You're thinking about sailing SSANZ but never done it before and want to know what you may be letting yourself in for - then read on!  

We were SSANZ newbies last year, and loved it.  Yes, its hard work and long days of sailing, but isn't that the reason for racing a boat?   And we'll def be racing it again this year!  

Setting up the boat
Not only do you have to make sure that you have all the safety equipment (and there is a list that will help you here ), but you also need to make sure that the boat meets the cat 4 regs.  That involved us drilling a few holes, and making sure that things were all lashed down.  But really, they were all things that makes the boat feel safer anyway, and the majority of the safety stuff is all good stuff to have.  I'd argue about the 4kg of fire extinguishers on a 26ft boat, but then I've never needed to use one, so rather be safe than not.  The eperb is a bit on the expensive side, and it is possible to borrow one from a friendly fellow sailor who isn't using it, or even look into renting one.   We managed to fit a depth sounder without drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat (yes, even through wood, despite all the differing opinion on the web), so I finally gave up on the lead line.  

The crew
You are going to have to spend all day (and possibly all night) with this person, so make sure you are with someone you trust and get on with.  

Food and drink
We took lots of prepared, easy to eat food (frittata was perfect) and a thermos.  Even though we hoped we weren't going to be out late, we took food for 2 meals.  We didn't find much time to spend below preparing food

Clothing
Warm stuff to layer up under water proofs.  It gets cold over night, so gloves and hats are good.   Put on clothes before you get cold!  

Extras
The one thing  I never regretting buying was a portable GPS.   We don't have a chart enabled one, but I made sure we put lots of way-points in, and worked out how to use it before we went sailing.

The racing
Is competitive and went to places I hadn't raced to before.  But lots of Upto26 boats raced last year (have a look at http://www.ssanz.co.nz/results.html to see which ones), and it was nice to be racing boats of similar speed.  We finished the 1st 2 races before sunset, but we had good winds.  The 1st 2 races felt like good preparation for the last race, which was longer and felt like a bit of an adventure.   It wasn't really that late when we finished the last race that late, but there is talk of making it longer this year.  

Finally

Keep an eye on http://www.ssanz.co.nz/ for details