The skipper of the Sydney to Hobart's reigning overall champion Alive has downplayed the impact last-minute repairs will have on his boat's chances of going back to back.
The 66ft Tasmanian mini-maxi withdrew from the final two competitive hit-outs before the Hobart with damage to her canard board, a foil on the hull that helps resist leeway.
Alive went in for last-minute repairs with fewer than three weeks until Boxing Day, her crew watching on as Master Lock Comanche took line in both the Cabbage Tree Island Race up to Port Stephens and back, and the Big Boat Challenge on Sydney Harbour.
But skipper Duncan Hine, who led Alive to its previous two Hobart victories in 2018 and 2023, said the decision to pull out of the final two races was largely precautionary.
"It's a very small repair, for most people they wouldn't even know that it'd been damaged in the first place," he told AAP.
"But when you're a bit more experienced and you realise certain things about the boat, you can tell.
"(The repair) was just to stop further damage happening ... If we'd actually just kept sailing without repairing it, we would cause more damage that may not have been reparable before the Sydney to Hobart."
Hine did not expect his boat's recent absence would put her at a disadvantage for the Hobart, but admitted his new-look crew now had less time to gel.
"No," he said when asked whether the repairs would affect Alive's chances.
"We haven't spent as much time as I'd like training with the crew. It may mean that we're more conservative through parts of it than we might be, but I highly doubt that."
Alive has retained its secret weapon, with superstar navigator Adrienne Cahalan signed up to contest her 32nd Hobart.
Cahalan was Wild Oats XI's navigator during five of the supermaxi's nine line honours wins and is widely regarded the greatest female sailor in the event's history.
Hine said her presence was a "blessing" for Alive.
"She's had six line honours wins so she's pretty good," he said.
Alive came within a sliver of winning back-to-back handicap titles in 2019 but ultimately placed fourth, her corrected time a little over two minutes slower than that of winner Ichi Ban.
Hine was skipper in that race as well, and said he'd learned not to get too far ahead of himself.
"We'll just aim at winning our division first," he said.
"If it turns into the year that our division are the leading boats like it was last year, then so be it. You've got to have smaller dreams that expand."
