Sea staff
Sea staff profiles
This page has profiles of our full-time professional sea staff. See here for a selection of the volunteer and relief staff.
Staff skipper, Diggory Rose
Diggory joins as Prolific’s Staff Skipper in February 2023, but he has been a friend to OYT South for many years.
Diggory went to boatbuilding college and got the bug for big boat sailing by volunteering on Leader. He sailed with Trinity and the Cirdan Trust, and got his first command in 2003, sailing Duet which of course was one of the two founding yachts of the Ocean Youth Club. What then followed was a decade in Sail Training for a variety of organisations culminating in the building of Pegasus with the Island Trust. Diggory moved out of Sail Training in 2013 and was a Watch Officer with the Coastguard amidst other sailing roles, before joining the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust in 2015. He is also an experienced RYA Yachtmaster Examiner.
When he decided to move back into full-time skippering, Diggory said: “In 2013 I left the [sail training] sector in search of pastures new and have enjoyed many and varied experiences all of which have enhanced and shaped my view of the world but none of which have come even vaguely close to being as rewarding, demanding or satisfactory as sail training is. As time has rolled by I find myself ever more convinced that I am at my best in that world and that the personal, social and spiritual benefits of sail training, both for the trainer and trainee alike, are not available in any other aspect of life … The benefits of sail training for the young people who take part are manifold and vital and the experiences gained aboard sailing vessels cannot be bettered in any other field.
Staff engineer, Josh Caudrey
Josh did several voyages as bosun during his marine engineering apprenticeship. By the time he was a fully-qualified marine engineer, OYT South was making the transition from John Laing to Prolific, a larger and more complex vessel. Once we decided that we should employ an engineer rather than a bosun, Josh was our only choice for the job. He has been sailing with us full-time since the start of the 2016 season and is an immensely experienced second mate as well as a skilled engineer who knows Prolific inside and out.
Staff mate, Lauren Mackenzie
Lauren was a dinghy instructor and came to OYT South to do her DofE Gold residential at the age of 16. She was invited to return as a volunteer and sailed as a bosun on a number of voyages before qualifying as a third mate on the first oppportunity after her 18th birthday, and being upgraded to second mate later that season. Meanwhile she was completing a maths degree. At the end of 2022 she passed her RYA Yachtmaster exam and went on to pass her First Mate assessment, at the age of 22 – and might have got there even sooner if we hadn’t lost a season and a half to Covid! She joined us as Staff Mate at the end of 2022.