The sound of a sewing machine brings back childhood memories for many people.

The sound of the mechanical whirring quickly reminds me of my mum on her sewing machine many years ago. Its quite a comforting sound and a fond memory but out here in the middle of an ocean race it is a different story.

One week ago we ripped our heavy weight spinnaker from starboard clew to port leech. Our heavy weight spinnaker is the one we rely on through the toughest conditions and the highest speeds.

After a week of constant repair work painfully machine stiching patches to bind the torn edges together we arrive at the most technical and crucial point - remaking the clew.

Until this race I have been a stranger to a needle and thread since I was forced to attempt to make a waistcoat in my school textlie class aged 16 (most of which I think my mum made in the end). It is now up to me and two other crew members to reconstruct this massive load baring component of our spinnaker.

The clew is made up of six layers of heavy dacron reinforced by webbing strops, then from the end of this clew the sail emmerges made first of three layers, then two layers, then one.

When the spinnaker ripped it tore along this edge between the sail and the clew which has meant we have had to constuct panelling to insert like a fillet into the six layers of the clew. This then has to be hand stitched into position, using a bradle to force a hole through the layers in which to insert the needle and thread.

More patching is required to reinforce the meeting of the sail and clew, this is again fixed by painful hand stitching and machine stitching on the thinner layers.

Every seam that we have stitched has to be reinforced by dacron and every layer of patching and stitching checked on both sides for tension. Often stitching has to be unpicked and re-done as any areas of extra tension will be loaded further when hoisted and cause the spinnaker to tear again.

The conditions in which we have to work in make the task twice as hard. We have to screw the clew to the floor boards and strap ourselves and the sewing machine to the walls as we are beating into the wind, our sail loft is in the bows at a 45 degree angle and lunges around with the swell.

It is a challenge just to sit on the floor and not slide across it undoing all the careful pinning you have just spent the last hour doing.

However now in the last stages of this repair we are starting to feel proud that it is looking functional and alive again. The moment of truth will most likely be at the final stages of the race, boat on boat at the finish line the first hoist of our re-made spinnaker.

How proud we will be if she holds up and takes us over the line to Australia.

Until then we will continue to work on her until she is in the best condition and stronger than she was at the start of the race.

I depart the dragon wagon in Australia and I will walk off proud that I have done my part in as many aspects of the boat as I can. I have learnt more than just how to sail. I have learnt primarily about self sufficiency, about how to repair things not just throw them away.

I have reminded myself how to use a needle and thread again, how to use a sewing machine - just basic basic life skills that I forgot about since leaving school. I have learnt how to cook for 18 people, how to live with 18 people, how to helm with a spinnaker, how to helm in rough seas, how to climb a mast (or maybe how not to), how to fix a spinnaker and much much more.

This is my last blog from the dragon wagon, its been a journey I will never forget. My crew have been just great and I will look forward to welcoming them all home in Hull next year.

Lois x