The traditionally three-day event has been reduced to a two-day one with considerably fewer entries and devoid of elite classes.
Rear commodore and event organiser Paul Redman has revealed visiting competitors are conspicuous in their absence.
"For the time in around 60 years we thought we won't be holding a regatta here," Redman said of an event that boasted a Mecca-like status for an army of seafarers not only from around the country but overseas competitors as well.
Primarily a series of club committee meetings have reached a conclusion that "people are so busy in their lives these days".
Muller is the kind of person who will go out on a limb to help a worthy cause.
Not surprisingly when she heard of the Napier club's plight she decided to make a difference and has been steering her boats on the Ahuriri waterfront for the past three years.
Although she hails from Northland and belongs to the Opua Cruising Club, the yachtswoman who deals in dietary supplements is flying the flag of the Horowhenua Sailing Club in Levin.
Muller is helping the Levin club whose members are unable to sail on the Lake Horowhenua after an activist's actions that have seen the impasse addressed in the courtrooms.
However, do not mistake Muller's placid demeanour for someone who simply produces infectious smiles on the race course.
She yesterday won both the races in the Europe class although the field was reduced to six due to the gusty nor'wester that prompted race officials to postpone two races to today when five of them will be staged.
"In sailing if you don't feel safe then you don't go out," explains the New Zealand representative who competed in Italy in 2011 and Denmark last year in the Europe class.
Conversely, Muller thoroughly enjoyed herself in yesterday's turbulent conditions after a delayed start at 1.30pm.
"It was very windy - my sort of wind," she explained with a laugh, adding her heavier weight gave her an advantage over lighter sailors.
Today, of course, with light winds forecast in the morning she expects to be put to the test.
The 2013 Europe class national champion, who clinched the title between Lyttelton and Akaroa in Christchurch, said in the first Napier race yesterday she was behind leader Moritz Brueckner, of Germany, but his dinghy's rudder broke and she got a sniff of victory.
Brueckner, incidentally, will be back in the hunt today after someone offered him a replacement rudder.
"It's a great class and you make good friends.
"On the water we have a great competition but off it we help each other out," she said, revealing she had also capsized once yesterday.
Muller says the single-handed Europe class was an Olympic class for women sailors until early year 2000.
"It's still an international class but it's just not in the Olympics anymore."
In many respects, she likes to think it's "not quite my type of sailing" although she has been honing her skills since she was 15 in Germany.
"I love sailing and cruising for pleasure and competitiveness but it is also something I do in my free time."
To aspire to be an Olympian, she said, required sailors to commit to the cause as it were a fulltime occupation.
Besides, she looked around at the talent in the country and the collective nautical nous to quickly realise her talent to make it to the Olympic level "is not quite there".
"I thought about it but I didn't think I'm that talented."
Her partner, David Brown, of Palmerston North, is also a competitor in the Europe class and is sitting in second place going into today's races.
How does that sit with Brown?
"He's really good. I actually take tips off him. The funny thing is we both race in the javelin [skiff] class, too, so he normally wins in that."
Muller is the 2010 national champion in the two-person javelin class, sharing the tile with Aucklander Craig Gilbert.
It's the "fault" of her parents, (father) Gerd and Hildegard, that she fell in love with New Zealand and returned with a friend to learn English before staying here.
With a great command of English, she has found affinity with her adopted country, its waters and seafaring population.
"England is too cold. So is Canada," she explained, claiming Germany's also frigid.
"America's, well, full of Americans and Australia is full of bikies and things that bites such as sharks, crocodiles and spiders," she said, adding Auckland was an ideal spot as the City of Sails for water-loving sports people.
"Hey, Dean Barker [America's Cup skipper] comes from there."
Nevertheless, Muller's father, who just turned 85 years old, had lived along River Weser in his hometown of Brake so he had already realised the benefits of sailing.
Consequently a healthy dose of that rubbed on to her.
"He cruised with the club there and had his own boats and also sailed with his friends and brothers over the years," she said, adding he still does it today in the North Sea.
Antje Muller used to pull her rubber duck as a teenager.
Incidentally she left that behind and adopted a new one here 12 years ago although she hasn't christened it with a name yet.
However, she's thinking of naming it "Duck".
In the Europe class boats, the boom sits quite low so there's always a permanent danger of it clipping a sailor's head when it swings to spread the sails the mast keeps upright.
"Ducking is a very important part of sailing in that class so I was talking to someone the other day and thought why not call my duck that," Muller said, adding when a sailor takes a hit on the head for 100 times he or she tends to lose count of how many king hits they have taken in their sailing career.
The forecast today is again for wind gusts.
