The women’s crew joined forces with Sydney’s Long Reef after each team could only fill four of the eight paddlers required.

One member of Moruya rowed the Bass many years ago and has returned for another while the other rowers have been rowing for a couple of years in sprint series.

Coach Bert Hunt said the 190-kilometre marathon had been a goal for some time and that the crew was pleased with its preparation.

“The girls are very enthusiastic,” Bert said.

“They went to Sydney and trained with (Long Reef) and they are excited to be able to row with them so they’re looking forward to it.”

The crew’s confidence will be boosted after Moruya made the semi-finals of a sprint event at North Cronulla last week.

“It was a big step up from the year before, so they are coming together really nicely as a crew,” Bert said.

“I think their expectations would be that they want to enjoy it and secondly, do the best they can.

“If they can give a good account of themselves and be towards the front of the fleet they will be more than happy.”

Like many other boaties, the crew has a fixed gaze on the forecast for next week and was wary of challenging conditions.

“The interesting thing is the weather forecast is not good. There is some pretty big surf forecast for the first three or four days of the Bass and it will be interesting to see how that pans out, particularly on the Tuross leg because that is a nasty beach at the best of times,” Bert said.

Despite a slightly “disjointed” preparation, the Canberra-based Moruya Vikings crew hoped to be at the “pointy end” of the men’s open division.

Sweep Gavin Hunt enters his ninth Bass and half of the rowers have completed the marathon previously with five of the paddlers from Canberra and three from the South Coast.

“Six of the eight have had a really solid preparation and two of the guys are relatively new, but they are experienced rowers so they’ll do the job,” Gavin said.

He said the newcomers had received guidance from team’s veterans about to what expect from the gruelling race.

“The new guys are going in with no doubt about what is in front of them,” he said.

“It is a matter now of how they handle it.

You won’t know how people handle it until they get into their first one.”

The Vikings will wait to see how the race unfolds before it adjusts expectations as conditions can change quickly on the ocean.

“The real difficulty is the great unknown of one, what the conditions are going to bring and two, what the other crews are going to do,” he said.

“You find out mid-way through the first leg how your week will unfold for you.”

The race starts in Batemans Bay on January 3.