Price
£935
Nights
Six
Age range
16-25
Start port
Portsmouth
End port
Portsmouth
DofE
Yes
RYA
Watch Leader
Voyage code
EV070
Bursary
Available
Voyage highlights
School’s out! Celebrate the end of exam season and your achievements while connecting with new, like-minded friends on a 6-night voyage.
Equip yourself with the leadership skills you need to succeed in whatever comes next—whether that’s studying for A-Levels, heading off to university, starting an apprenticeship, taking a gap year or exploring your future options.
During your voyage, you’ll navigate a 72ft yacht, lead a team, and make critical decisions in real-time. This is not any ordinary sailing trip; it’s an opportunity to push your boundaries, enhance your leadership abilities and work alongside peers who share your passion for sailing.
TSYT Leadership voyages are led by you. That means, along with your crew, you will be responsible for navigation, passage planning, and leading watches all in potentially challenging offshore and overnight sailing conditions (under the supervision of your skipper and mate).
Leadership voyages have a strong focus on personal growth and development, helping you sharpen your skills as a leader. You’ll learn how to communicate effectively while guiding your crew through exciting tasks and leading daily debriefs. Plus, you’ll discover how to influence and make a real difference back at home in your community.
You’ll also start thinking about your future, from discussing your goals to celebrating your achievements and exploring how to turn mistakes into valuable lessons.
Given the challenging nature of these voyages, you must have prior sailing or outdoor learning experience. This can include completing a TSYT Empowerment voyage, achieving the RYA Competent Crew certification or having qualifications in or experience of other residential and adventurous outdoor learning activities.
If you have not yet completed your RYA Competent Crew, you will have the opportunity to be awarded this certificate on the voyage.
RYA logbooks are available for purchase on board at a cost of £6 (skippers are only able to take cash for this).
For those who already have a Competent Crew certificate, you will be able to start working towards your RYA Watch Leader certificate. The RYA Watch Leader syllabus covers the following up to the standard required for taking charge of a watch at sea or in harbour. It is at an equivalent level to RYA Day Skipper, designed specifically for sail training vessels.
- Rigging the deck and preparing lines to slip
- Helming on all points of sail and to a wind angle
- Efficient sail trim
- Awareness of tidal streams and heights
- Basic maintenance and equipment safety checks
- Managing power and water supplies
- Preparing for sea
- Setting up for coming alongside
- Awareness of colregs
- Awareness of safety and safety equipment on board
- Emergency steering
- Basics of navigation and passage planning
- Looking after a crew
RYA logbooks are available for purchase on board at a cost of £6 (skippers are only able to take cash for this).
The choice is entirely up to you (under guidance of your skipper and mate). On Leadership voyages, you are responsible for planning the passages. You can choose to port-hop along the south coast, visiting places like Cowes, Yarmouth, or Poole, or you could attempt a channel crossing to locations such as Alderney, Sark, or Guernsey.
You’ll cover essential safety drills and refresh your Challenger sailing skills before you take charge of the yacht to plan, prepare, execute and review each component of the voyage under the expert guidance of the TSYT skipper and mate.
You will take turns to lead the team in all aspects of sailing the yacht, from deck work to provisioning, cooking, cleaning and day-to-day maintenance.
This voyage is a great opportunity to make tangible progress towards achieving your goals, with time to reflect on your achievements and opportunities to learn about yourself as a leader and team player, and to develop the optimism, aspiration and expertise you need to influence your community as well as your own future.
Each crew member will receive a personal assessment covering their leadership, teamwork and communication skills — a great addition to your CV.
We believe everyone should have the chance to experience a life-changing voyage and realise their potential.
Bursaries Available: If you’re a parent or guardian facing financial constraints or a young person who has faced, or is facing, personal challenges (this could be a learning disability, you are a young carer or are not currently in education, for example) we have funding available to support you. Please apply to see if you qualify.
Flexible Booking Options:
- Book your place with just a 30% deposit
- The remaining balance is due 8 weeks before your voyage
- Need more flexibility? We can set up a payment plan to suit your needs—just contact us for details.
All voyages of four nights or more qualify for residential section of the DofE Gold Award. Please let our Reservations Team know before sailing if you want to use the voyage for this.
While passports are not required for this voyage, we encourage you to bring them along. If all the crew have a passport, you then have the opportunity to sail across the channel and explore ashore if that is desired. We want to ensure that all young people have access to this voyage, but also that all crew members have the best experience possible.
The Skipper will have the final say on the route and itinerary depending on weather and other variables.
Your Skipper can also recommend you for our volunteer crew training programme, if they feel you have the skills and attributes that we’re looking for. You can speak to your TSYT crew if this is something you’d be interested in and you’d like to find out more.
Our Leadership Voyages have clear learning objectives and outcomes and can qualify for an authorised absence from school/college. Please ask for more details of how we can support your application.
All meals on board are included.
