LOIS Bickerton is settling into life at sea in the round the world clipper yacht race.

The former Thomas Hardye pupil left the banks of the Humber 12 days ago to cheers from 10,000 people.

As the cannon fired, the 10 internationally sponsored yachts crossed the start line and began the 35,000-mile challenge.

In her first blog for the Dorset Echo, Lois was 48 hours into Race One from Hull to La Rochelle, France, after which they plan to head into the Bay of Biscay.

From aboard the 68ft-yacht Qingdao, Lois said: "We are all now starting to settle into daily life on board whilst also trying to race as fast as we can, as we have managed to slip into last place overnight.

"I have just finished clearing up after breakfast as I have been on mother watch since yesterday afternoon. I will be back into the watch system at two o'clock joining Bay Watch' to take over racing the boat."

Lois described the race start as an emotional and exceptional day' with her family seeing her off.

She said: "My family were there to say goodbye and watched our spectacular race start up and down the Humber River.

"Everyone is well on board athough some people have had to overcome seasickness.

"We are eating well and getting plenty of rest, as is the skipper hence why we may have slipped back into last position overnight.

"We feel ready for a hard day of racing and with lots of energy. We have lots of issues also such as a broken spinnaker halyard, a small tear in our heavyweight spinnaker and the vang breaking twice.

"These are all things we are learning to problem solve and fix but also issues they don't teach you about in training so its great experience for us."