18 Dorset youngsters set sail thanks to Poole Harbour Boat Show

On the 21st August, 18 youngsters from Dorset set sail on a free five night voyage on a 32 metre sailing boat, thanks to a charitable partnership between the Poole Harbour Boat Show (PHBS) and Ocean Youth Trust South.

Poole Harbour Boat Show organisers, Poole Harbour Commissioners, chose Ocean Youth Trust South as its charitable partner for 2019, initially offering 12 local young people the opportunity to enjoy the five night voyage on the sail training vessel Prolific. The entries to participate in this fantastic adventure opened in March with organisers urging the local community to get involved and nominate deserving young people, aged 12 – 18 years in Dorset.

Ocean Youth Trust South provides residential voyages as a personal development opportunity for young people, aged 12 – 25, the majority of whom are disadvantaged or vulnerable in some way. Young people sail as active crew members, responsible for sail handling, steering, watch-keeping, helping with navigation and voyage planning, cooking, cleaning and more. The aim is to develop skills and qualities that will be of lasting value to those young people as well as their schools, employers, families and communities.

PHBS Marketing Manager, Tracy Payne, says: “We were thrilled we had managed to smash our initial target and raised over £9,000! This meant we were able to secure six extra places and get a total of 18 young people on a sailing voyage. The Poole Harbour Boat Show theme is to ‘get people on the water’ and through this initiative we have been successful in our mission. 15 of the crew set sail this month, with the remainder due to sail in 2020.”

Tracy continues: “We were inundated with nominations for this potentially life changing opportunity for a young person in Dorset. It was quite a task to pick our eventual ‘would be’ sailors’. We hope they had a fabulous time and look forward to hearing about their adventure.”

Mark Todd, Chief Executive of Ocean Youth Trust South, comments: “We were thrilled to be selected as the first dedicated charity for the Poole Harbour Boat Show. Poole has been a very special port in the history of the charity for nearly 60 years. It’s a place where we always know we will get a warm welcome and any support or help we might need. At the Boat Show in June, we met some of the young people involved and I was incredibly impressed with their enthusiasm and with their stories about why they had won their places on the voyage. It’s a huge achievement by everyone in the Boat Show team who raised the money to make the voyage possible!”