In her sixth opti nationals, the daughter of sailing coach Guy and design manager Jane Pilkington prefers not to check her results each day in the single-handed dinghy component of the regatta.
"I don't like to get all wound up. You don't want to focus on others in front but yourself," said Pilkington who will take stock on the final day tomorrow of the five-day champs that Napier Sailing Club is hosting.
She was the best female in last year's regatta and second overall one year when it was an all-girls' regatta.
Pilkington is sold on sailing and her seafaring parents had told her she was in a vessel from the time she was 6 weeks old.
An Australian national representative team, racing under the banner of Ersplat, finish second and Tauranga 1 were third in the teams' race yesterday.
Regatta administrator Rose Mannering said 22 teams competed in a new format, adopting a Swiss system.
"In the old [format] when a couple of teams were knocked out they just went home," Mannering said.
She said this year the round-robin system gave the organisers a bit of a mathematical headache but kept everyone in the competition until the end.
Murrays Bay SC No 1, who had four other teams at the starting line yesterday, won all of the seven races, bar one of the best-of-three finals, where they had to settle for runners-up.
Coach Susannah Pyatt said they communicated pretty much on the same page with their tactics.
Pyatt said she had been working with the Murrays Bay squad for the past six months but had been coaching at the club for the past 12 years.
The 26-year-old England-born sailor, who represented New Zealand in the 2012 London Olympics in the Elliott 6m class with Stephanie Hazard and Jenna Hansen, went to the Rio Olympics last year but assumed the mantle of coach of St Lucia, an island nation in the Caribbean.
She said the club was lucky it had a few pedigree sailors coming through the America's Cup and as Olympians and that had worked as a catalyst to build numbers.
"At the moment we're just teaching kids grassroot skills to keep them in the sport for life."
For someone who has been through the spin-dry cycle of optimist racing all the way to the giddy heights of Olympics, she said while the children's class was the sandpit of sailing it was significant to keep an eye on the future.
"I use my experience to teach them how to think for themselves and make decisions for themselves rather than give them all the answers right now."
Winning, she said, was a bonus but it also was about learning life skills, including building rapport with people.
"Today they were not racing for themselves but for the team so it was a lot about working together and communicating and not just being in there for themselves."
Pyatt said taking a collective attitude to the water put demands on different tactics as well as recognising each others strengths and weaknesses to ensure everyone crossed the line together.
What she had seen so far from her squad pleased Pyatt who said there were some names in there to look out for in the future.
"The winning team today was the most experienced one but there are some younger ones in the squad who you'll see, in a few years, right on top as well."
Today the individual class resumes with races 7-9 and Menzies setting a cracking pace.
