2008 bookings - URGENT, please read!

To our delighted amazement, berths on John Laing's 2008 sailing programme have been selling at an incredible rate, with many repeat bookings and a large number of new clients already filling whole voyages.

This is great news for the organisation but of course we are aware that lots of you (especially individual rather than group bookings) may be used to not having to think about when you want to sail until much nearer the time.

PLEASE don't leave it too late - we don't want to find that old friends and keen crew members are missing out! If you want to sail in 2008, at least take a look at the programme now http://www.oytsouth.org/booking-form/booking-voyage-2008.asp and if things are getting booked up at the time of year you'd like to sail, make a reservation as soon as you can.

We can also think about setting up reserve lists in case anyone drops out of booked voyages. If you want to book a berth, contact the office as soon as possible: 0845 365 6781, office@oytsouth.org.

Volunteer sea staff training ashore (RYA and other courses) - please book NOW
We can now confirm that we will be arranging a full weekend of training courses on the weekend of Saturday and Sunday 2nd and 3rd February. To have two full days of training is a change from previous years, when we have had training on Saturday and the AGM on Sunday. Most courses will be held in Gosport, except for Sea Survival which will be nearer Southampton with access to a swimming pool.

Possible courses for this weekend are:

First aid (regular updates required - check when your certificate goes out of date)
GMDSS
Radar
Sea survival - date now confirmed: Saturday 2nd February
Food hygiene
Diesel engine

All of these are full-day courses.

The next step is to work out which courses to offer on the Saturday and which on the Sunday, so I need to know the level of demand - whether all courses have enough applicants to be worth running, and how to allocate dates so the maximum number of people get to do the courses they want.

Can you let me know a.s.a.p. the course(s) you want to do, in order of priority; and whether you could come for both days or just one (in which case, Saturday or Sunday preferred?) NB we cannot guarantee to have overnight accommodation available though we will of course help where we can. It will really help if you could let me know as soon as possible.

I do have a list of people wanting to do Powerboat Level II, which is a 2-day course, and I'll get back to you all with dates for this as soon as I possibly can.

Email webmaster1@oytsouth.org to book on any of these voyages

Financial appeal

Enormous thanks this week to the Charles Dunstone Charitable Trust, who have made a grant of £10,000 towards this winter's refit.

The refit is our current fundraising priority, as there is a great deal to do to keep John Laing in good condition. See http://www.oytsouth.org/sponsorship-donations/how-to-donate.asp for how to make a donation.

People News

Well done to Matt Bland, who passed his Yachtmaster Offshore practical exam last weekend. As he failed to mention that he is an officer in the merchant navy, his examiner is probably still reeling from one of the most exhaustive displays of knowledge of the International Rules for the Prevention of Collision at Sea ever shown in an RYA exam (Matt, I really don't think they needed you to tell them things like the prescribed dimensions and angles of a motoring cone).

Well done also to Di Roberts who has successfully completed her RYA Day Skipper practical.

At the time of the last bulletin, John Laing had made an unusual excursion to the east, calling at Dover and Brighton with a crew of young people who were mainly from Hampshire. They had some good times on the return trip, with some excellent news on the staffing side too, as Geoff Eddy successfully completed his second mate's assessment. Congratulations to him and thanks also to the other sea staff, Dave Carnson, Matt Bland, John Snowden, David d'Costa and Laura.

This was followed by a mixed voyage including a new group from Nuneaton plus some individual bookings - including some familiar faces and old friends who have sailed with us on many previous occasions. The voyage took them to Haslar, Poole and Weymouth and, judging by some extremely positive comments in the visitors' book, was much enjoyed by many of the crew members.

The other great success of the trip was that not one but two new members of sea staff passed their third mate assessments: many congratulations to Lisa Davis from Raymarine, and to Eddie Harper. Thanks also to the other sea staff: skipper Dave Carnson, plus Martin Skipper, John Snowden and relief bosun Tristan Caudrey (lent to us by Contact Marine, Tristan is worth his weight in gold at this time of year for his ability to fix the ship's heating system...in fact, he might even be worth his boss's weight in gold (slightly more!).

The final voyage of the season was a repeat visit from a regular client, Community Links, a charity based in Barking, east London. The group comprised a mix of young people from a special needs project and an education programme organised by the charity, with three group leaders.

We went down to Cowes on the first night and then had an extremely fast sail to Poole and a chance to spend some time ashore. It was fantastic to watch how the crew members with learning difficulties really grew in confidence as the voyage went on - notably, smiling through a patch of pretty rough seas as we re-entered the Needles Channel on our way back up to Yarmouth the next day.

The final port of call for the voyage was Gosport. After saying goodbye to the crew, the sea staff had a fantastic sunny sail back home to Ocean Village where the 2007 season ended on Tuesday - with news of yet another successful sea staff assessment, as Pete French was upgraded to second mate.

Thanks to Pete and the rest of the sea staff: Dave Carnson, Caz, Hugh Myers, Rosie "Habit" Allen and Tristan.

Financial appeal

The refit is our current fund raising priority, as there is a great deal to do to keep John Laing in good condition. See http://www.oytsouth.org/sponsorship-donations/how-to-donate.asp for how to make a donation.

Core refit team - long-term volunteers needed

It looks as though we have recruited one of the core refit volunteers we need (excellent news!) but we are still looking for at least one more.

The idea is that as well as the usual volunteers who come to help with John Laing's refit for a weekend or a few days at a time, we are looking for at least a couple of long-term volunteers to join the core refit team: perhaps to do the whole refit from November 1st 2007 to March 23rd 2008 - or at least to help full-time for a minimum of a month or six weeks during this period.

Volunteers will receive food and accommodation, as well as experience in boat repairs and maintenance.

Ideally volunteers will be aged 18+ although we may consider applications from 17-year olds. No upper age limit.

Practical skills in any aspect of boat maintenance will be an advantage but not essential. What is vital is that core team volunteers should be hard-working, responsible and enthusiastic. The team will all be living together in a rented refit house and it is vital that volunteers are also prepared to take responsibility for a share of cooking and cleaning in the house.

Long-term core-team volunteers are a vital part of the refit effort as they provide continuity against the background of short-term volunteers coming and going. They have time to become familiar with a variety of refit tasks, becoming capable and competent enough to work with minimal supervision, allowing the professional staff to get on with other work.

Core refit volunteers often go on to become bosuns or watch leaders during the sailing season. If they were already members of sea staff, their refit experience can help them make progress and move on to more senior roles.

Previous core team volunteers who have used our refit as a stepping stone to work in sailing have included Craig "Princess" Dickerson, who went on to do several seasons as staff bosun; Kerry "Special K" McMillan, now a first mate with Trinity Sailing http://www.trinitysailing.co.uk/; Kathryn "Gizmo" Francis, now mate of Blue Box http://www.blueboxsailing.com/, one of the fastest boats in the Solent; Julian "Dinghy Boy" Watkins, who also went on to become our staff bosun for a year; and Phoebe (also not her real name), who has just spent part of the summer skippering a 55-foot yacht in the Caribbean, and is also now a member of the Board of Trustees http://www.oytsouth.org/sponsorship-donations/management-trustees.asp. So the experience gained as part of the refit core team can definitely lead to greater things!

If you are having a gap year or are not working for other reasons, please think about whether you would like to be part of the core team, and email webmaster1@oytsouth.org to express an interest and for more information.

Volunteer sea staff training (on board John Laing)
2008 training voyages for sea staff and new potential sea staff:

25-27 April 2008 (£150) – potentially full but we are taking names for a reserve list
29 April - 4 May (£275)
19-21 Sept (£150)
6-10 October (£275).

For both existing sea staff and new potential volunteers: if you have the option of taking time off during the week, I would strongly recommend the longer voyages if you can manage it.

You'll certainly learn more, partly because each exercise or manoeuvre (such as a sail hoist or a gybe) obviously happens more often on a longer trip, which gives far more people the chance to practise and to have a go at running the exercise in the watch leader role; and partly because we can just cover far more topics on a longer voyage -­ for example, we can work on how each of you as watch leaders could best teach all the elements of the five-day RYA Competent Crew syllabus.

In addition, the longer voyage potentially allows us to go somewhere more interesting: weather permitting, France is usually an option.

Email webmaster1@oytsouth.org to book on any of these voyages

Voyage news

The ASTO Small Ships Race brought together a good group of sail training vessels which all gathered in Cowes on Friday 5th October. John Laing had a strong crew – a number of people stayed on from the previous voyage, and many of those who just came for the weekend were John Laing regulars.

The team all worked hard to get the boat into good racing order, including emptying the fresh water tanks to lighten the boat. In the middle of the night, however, third mate Stuart Raynsford heard a trickling noise and went to investigate – and found Vikki Maxwell and Andy Royse (on this occasion racing in other boats) surreptitiously filling the tanks again! Dastardly behaviour from one of our own first mates and even one of our Trustees and they are hereby named and shamed!

Sadly conditions just weren’t right for John Laing to make a really good showing in the race, but you can find some great pictures of the event on photographer Max Mudie’s website here:http://www.tallshipstock.com/ssr07b.htm.

Thanks to sea staff for the weekend Martin Clough, John Smith, Matt Bland, Stuart Raynsford and Laura, plus a guest appearance from Matt from OYT Scotland.

The race crew brought John Laing back into Southampton on Sunday night, and on Monday a new crew arrived: several from Devon and Cornwall Foyer, plus the Prince’s Trust and a couple of individual bookings.

They stayed in Southampton for the first night and then had a good sail in the Solent on the next day, ending up in Beaulieu for the night. The next day they had an excellent sail right round the Isle of Wight, finishing very late in Gosport, where they had the following morning ashore before another good sail and a late finish back in Ocean Village.

The last day of the voyage became extra-busy as the BBC came to do some filming in connection with a documentary being made about one of the girls in the crew. I’ll put the programme name and broadcast date in this bulletin when it’s all finalised. Thanks to the sea staff for this voyage: Martin Clough, Dyfrig Harries, Mike Makepeace and Laura.

The next trip was a weekend voyage for TS Swiftsure from the Nautical Training Corps. This involved ten young people most of whom were on their fourth voyage as a group with us, plus a group leader, Adele, who has also been before. They had one spare space which we were able to fill with yet another John Laing regular.

The crew’s familiarity with the boat and ability to work together as a really effective team from the outset meant that we were able to tackle some more advanced training exercises, with lots of interesting navigation and other tasks which could be completed despite the lack of wind.

We had young crew members organising sail hoists and putting reefs in and out; they took charge of some pilotage in and out of Beaulieu; some of them were trained in tidal height calculations and the use of clearing lines and clearing bearings; they learned all about light characteristics for buoys and other vessels and then sailed round the Bramble Bank in the dark, identifying lights as they went; and some of them practised boat handling by driving in figure-of-eights around mooring buoys.

All in all an excellent weekend with a highly motivated crew, and all the young people were awarded Competent Crew certificates except for the one who had it already.

Thanks to sea staff Martin Clough, Caz, Mark Boggis, Geoff Eddy and Laura.

We were also joined for the Saturday by Allen Clarke from Owen Clarke Design, who will be working on the design for our new boat, who wanted to take the chance to observe John Laing in action and get a clearer idea of which elements of her design do or don’t work for young crew members. The Swiftsure group made him really welcome and made a lot of useful suggestions – not just because they know the boat very well by now, but also because the group ranges from small 13-year olds to young adults and it was interesting for Allen to see how the boat works for young people right across this range, taking into account differences of size and strength.

This week’s voyage has headed east to Dover and Brighton. More news next week once this trip has actually finished, but thanks to sea staff Dave Carnson, Matt Bland, John Snowden, Geoff Eddy, David d'Costa and Laura for their work so far.

Refit 2007-8

It's that time of year again....we are planning John Laing's winter refit for 2007-8! If you have never been to one of our refits before, you can find more information here. The key thing you need to know is that our refits require an inexhaustible supply of volunteer helpers, both skilled and unskilled. In 2006-7, ninety-five people contributed a total of 381 days of volunteer labour, and we need to match or beat that figure this year. November and December have previously been the period when we have been most short of volunteers, so please start thinking now about whether you can set aside a weekend or a few days to come and help.

The refit will start on Wednesday 31st October, and we'll have a busy couple of weeks moving all the kit off the boat into storage or into the refit house (great news – it looks as though we have secured the same refit house as last year). Lots of volunteers needed during this period - call 07771 771864 if you can help for a day or longer.

The next stage is to move the boat round from Ocean Village to Hamble - we'll be refitting in Hamble Yacht Services, as last year. We haven't finally confirmed these dates but we would hope to get the masts lifted out on 13th November, and John Laing herself lifted out of the water on 14th November. Then the boat will be closed from 15-18 November while staff attend the Sail Training International conference, and after that, there will be refit work as normal.

Voyage news

A happy and productive voyage last week with Hamish Lochhead’s group from Parkside School, which always does a voyage with us around this time of year. The school group is made up of boys at the younger end of our age range, and as they hadn’t quite filled all the berths, they were joined by one individual booking from another boy, who was welcomed and successfully made to feel part of the team.

They stayed in Ocean Village for the first night, and then headed for Poole, where they spent the night before making a very early start to catch the tide, getting back to the Needles for 10am.

After a day’s sailing in the Solent, they spent the night in Yarmouth and then had the following morning ashore before returning to Ocean Village in the afternoon. Hamish was very happy with how the voyage went and has already reserved a voyage for the school next year, with several of the same sea staff expressing an interest in sailing with them again.

Thanks to skipper Yvonne Taylor, plus sea staff Laura, John Parkin, Ben Martin, Hamish himself (sailing as third mate) and Katy Womersley from Clyde Marine for making the trip such a success.

This was followed by another short voyage with a very mixed crew. A group of younger pupils from Bourne College were joined by a selection of older individuals, several of whom had sailed with us before.

They made the most of a largely windless week by visiting some of the most attractive places in the area and enjoying lots of other activities. They started with an anchorage in Newtown, and then discovered (Laura the bosun did the calculations) that the tide was right to get John Laing up to Beaulieu. The people at Bucklers Hard were slightly surprised to see us, but made the boat extremely welcome, and they now have a lot more space for boats our size, so this may become a more regular port of call when the tide is right. The crew enjoyed a walk in the forest and some squirrel-spotting.

Next morning, again with no wind, they made an early start to get out through the Needles and anchored in Freshwater Bay. Most of the crew were put ashore with a couple of sea staff and challenged to find Yarmouth. The remaining sea staff and some of the older crew then moved the boat round, and the shore party got the Yarmouth water taxi out to rejoin them at just the moment when the lunch time jacket potatoes were ready.

Yesterday they tried to sail to Cowes but ended up motoring again, and the voyage ended in Cowes this morning. The Bourne College group are being escorted back to the mainland by ferry but the older crew members are staying on board – to be joined by others – for the ASTO Small Ships race tomorrow. There are at least a couple of potential future sea staff in this group so it will be good to see them again.

Many thanks to the sea staff: skipper Martin Clough, plus Laura, John Smith, Matt Bland and Stuart Raynsford.