual voyages available to book is as follows:
* 4-10 July, Southampton to Poole, 6 nights, age 15-25, £760 per person – possibly fully booked though 2 places not confirmed – please ask if you want to join the reserve list in case anyone drops out!
* 19-24 July, Brixham to Brixham, 5 nights, age 11-25, £645 per person
* 31 July – 5 August, Brixham to Brixham, 5 nights, age 11-25, £645 per person – filling fast!
§ 12-16 August, Brixham to Brixham, 4 nights, age 11-16, £540 per person
* 24-30 August, Brixham to Poole, 6 nights, age 11-25, £760 per person – fully booked – please ask if you want to join the reserve list in case anyone drops out!
31 Aug – 4 Sept, Poole to Southampton, 4 nights, age 11-25, £540 per person
§ UK-only, aimed at younger people and for those who don’t have a passport. Other individual voyages MAY sail to France if we are lucky with the weather, and therefore passports will be required unless you enquire and we specifically advise otherwise; or we may visit the Channel Islands for which you must have an approved form of ID (please ask) but not necessarily a passport.
* Voyages lasting 5 nights or more are usually suitable for Duke of Edinburgh Award Gold Residentials (provided you don’t know more than 50% of the others in the crew). Four-night voyages, because of the start and finish times, are unlikely to give you enough time on board to meet the Residential criteria. PLEASE ASK if you are at all uncertain about whether a particular voyage is right for your DofE Award, and make certain when you book that we are aware that you are aiming to complete your Residential.
For all these voyages, including those which start and finish in the same place, the exact itinerary is determined only once the young people join the boat, depending on the weather forecast and what everyone wants to do. These decisions are made as a team, with the skipper explaining safe and sensible options for the week, and the young people having a say in the final plan.
* 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 a fully-booked adult voyage this weekend but after that the next one is:
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 – including maintenance day NEXT MONDAY
The South Coast Boat Show, run by our major sponsors MDL Marinas, will take place in Ocean Village from Friday 8th to Sunday 10th May 2026 and Prolific will once again be at the heart of the show – this time for all three days. We will need lots of volunteers to show visitors around, hand out leaflets and sell tea, coffee and bacon rolls for charity funds! Email webmaster1@oytsouth.org if you can help with this. In addition to adult volunteers, it’s always good to have a few young people with us at this show who have recently sailed with us and can chat to visitors about it. Last year one teenage recent crew member came to the show, met the senior MDL team and ended up getting a job in the marina!
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:
Saturday 2nd May – Southampton
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 Trinity House and the TK Foundation for generous donations, as well for a number of small grants and contributions from people who prefer to be anonymous.
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.