The last time Warwick Sherman tackled the Sydney to Hobart race in 2012, the experienced sailor had spent the better part of the year fighting a rare form of cancer.
Another challenge: Occasional Course Language Too skipper Warwick Sherman. Photo: Dallas Kilponen
But when the 60-year-old skipper and owner of Occasional Coarse Language Too returns to Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day, the race will not simply be a "bucket list" challenge to be conquered. This time, Sherman said, it is about unfinished business.
"I'm far more prepared physically no question than I was last time. It's about proving to myself that I can do it," he said.
Sherman said his approach to the race had also changed.
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"I think I have a bit more respect for it," he said. "Now I want to do it and I want to be alive at the end of it, whereas last time I didn't care."
Skippering "mostly the same crew" as last time, Sherman said their goal is to emulate their division-winning performance in 2012, but he concedes it will be difficult.
"It's going to be positive from the fact that I'm well enough to do the whole thing, but it might be a bit anti-climatic if we don't do that well."
Sherman also hints that his crew, whom he says he "trusts implicitly" is a fundamental part of his decision to take on the challenge again.
"I don't think in any way I let the crew down or myself down [last time], I just feel as though there is some unfinished business."
Diagnosed in July 2010 with a rare form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, Sherman heeded his doctor's advice to defer treatment for as long as possible. The decision meant he "lived under the Sword of Damocles for another 16 months" until his body gave out in late 2011.
"The time had come because my spleen got huge, and my body was working overtime to fight the lymphoma," he said.
With barely five months recuperation under his belt, following a gruelling six months of chemotherapy, a stem-cell transplant, and two weeks of isolation in hospital, Sherman conquered the 630-nautical-mile race with his crew in 2012.
"Hobart was not one of those mountains I ever wanted to climb, but once addressed with mortality I think you look around and say 'bugger it, let's do it'.
"The doctors said I was mad to do it," he said, and admittedly, the toll on his body was noticeable.
"I did find after the first 36 hours I got really tired."
While the 2012 campaign was a "real journey mentally", Sherman believes a different sense of satisfaction awaits him when Occasional Coarse Language Too crosses the finish line this time around.
"You're not always going to win, but I think the value in having done it supersedes all that."