"Hopefully you'll be talking to us at the end of the regatta [on Saturday]," says Rob, a 48-year-old adviser at Horticentre, who has been sailing for 35 years but will be in a vessel with his son for the first time.
"We've gone out on a bigger boat together for a cruise but it'll actually be the first time we've ever raced together."
Rob and Noah had their first training sail yesterday for a couple of hours in light, shifty winds and the father was happy with how his son handled the jib, lifted the centreboard and got the pole out when they went downwind.
The former Napier Intermediate pupil, who has been sailing since he was 8, is adept in controlling a Starling class single-person boat.
The following weekend he will compete in the Starling class at the North Island Championship in Wellington.
Rob, who usually sails in the OK Dinghy class, says the skills are transferable between classes.
While he and Hans had given the youngster a taste of sailing, most of the formal training was a credit to the various club mentors Noah had received coaching from via various programmes from numerous classes, and what he had gleaned from competing at other regattas.
However, Noah came into the Windsong equation for the Hartley 16 when crew member Adrian Coulthard broke his collarbone after falling off his mountainbike.
But Coulthard's loss is Noah's gain and the youngster should thrive in the easterly breezes as a lightweight.
While no love will be lost between Hans and Rob on the water, the latter is quick to acknowledge his love for sailing and how instrumental the elder Hengst has been in fuelling that passion.
A club member gifted Windsong to Hans two years ago so the retired builder turned it into a winter project, patiently and laboriously modifying the 16-footer (4.8m) vessel into a racing breed.
"He took 150 kilos of weight out of it," says Rob of his father, who is a life member of the club and tends to volunteer his time repairing junior members' boats free of charge.
Born in the Netherlands, Hans built a little dinghy as a teenager (not long after WWII) and taught himself how to sail.
"In the 1950s there was a mass exodus of Europeans so for £10 he came over to New Zealand and worked in Wellington," says Rob, before moving to Hawke's Bay.
As a father, Hans built his children a boat when they were 5 years old and taught them the art of sailing before buying a Hartley 16 for himself.
"I actually crewed for him at his very first nationals when I was 13 years old," says a laughing Rob, revealing his father never won a nationals title.
However, Rob has finished runner-up and third in his four outings at the nationals.
His mother, Mary, wasn't into sailing but was a staunch supporter from afar.
It's a starkly different story with Rob's partner, Emma Steiner, though.
"She's going to be on the start boat of our race course," he says.
Steiner is a national champion, claiming the Hartley 16 bragging rights with Napier club mate Chris Reid at the championship in New Plymouth in 2008.
Napier club commodore Paul Redman says it was the first time in 30 years the the club hadn't hosted a New Year's Regatta at the waterfront.
"I guess it's a sign of times with so many family things going on nowadays," says Redman, emphasising the regatta in November has replaced the New Year one.
He says the Hartley 16 will be the biggest class at the nationals with 25 boats vying for the crown.
