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For some people, competing in the Round North Island race is the pinnacle of their offshore sailing careers.
For Sally Garrett, it's feeling more like a holiday.
It's not that Garrett and sailing partner Rob Croft will be taking it easy - on the contrary - it's just that the pair have been here before and are well organised for the 1271 nautical mile race around the North Island.
This will be the pair's third Round North Island race together on top of the two Round New Zealand races they've also completed, making them two of the most experienced sailors in the fleet. Garrett is also the women's national keelboat champion and regularly competes in a Flying 15 so has learned a lot about successful campaigns.
"I am really looking forward to it," Garrett said ahead of Saturday's start off Devonport wharf. "Because we went around New Zealand last year, we are pretty organised. It’s actually feeling like a bit of a holiday rather than being as stressful as it has been before."
Garrett and Croft will soon get into the grind of the race on board Coppelia, with sleep deprivation a constant companion alongside salt on the face and freeze-dried food.
The first leg is a relative sprint, 153 nautical miles to Manganui in the far north that's likely to take about two days. There are three more legs, with stopovers in Wellington and Napier before the return journey to Auckland, and the race is expected to take about two weeks to complete.
There's great diversity within the 38-boat fleet, with just over 10m between the smallest and largest boats, which will bring great interest and intrigue into the battles for line and handicap honours.
Garrett and Croft won their division the last time they did the Round North Island race in 2014 and will be chasing both division 4 line and handicap honours on their Farr 11.6.
The competition, though, is almost secondary to Garrett.
"It’s the other competitors," she said of the main attraction. "There are a lot of very nervous competitors around right now but it’s seeing them doing it for the first time and seeing how much joy is brings them which is very cool. The sailing is also great. We have 37 boats to sail against and we will see boats every day, even on the west coast. It’s great."
Garrett is one of only six females among the 76 competitors - and there's only one all-female crew on High Voltage - and would love to see more involved. The inclusion of a mixed two-handed offshore keelboat event on the 2024 Paris Olympics programme could be the injection the sport needs.
"When I was sailing two-handed in 1990s, there were six fully-female crews in the SSANZ Triple Series. This year, there's only one. In some ways, women’s sailing is almost going backwards in two-handed sailing.
"The inclusion in the Olympics should help. I also say to my girlfriends that we have to buy boats. If we want to go sailing, we have to buy boats."
Short-handed sailing is not easy but, for many, that's the attraction. There's also the dynamic of working with a teammate.
In this year's official progamme, Croft was asked to describe his co-skipper.
"Quieter when asleep," was his tongue-in-cheek response.
Sleep, or more specifically the lack of it, is a big component of the race.
"Rob would tell you I deal with it poorly," Garrett admitted. "Leading into the race, we are trying to get extra sleep. We just try to be open and honest with each other about where we are at and manage that.
"For the Round New Zealand race, which is really hard, we made a pact that if we got to a certain level when we were not coping, we would slow the boat down until the other person recovered."
It could be slow going in the early stages of the race, with a 15-20 knot headwind on the cards, but Garrett won't mind. After all, she'll be on holiday.
- You can track the fleet's progress here or download the YB app.
