How $5 malfunction thwarted professor's last Syd-Hob

The cheapest part on his entire boat - an adaptor worth five bucks - malfunctioned and ruined Professor Chris O'Neill's Sydney to Hobart hopes last year.

But that disappointment hasn't deterred the medical science guru from returning with the goal of pipping a "wolfpack" of rival boats on the 1163km journey to Constitution Dock.

O'Neill bought his J99 yacht four years ago to contest the Hobart with only one other crew member. This year, Blue Planet is one of 18 such two-handers in the fleet.

The professor, an expert in respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, has twice sailed the race on Blue Planet after three times competing as a member of larger crews.

"(Sailing two-handed) is challenging but it's a whole lot of fun to be involved in everything: the navigating, the tactics, trimming the sails and steering the boat, doing all the sail changes," said O'Neill, who works at University of Technology Sydney and the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research.

Sailing became especially challenging when heavy weather hit the Hobart fleet on the first night of last year's race.

In total, 30 boats retired, two of those after crew members suffered fatal injuries in the horrific conditions, and a handful more after being dismasted.

Blue Planet's retirement was forced by a far less catastrophic issue. In fact, it affected one of the smallest parts on the boat.

"The aerial to the satellite phone has got a coaxial cable that goes down and then it's got a little modem-type thing downstairs," O'Neill explained.

"I think it was a five dollar part: the little adaptor from this coaxial cable into the modem. Because it was quite flexible, it was doing that (bending)."

Blue Planet had no option but to retire when the adaptor finally snapped in wild weather and left the satellite phone inoperative.

Every boat in the fleet must phone race control for a mandatory safety check off Green Cape on the NSW Coast, or risk disqualification.

The call allows the race centre to ensure boats are properly equipped to enter Bass Strait, one of the most treacherous stretches of the race.

"Without the aerial, we couldn't do that," O'Neill said.

Blue Planet carries plenty of other spare parts on board in case of mishaps: blocks, sheets, shackles and fuses, for example.

But O'Neill and his co-skipper Michael Johnston did not think to account for the tiny adaptor inside the phone aerial.

"It was probably the cheapest part on the boat," O'Neill said.

"(But) there's only so many spare parts you can take on the boat."

The five-dollar malfunction, which cost as many minutes to fix, also ruined Blue Planet's hopes of taking out the two-handed division for the Blue Water Pointscore - the series of off-shore races that culminates in the Hobart.

"That hurt; that hurt a lot. We pretty much had the two-handed championship wrapped up at the time, all we had to do was make a respectable finish," O'Neill said.

O'Neill knows things could have been a lot worse.

"While it was disappointing to have to withdraw for that tiny little thing, it was obviously better than the alternative, and obviously we were both uninjured, apart from our pride," he said.

Blue Planet returns this year with hopes of beating the three other J99s - Jupiter, The Gaffer and Verite - to Hobart.

The J99s have earned a reputation for sailing neck-and-neck, as they did on arrival into Sydney Harbour at the end of this month's Cabbage Tree Island race.

"We're all good mates and we have a lot of fun. We call ourselves 'the wolfpack'," O'Neill said.

"Irrespective of how you do in the overall race, there's always a lot of bragging rights about how you go against the other J99s."