"It's a good, clean sport for kids."
Sixtus, bowman Tim Sandall, and upwind trimmer Peter Twigg co-own their 7.8m-long trailer boat, Strait Enz, with another sailor.
The trio are good mates, forging ties through their sons' involvement in sailing.
Sandall's son, James, 25, is the skipper while Twigg's son, Jamie, is the ballast.
The younger Twigg, whose sister is Olympic rower Emma, was the butt of jokes at the clubrooms for not physically shifting his weight around well enough to maintain the balance of the vessel.
"We decided to buy this boat and we've had it for two and a half years," Tim Sandall said, emphasising Peter Twigg had owned 780s before so he had initiated the move.
Sixtus has the responsibility of tweaking the vessel to ensure it goes faster.
The Ross 780s travel about 6 knots upwind and 7-12 downwind so they had too much oomph in the Napier Sailing Club's annual regatta which is trying to boost its entries to match the event's former boom years.
The senior Sandall said the conditions were good compared to the gusts on Friday.
"We have a good boat, good helmsman and good crew," he said, emphasising there were two other classy 780s in the Bay that weren't competing in the regatta.
The Strait Enz crew won seven races over the two days, three of them on Friday.
Sandall felt tying the New Year regatta with a national event would boost entries in Napier.
"In the past four or five years we've had some big regattas here but they are in other areas this year," he said, comfortable in the knowledge next year the club will host the paper tiger nationals.
He lauded race organisers and volunteers for doing a splendid job to ensure everything went smoothly.
