According to Cairns it will test a range of paddling skills and endurance.
"The top crews will likely be Tahiti, Hawaii and Australia. We're just looking to put our best race out there and test ourselves against the top teams. Waka in Tahiti is like what rugby is to New Zealand so it's a huge event with over 25 countries represented and the course has been set out as the loop course with spectators and television coverarge at the fore," Cairns explained.
With her teammates scattered throughout the North Island - Wellington, Tauranga, Rotorua, Whakatane and Gisborne - and a mix of working mothers and shift workers Cairns said getting together for training camps has been hard.
"We have managed six camps together in Auckland, Taupo, Napier, Tauranga and Wellington to try and gel and sort combinations to maximise the strengths each of us bring to the waka."
While representing New Zealand in this code has been a goal she hadn't planned on it being at these worlds and was approached late in the campaign.
"I thought it would be a good thing to race for and get some good mileage in over the winter. It's been a big change in approach for me, the obvious being the change in being in a crew as opposed to racing alone in a kayak, as well as switching from training for a 200m or 500m race to a 30km one. I've been doing some big weeks of endurance training putting in 100-130km a week to condition for the long racing."
As this is the first year post-Olympics Cairns is taking the opportunity to do other forms of paddling before returning to the K1 sprints next year with the aim of qualifying for Tokyo.
The 2016 New Zealand Fire Service Sportsperson of the Year is appreciative of the service for allowing her time off work to attend international events.
In October she will travel to Japan for the World Rafting Championships with the New Zealand Open Women's team in that code.
It has been a busy six months for Cairns, particularly crazy during a three-week period from late February when she raced across four different disciplines throughout the country.
At the New Zealand Sprint Kayak Nationals at Lake Karapiro she finished eighth in the K1 200m A final and won the K4 200m title with Lisa Carrington, Jaimee Lovett and Rachel Clarke.
The following day she raced at the Takapuna Cup, New Zealand's biggest ocean waka ama race and won the open women's title with Hawke's Bay's Haeata Ocean Sports crew the Manuz and Jemimaz.
The following week Cairns was at the New Zealand Rafting Championships in Murchison where her team won the overall national title to qualify for Japan.
A week later she was at the national surf life saving championships in Christchurch competing for Ocean Beach Kiwi and winning bronze in the open women's surf canoe and in the open mixed double surf ski event with Scott Bicknell.
Two weeks later she competed at the World Masters Games in surf life saving, ocean ski racing and flatwater kayaking winning 16 golds and one silver.
Already Cairns has to rank among the hot favourites for the masters award at the 2018 Hawke's Bay Sportsperson of the Year Awards function.
Fellow Bay paddlers Roni Nuku and Kaye Ross will be competing in the New Zealand masters women's over-40 crew in Tahiti.
Nuku will also coach a six-person New Zealand adaptive crew which includes two Bay paddlers, Peter Cowan and AJ McDonald. It will be managed by Hawke's Bay's Honoria Ropiha.
Nuku's husband Maika Nuku will coach the Kiwi open men's and masters crews. Bay couple Ian and Herora Hosford are managing both of these crews.
