Janine's Journey - October 2025 - Winners are Grinners
Hi Subscriber,
We are now home from our Leg one adventures on Clipper.
It was an amazing experience... the build up to race start in
Portsmouth was fantastic. We had a parade around Gunwharf Quays with
lots of family and friends cheering, team photos of each boat and a
parade of sails before the race start.
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The race down to Puerto Sherry was brutal. It was much rougher than we
had expected. So much so, that they delayed the next start by 2 days to
give everyone a chance to recover and make the necessary repairs to the
boats and sails! We endured three cold fronts with rough conditions and
waves crashing over the deck. The first few days everyone was feeling
some degree of sea sickness so nobody really ate anything.
I don't really have many photos showing how rough it was as I didn't
want to get my phone out in those conditions.
We did have a clipper media person on our boat down to Spain and the
video of the Stage one highlights were all from our boat. You can see
it here
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The leg to Punta del Este was much milder conditions. We saw the
amazing stars at night, admired the beauty of the doldrums with some
glassy seas, tropical squalls and everchanging clouds.
We had flying fish landing on the deck, were captivated by dolphins
swimming through the bioluminescence, saw humpback whales and pods of
pilot whales. We had birds land on the deck for a rest during storms
and were in awe of black browed albatrosses riding the thermals.
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So what was life on board with 20 people like?
It is a racing boat so there are no luxuries...no showers....hot
bunking etc
We were divided into two watches and you were pretty much either on
deck or having meals and trying to sleep. The watches were 6 hours long
during the day (8 am to 2pm, 2pm to 8pm) and 4 hours overnight (8-12,
12-4 and 4-8). With 3 at night it means the next day you are on the
opposite shifts so everyone got to see sunrises and sunsets. Once a
week you were on galley duty so cooked all the meals for the day and as
a reward you got a whole night sleep!! After galley you swapped to the
opposite watch so you get to sail with everyone.
When the boat is level (no wind or under spinnaker) life is relatively
easy but when the boat is on a 45 degree angle it is exhausting doing
the most simple of tasks.
In the galley everything is sliding and although the cooktop is on a
gimble it only goes to 30 degrees!!
Even so we made yoghurt for breakfast and baked bread most days.
There aren't enough bunks for everyone so you have to hot bunk. We had
a top bunk which meant it was either really easy or really hard to get
into depending on the tack. When we were on 45 degrees and it was on
the high side it felt like climbing Mount Everest to get into. You
could only climb up the opposite wall so much and at some stage you had
to take a leap of faith and lurch yourself into the bunk!!
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Onboard we also took on additional roles according to our experience.
Not surprisingly I was assigned to sail repair....
Clipper did offer a morning of training but that was before we arrived
in England.
We were provided with a sailrite sewing machine for repairs on the
spinnakers (the material of the main sails are too thick for this
machine). Unfortunately we couldn't get the sewing machine to work. A
member of our crew was appalled at how rusty it was and pulled it apart
to clean it properly in Portsmouth before we left. I'm not sure if he
didn't get the timing quite right when he reassembled it or the rough
conditions onboard affected things but the bottom line was we couldn't
get it to work. It struggled to pick up the bottom thread and at most
you would get 2 stitches before it ground to a stop with a horrible
grinding noise.
This meant we had to do all our repairs by hand.
We were lucky that we only had minor damage on any of our sales so hand
sewing was perfectly acceptable.
When we got to Uruguay we realised how lucky we had been...
Two boats lost a spinnaker overboard which they were unable to
retrieve. Other boats had completely ripped spinnakers in two and they
spent days trying to repair them while we went sightseeing.
Our worst was about 6 inches of a seam coming undone!!
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A repair on our main.
Holes were drilled with an electric drill so you can get the needle
through the fabric!!
The hand sewing is rather crude but seems to do the job. The thread is
waxed and when you finish you use a hot knife to cut of the excess and
seal the ends.
Our final step was to draw a face inspired by the GOSH logo.
It will be interesting to see what the sails look like at the end with
all these faces on the patches...
So how did we go.....you could say winners are grinners...
I cant believe how well we did...on Race 1 to Spain we came second in
the race and in addition we were second at the optional scoring gate
and won the ocean sprint.
On the race to Uruguay we came first in the race, first at the scoring
gate and first in the ocean sprint. This means we scored 30 out of a
maximum 32 points!!!
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Perth Royal Show
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The Perth Royal Show was on while I was away.
I had three pieces entered. Glacier won Modern and Best in Show.
Tuxedos and Tariffs came second in wall hangings and the sunflower came
second in machine embroidery themed.
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In a Spin
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"In a Spin" is one of the quilts in the Patchwork section of the Autumn
edition of Art Quilting Studio which came out on September 1.
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Upcoming Events
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Stirling Art Awards
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"Windswept Wilderness" is part of the City Of Stirling Art Awards and
Exhibition.
It is on display at the City Of Stirling Reception Hall 25 Cedric
Street 31 October to 9 November.
Opening times are 10 to 4 daily.
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AW9
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AW9 is back from France...
It is now at the Kyabram Town Hall in Victoria until 17 November.
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Upcoming Workshops
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I am delighted to be teaching in Brisbane next year...
I will be teaching three workshops in May for the Queensland Quilters
Inc
May 14 Banksia Art Quilt
May 15 Secrets of Scrappy Applique
May 16-17 Intro to Thread Painting
Click here
for
more information and to book
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Closer to home, March 20-21, I will be teaching a dyeing workshop and
the Banksia Art Quilt in Harvey. More info coming soon.
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Apologies for this newsletter being about clipper and not quilting....
I promise next month will be quilting related!!! but it does mean when
I start making pieces inspired by our Clipper experience you will have
a greater understanding of what is behind those pieces.
Anyway I must go....I am demonstrating at the Canning Show tomorrow so
I need to find the sewing machine and get organised for that.
Take care
Janine x
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