Crews have to be ready for anything during the Sydney to Hobart, but Christopher Canty can probably assume there won't be another attempted drug bust on his boat come Boxing Day.
In 2018, Canty docked in Fiji as the penultimate stop on his circumnavigation aboard previous yacht Galaxy III.
Unbeknownst to Canty, he'd been monitored by the Australian and New Zealand navy en route to the Pacific nation, where an Australian couple had been busted coming into port a day earlier.
Some $20 million in cocaine, ecstasy tablets, guns and cash were found on board John and Yvette Nikolic's catamaran, the aptly named Shenanigans.
"Because I was close behind, they thought I must've been part of what was going on," Canty explained.
Attempting to find more drugs, a squad of customs officers, police and a sniffer dog boarded the 40ft yacht Galaxy III.
The police emptied the contents of Canty's boat, even pulling up the anchor, and laid everything on the marina as they undertook a five-hour search.
Canty and crew mate Cui Zhipeng were questioned separately.
"There was one guy in particular that was assigned to have a chat to me ... He did the, 'Mate, come on, tell us where they are, mate'. But I didn't crack," Canty joked.
At one point, an officer looked inside the fuel jerry can on board and accidentally knocked the cap into the water, leaving Canty to jump into the ocean to retrieve it.
It was a frustrating way to get back to dry land after leaving Panama weeks earlier, but Canty can see the funny side now.
"There's a lot of places to put things on a boat so there's a lot of stuff to get through," he said.
"There's a couple of places they didn't look and if I was a drug smuggler ... The people that did get caught, I think they're still in a Fijian prison so it's probably not a good plan (to smuggle drugs)."
Canty was happy to cooperate, but the thought did cross his mind that there'd have been plenty of drugs from the last bust for an officer to plant a stash on board.
"From the haul they had the day before, (that) was possible I suppose, but you just stay calm and cooperate," he said.
"Those guys were doing their job. You've just got to roll with it."
After no drugs were found, Canty and Zhipeng were left to repack the yacht, which underwent some repairs before sailing back to Australia.
Canty went on to sail Galaxy III in his first Sydney to Hobart in 2019, and returns with two-hander Sailor Moon alongside co-skipper Shona Forsyth.
He's hoping to harness his off-shore racing experience from his circumnavigation, including that particularly memorable trip to Fiji.
"While it's a circumnavigation, you're really just going to the next port," Canty said.
"Getting into that routine and rhythm is really the value that I got out of that experience."
