More than two decades since he cut off the top of his finger sailing in the harbour, Irishman Cian McCarthy has returned for his first crack at the Sydney to Hobart race.
Onboard Cinnamon Girl, McCarthy and co-skipper Sam Hunt will be one of 10 international entrants and 19 two-handed crews making the 628-nautical-mile trip to Hobart's Constitution Dock.
This coming Boxing Day may be the first time McCarthy will hoist the sails for the bluewater classic, but it won't be his first rodeo on Australian waters.
"I had a nasty incident when I left Sydney last time. I took the top off my finger going around Tasmania," McCarthy said on Friday.
"I was here about 20 years ago. We were doing the Around the World race, and we stopped here for about 10 or 12 days.
"We went from Sydney to Cape Town in South Africa. It was a long, hard leg and I spent a lot of it down below with my finger in pieces.
"I had a great time. I was a lot younger, didn't have many commitments, didn't have the family, didn't have the kids. My wife was on the Around the World race as well.
"And I've always had this desire to come back, but it's trying to find the right opportunity because it's difficult."
Navigating dad duties to get to Sydney wasn't the only logistical problem for Cinnamon Girl's two-handed crew.
When prices to ship their original Sunfast 3300 sailboat to Sydney skyrocketed, McCarthy and Hunt struck it lucky when boat dealer Lee Condell offered to loan the duo a ride.
All the Irishmen needed to do was bring their sails and slap on their Neil Young-inspired name.
"He's actually Irish originally. We did a race in the summer at home and had a good result, and Lee reached out to us with the offer of a boat - the same boat as home," McCarthy said.
"Lee has been unbelievably helpful because navigating entry and the paperwork and the requirements - it's a big job doing that from Europe.
"Shipping a boat blindly from Europe would have been next to impossible."
Cinnamon Girl and her crew boast a formidable resume, winning the 240-nautical-mile Inishtearaght Race in 2022 and finishing second overall in Ireland's biggest offshore race, the Dunlaoghire to Dingle, in 2023.
Hunt has also raced once in the Sydney to Hobart, having joined a local Australian crew in 2011.
With most of his competitors unknown to him and weather conditions still unpredictable just days out from the race, McCarthy admits their chances of going home with silverware are slim - although he's not entirely disappointed by his odds.
"The thing with sailing is even if it doesn't go well, you want to come back and do it," he said.
"If it goes well you might close the book, but you just get short-term memory with sailing.
"You forget the bad bit and just for some reason, if the sea is in you, you just keep coming back. There's no getting away from it.
"There's only a few of these races in the world, and these are the ones you want to do."
After flying all the way from Ireland to join him, McCarthy's wife Catherine and five kids will be waiting for the crew in Hobart - provided they make the trip.
