Sydney to Hobart campaign on Fika the Melbourne to Osaka qualifier for Annette Hesselmans and Sophie Snijders

When an armada of yachts takes its place on Sydney Harbour tomorrow for the start of the 79th edition of the Sydney to Hobart, for almost every one of the 104 boats and crews, it will be the equivalent of a grand final.

For Annette Hesselmans and her daughter, Sophie Snijders, however, the race will be a stepping stone to something else.

The Sydney to Hobart is 628 nautical miles (1,163km) long, racing from off Nielsen Park on the Harbour, through the Sydney Heads and south down the coast, from the ocean to Bass Strait, down the east coast of Tasmania, up the River Derwent and ending at Constitution Dock in Hobart.

The Melbourne to Osaka yacht race, on the other hand, is a 5,500-nautical miles (10,186km) crossing of the Pacific Ocean from south to north, exclusively for double-handed entrants (those with two crew on board). It is the equivalent of nine Sydney to Hobarts, back-to-back.

In 2018, Hesselmans took part in the Melbourne to Osaka with her husband, Jerry Snyders, aboard Red Jacket.

They finished seventh on line honours, fifth on PHS (Performance Handicap System) then Snijders came aboard to help her mum sail the boat back from Osaka to Townsville.

While the focus for the bluewater classic often zeros in on the big, flashy supermaxis, the vast majority of the fleet in the Sydney to Hobart is made up of boats of various sizes and much smaller crews than for the 100-footers (about 30 metres in length).

This year, Hesselmans and Snijders will be in the double-handed section of the race aboard Fika, a 14.9-metre-long Najad 490 boat.

"As a pimply 17-year-old, I watched the start of the Melbourne to Osaka double-handed yacht race, which started off Port Melbourne jetty — and I'd always had the dream that I was going to do that race," Hesselmans says.

"In 2018, I put a campaign together and successfully competed and we got to Japan and then Sophie and I sailed back together, so from Japan to Townsville. I suppose that really introduced me to double-handed offshore racing, and I just love that challenge.

Hesselmans is a registered nurse who has worked in various areas including remote nursing in the Northern Territory before having a true sea change.

Her lifelong love of boats is now her work as well as her hobby.

Hesselmans decided to gain an on-water qualification, becoming an RYA Yachtmaster Offshore and a Yachtmaster Instructor. She now runs her own company, Paper Sailors Rock, and teaches people how to sail.

"When I came back from Japan, I think that made me realise how capable I was and I gained confidence. And then I was sitting out in Cape York and questioning nursing and questioning being away from family.

"And then the dream came that I could actually, perhaps I could put the two together and start my own business and try and bring other people to the water."

So what draws them both to the blue ocean classic and the marathon that lies beyond?

"We've done the Melbourne to Hobart twice together now and the west coast, and I think it's always natural that every sailor always wishes to do the Sydney to Hobart. And I think for Sophie and I to do that, [this year] it was a perfect opportunity," she says.

Hesselmans's memories of her last sail in Melbourne-Osaka are filled with sensations.

"There was relief, but I was full of self-doubt starting and [questioning] had I chosen the right route to get out of Victoria and into the Tasman Sea, but as we progressed, you start to fall into a rhythm and then to see the beauty of the ocean," she says.

Given the vastness of the ocean and the limited number of entries — just 19 in 2018, although the maximum allowed in any edition is 50 — sighting another competitor was momentous in itself.

'I think that sense of accomplishment, of seeing Japan for the first time and the smells, you can smell the earth out as you approach and the shipping. And so to see that, it was like a sight for sore eyes to see Japan come into view."

Having been on board boats since she was a kid — although she took time out in her teen years for what she describes as "friends and netball and whatnot" — Snijders says she rediscovered her love of sailing around 18 and then joined in the delivery of Red Jacket back to Australia.

"This was just like a mountain, it was huge. Everest compared to what I'd done," Snijders says.

"I remember that was such an incredible feeling. Going from Osaka to a Japanese island, which was further south, it was about 600 nautical miles and rocking up there. I just remember that feeling was just really overpowering.

"That trip was the catalyst for me to have the confidence to jump onto my own boat and begin sailing and beginning my own journey on my own vessel."

These days, Snijders and her partner live on the water aboard their boat Nakama, sailing around Australia and studying for university online as they go.

Hesselmans says: "We sailed down to Tasmania when Sophie was seven, and at the time she was into the saddle club and had stuffed horses on the boat and she was wearing jodhpurs and little RM Williams boots and things.

"But I just remember Sophie sitting in the cockpit, there were just flocks of shearwater muttonbirds just flying around and the sky was almost black. And I just remember Sophie being in awe at that age. So she was so in tune [on the water]."

Hesselmans and Snijders will be one of three all-female double-handed crews in this year's Sydney to Hobart, along with Gizmo and Celeste.

They won't be the only crew in the race heading for Osaka next year, either.

Two-time overall winner of the Sydney to Hobart, the Tasmanian boat Alive, will try to win back-to-back Tattersall's Cups before switching to double-handed in next year's Osaka race alongside Fika, with co-skippers Duncan Hine and Glenn Myler.

Also, Celeste, with co-skippers Saskia Groen-In’t-Woud and Maud Demazure are tackling the blue water classic as a qualifier for Osaka.

Double-handed sailing a 'trust thing'

One of the other double-handed entries in this year's Sydney-to-Hobart is the Young 11 boat Pacman, co-skippered by Peter Elkington and Scott Cavanough.

Ask Elkington what the key to double-handed sailing is, and his answer is immediate.

"It's a trust thing," he says.

"He [Cavanough] knows the way, I think, I know the way he thinks, he knows my strengths and weaknesses and I know his … it comes down to trust.

"I'm more focused on tactics and navigation, he's more the bowman — he tends to work outside.

Elkington has a heap of race experience, including a number of editions as a navigator aboard supermaxi Black Jack (best result — fourth) and the TP52 Envy Scooters (best result sixth, down from third after a penalty).

He says there wasn't a moment where he suddenly thought the Sydney — Hobart was something he wanted to do one day: "It was always something I thought I would do," he says, with the emphasis on the word would.

His first Sydney to Hobart was the infamous race in 1998. He was a crew member on a boat that turned around and headed back to Eden after conditions got too bad. "I didn't know any different," he says, but adds it was "harder coming back than going down".

He has been a navigator on every race he's done apart from the first one. What does a navigator do?

What's the difference between sailing on a supermaxi like Black Jack and double-handed on Pacman?

"The amount of time you've got to do things," Elkington says. "On a boat with 20 people on board (like Black Jack), your whole job is doing that as a navigator. You can spend 18 hours a day watching the weather.

"But when there's just you and someone else on the boat, and you have a whole lot of other things to do — it's about finding ways of doing things in the most efficient way possible."

This is Elkington's 19th or 20th race — he's kind of lost count, but says, "it's not enough!"

"It's different every year. The build-up, the preparations on board, the logistics and getting the boat down [to Sydney]. Having my own boat, the challenge of something to do that's not easy, when you get there it's a sense of achievement."

The pair have known each other for 30 years.

"He [Cavanough] went overseas for 20 years sailing, and the week after he landed [back in Australia] I ran into him … we've been sailing together since," Elkington says.

Cavanough has done solo and two-handed sailing, in transatlantic races on 22-footer boats and round-the-world racing plus races around Europe.

"What I really like about it is we switch off from the rest of the world. We're just concentrating on our jobs and sailing. And I really like the boat, being out there by myself (or with one other person), and the challenge of doing everything myself," Elkington says.

"It's different from the rest of life, going at a million miles an hour, but here the job is just to do this. The rest of the world, that doesn't really matter — it's just the best [feeling]."

This year there are 22 boats entered two-handed, compared to 21 for last year's race.

The Commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia — the club that runs the race every year — Sam Haynes, says the entries are at the heart of what makes the Sydney to Hobart great. Haynes won the Tattersall's Cup for the overall victory in 2022 aboard Celestial.

He says the double-handed class is a relative newcomer to the race, coming in as a standalone division in 2021. That first year, boats in the division were ineligible to win overall, but that changed the following year.

"It [double-handed] is a very popular part of the sport internationally, particularly in France you see a lot of double-handed entries as well into the Fastnet race, and that's one of the big races every two years in the UK," Haynes says.

"I think a big factor to that is the cost because it's not crewed [with a lot of people], it's simpler to obtain two people to go racing and the style of racing and the camaraderie in the two-handed group is really important as well."

Haynes says increasing the number of female sailors in the race is important.

"It's something which I think the sport needs to continuously face into and improve its diversity and inclusivity so that more women are able to race and welcomed to race," he says.

"What we've seen here with double-handed [racing], it's another way forward to increase that inclusivity because the boat, they're relying on skill, they're relying on experience and they're relying on other attributes rather than just pure muscle to get the boat to perform."

You can follow the opening day of the 2024 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race on ABC Sport, with a live blog from midday AEDT on Boxing Day.