We have a fabulous team with great Maritime and Teaching experience: Emergency Preparedness Workshops: Meet Alison Eades our Brisbane Facilitator
Alison started sailing in her early 20s after reading a book called Dolphins at Sunset by Elizabeth Thurston. She became a regular at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron in the early 1990s learning to sail by crewing a couple of seasons on Felice a 38ft Northshore.
Being terrified of the heeling, she then went on to sail pacer dinghies in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria for a couple of seasons while living down there for work. Pacers are a small 2-handed sailing craft that carries a spinnaker. They are a lot of fun, and after she bottled it a few times her fear of capsize was cured.
You can book to attend Alison’s Workshop by clicking here, on 3rd April in Brisbane
Her first yacht was a 23-foot Hood trailer sailer, which she sailed with her partner on Moreton Bay. Later she swapped this for a 33ft hull and deck with a full-length keel, and the journey of building her own boat began. With a shipwright by her side, she helped to fit out and complete Narena over a 3-year period. She did all the finishing woodwork following behind the shipwright. She installed all the plumbing. Her partner installed the electrics. She also completed the engine fitting after it was placed back on its mounts. She drilled and tapped over 400 holes in Narena’s decks and put the mast and rigging together. She also prepared the hull and deck for painting and helped to paint the boat. She would spend weeks upon weeks with an orbital sander in her hands up on scaffolding under the watchful eye of the shipwright.
Whilst building Narena, Alison went on to crew on many boats of all shapes and sizes. Her first open ocean experience was delivering Leanne Marie, a 72foot gaff rigged schooner from Brisbane to Sydney. She has been delivery crew for a number of yachts – a 58ft sloop from Phuket to Darwin; a 34ft sloop from Guernsey to Plymouth; a 36ft sloop from Dartmouth to Southampton. She also crewed on the Alma Doepel, a 140ft Topsail Schooner in Port Philip Bay, and earned a place as crew on the Grand Turk (now known as the Etoile du Roy) a 152ft 317T Galleon sailing out of London.
Alison has raced yachts on Moreton Bay, Port Philip Bay, in Thailand and Malaysia on boats from 15 ft up to a 72 ft super yacht where she was foredeck crew and responsible for packing the 2000sq foot spinnaker.
She has also been a project manager for McMullen & Wing and Austral Yachts in New Zealand, overseeing the build of a 40-metre luxury sportsfisher to American Bureau of Shipping Standards and a 24 metre solid core fiberglass super yacht.
Alison has logged over 8000 open ocean sea miles – mostly in large sailing ships – and countless inshore sailing miles, as well as sailing in closed water such as Moreton Bay, Port Philip Bay, and Plymouth in the UK.
The highlight of Alison’s sailing career to date is sailing Alvei, a 25.6m 103T 3 masted main topsail schooner. Alvei is now over 100 years old, and she carries 5800sq. ft of sail area across 14 sails – fore and aft gaff sails, topsails, and 6 squares. There are 139 lines on Alvei with running rigging totally nearly 7 kilometers. Alison sailed Alvei in Australia and around the South Pacific. She was 2nd in charge under the owner / skipper in the positions of 3rd mate / Bosun and watch leader. She was responsible for setting and lowering sail during her watch, all maintenance on board, forecasting the weather and navigating. She also looked after the basic engine maintenance on this ship.
In the marine industry, Alison has worked as sales assistants in Chandleries around the world, has been a yacht broker, project manager, and more recently worked as the office manager for South Passage – The Sail Training Association of Queensland.
Alison has sailed mostly monohulls, or tall ships, but since returning to Australia in 2018, found herself as helmswoman on a 37-foot seawind catamaran, racing out of Newport double handed until COVID hit in 2020.
Alison completed her AYF Yachtmaster Offshore Shorebased Course Certificate in Brisbane in 1998. In 2001, she completed the NZCGF Ocean Yachtmaster, Ocean Navigation exam with 96% the highest mark ever attained at the time and NZCGF Ocean Yachtmaster, General Knowledge Exam with 94%. She has also received in the past, certification for Occupational Health and Safety at Sea.
In 1999, Alison travelled to England to complete a 5-day shipboard RYA Yachtmaster training with 2-day exam to gain her RYA Coastal Skipper Certificate of Competence.
Outside of sailing, for the last 19 years, Alison has been a solo mother of 2 young men, now 20 and 17. She is a support worker to a beautiful woman who is blind (they have become good friends) and she also has her own business as an alternative health practitioner. She has a Bachelor Applied Science Computing, is a certified life coach, certified energy healer and has an honours diploma in Art – photography, drawing and painting. She did Highland Dancing for 30 years, having the privilege of dancing all over Australia, in England, Scotland and New Zealand. She has held her teaching certificate since she was 18.
As a young person, straight out of uni, she fell into Project Management in the IT industry and soon after ran her own company as a consultant implementing IT administration systems, developing standard operating systems and training staff.
Her current aspirations in the marine industry, is to continue to study for her RYA Yachtmaster, get up some more sea time and complete her RYA Yachtmaster certification. Her goal is to get commercial endorsement which will lead into paid delivery work.
Alison is excited to work with Sistership Training in Brisbane and looks forward to developing this arm of her business in coordination with Jackie and the team at Sistership. She is grateful for this opportunity to share her experience and knowledge of the marine industry, sailing, cruising and passage making with others and she looks forward to meeting course participants and being a part of helping to make their sailing dreams come true.
You can book to attend Alison’s Workshop by clicking here, on 3rd April in Brisbane, and on the same link, you can register your interest in further Workshops (at the bottom).
If you’d like to go back to the overall presenters’ map/location, click here.
See what else we get up to here.
Read more about who the Emergency Preparedness Workshops are for here.
Who’s this course for?
This course is for anyone that wants to feel safe and confident on the water; Catamaran owners, monohull owners, motorboat owners. It’s about YOUR boat, and YOUR systems and equipment – it’s about YOU and YOUR crew. Read more here.
