Wendy Tuck has yet to reach halfway in her round-the-world race, but she's already inspiring the next generation of Australian female sailors.
Tuck is the country's first female to skipper in Clipper's global event, which includes a hit-and-run in the annual Sydney to Hobart dash that kicks off on Saturday.
She is one of just four female captains in the race.
Tuck has already been roughing it out over some of the planet's most destructive waters - including a stomach-churning 24 days in the southern ocean - since a fleet of 12 Clippers departed London in August.
But only once has she felt overwhelmed, and it was a different type of crashing wave.
"A friend put on my Facebook, `My daughter had a careers day at school and she got asked, if you could be anybody in the whole wide world for one whole day, who would it be'," Tuck told AAP.
"And she said, me, which is just incredible. That's the nicest thing anybody's ever said about me and brought quite a few tears to my eye."
Tuck, a Sydney local, had no intention on being a trailblazer when she accepted an invitation to lead a circumnavigation of the world on a Clipper boat Da Nang Vietnam with mostly amateur sailors.
Asked what motivated her to embark on an 11-month sojourn only two female skippers have completed in its nine editions, Tuck said she simply needed a challenge.
"I'd been working on the harbour for the last 12-14 years in various different roles from teaching sailing, charter boat skipper, to a mate on a ferry," the 50-year-old said.
"I just needed an adventure and I thought sailing around the world is the biggest adventure you can get."
The fourth leg of the race carried the fleet from Albany to Sydney earlier this month, where they sailed past the Tasman Sea in similar conditions predicted for the Blue Water Classic.
It's that experience Tuck believes has her crew prepared for Hobart, although they also have a "secret weapon" she'll deploy once they hit the Derwent River.
"One of my crew is a very good dinghy sailor and he's from Hobart," said Tuck, who'll be appearing in her ninth Hobart race.
"So he's going to be our secret weapon up the Derwent, because you can win or lose a race going up the Derwent."
