This year's Sydney To Hobart fleet has been hailed as the strongest to ever contest the race, with all four super maxis having claimed line honours in the last decade.
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LDV Comanche, which won the race two years ago, will start as favourite on Tuesday but standing stubbornly in her way will be eight-time winner Wild Oats XI, last year's winner Infotrack (formerly Perpetual Loyal) and Black Jack, which claimed line honours in 2009 under the guise of Alfa Romeo.
Last year's second placegetter Wizard is also lining up after its blistering effort as Giacomo in 2016, while an elite field of TP52s are all eyeing off handicap glory in the favourable weather conditions.
"All four of these boats have won this race on line honours in the past and everybody has a very impressive crew when you look through the lists," LDV Comanche owner Jim Cooney said.
"It'll come down to everybody performing on the day and none of us are falling short.
"[Infotrack owner] Christian [Beck] is making light of his boat but the truth is it won last year fair and square, it won in a brilliant time so I don't see any reason why it should be discounted.
"We can all make mistakes and if they don't there's a good chance they're up there too. This is the most exciting line-up in terms of the performance of all of these boats.
"None of them apart from Comanche, I guess, are in original conditions, they're not the same boats they were when they were built, they've all been improved and upgraded. It's not like you're out of date with any of them.
"It is most certainly the four fastest hundreds [hundred footers] in the world. Great that they're all Australian owned it makes it a very exciting local battle."
Cooney, who only finalised the purchase of his latest yacht earlier this month, is not alone in his assessment of the strength of this race.
Veteran sailor Bob Steel has returned to the race this year to sail Quest, Paul Clitheroe's Balance boat which has been temporarily rebranded, and has been spruiking the depth of the 102-strong field for weeks.
"I'm claiming that this is the best fleet ever to go to Hobart and no one has come back with any answer to it," Steel said.
"In other words, they think that's correct."
The four super maxis lining up this year have claimed line honours in 11 of the last 12 Sydney To Hobarts. In 2011, the race was won by Investec Loyal, which competed as Scallywag last year, although she's not racing this time around.
Such is the strength of the field last year's winner Infotrack has been rated the rank outsider of the four super maxis in the race for line honours.
Granted, the weather isn't suitable for the Christian Beck-owned yacht, but Infotrack skipper and Olympic gold medal-winner Tom Slingsby said his team's position in the predicted pecking order was another example of how strong this year's field was.
"A few years ago they always spoke about what was then called Speed Boat, which then turned into Perpetual Loyal and is now Infotrack as a boat that was missing in the line-up, but it's been here for the last few years now," Slingsby said.
"We've been talking about the old Alfa Romeo, which was here in 2009 last time and now she's back under the name of Black Jack. That completes the top four racing boats in the world [alongside Wild Oats XI and LDV Comanche].
"No other boats can beat these top four boats. It's exciting, anyone can win but for sure Comanche is another level of boats, 10 years newer than all these other boats and it's state of the art."
