When Serena Woodall returned to New Zealand late last year, she had only intended to be home for three weeks.

Woodall, 24, made the trip back to New Zealand from Europe to take part in a three-week-long internship with Emirates Team New Zealand in November as a prospect for their Women’s America’s Cup group.

The sailor from Waiheke Island was among those brought back to continue their trial in January, before getting a chance to sail in an AC40 foiling monohull in February.

Now, Woodall is part of the wider group for the Team NZ America’s Cup team and will race in the team’s second boat this weekend in the first preliminary regatta in Cagliari, Italy.

“I initially just came back for three weeks for the first internship and then kind of never left,” she tells the Herald.

“It was cool to get a good summer in at home. It’s been probably four or five years since I’ve spent that long in New Zealand in one go. So yeah, really special to be back home for a while, but also nice to get back into the Europe summer and the Europe racing scene over here at the moment.”

For the past two years, Woodall has been living in Mallorca, Spain, working on a J-Class yacht. It was a necessary move as she sought more opportunities in the sport.

“To be based there, I had to get a fulltime job, so I started working on a J-Class, which is a much bigger boat. We raced on those with 30 crew and yeah, obviously a completely different style of racing, but I think the teamwork that goes on in one of those boats when the loads are so big and there’s so many people on board and so many moving parts, working in a team of that size was super cool and I think definitely taught me some key fundamental skills that I could bring into this campaign,” she said.

“It’s been super cool and quite a cool crossover.”

Stepping on to the Team NZ AC40 in a trimming role is the latest step in a varied sailing career for Woodall, who did not enter the sport through the traditional Olympic classes.

Instead, she went into the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron’s youth training programme for three years, where she said the main focus was match racing and “bigger-boat sailing”.

From there, she moved into competing in the Women’s Match Racing World Tour as part of the 2.0 Racing and Edge Women’s Match teams.

Looking to broaden her horizons in foiling classes, Woodall has sailed in the 69F series, a class of three-person foiling monohulls, and the ETF26 series, which is contested on foiling catamarans.

“With having the Women’s and the Youth America’s Cup, it kind of just opens up that other pathway and you know, there is something else to the sport at such a high level that’s not the Olympic pathway and you can kind of make it your own and how you get there,” she said.

“It’s definitely a really cool opportunity for young people coming up. There’s something else to strive for and something else to aim for.”

Woodall was informed by Team NZ Cup veteran Andy Maloney that she would be sailing on the team’s second AC40 in Cagliari, in a crew that included Erica Dawson and Jake Pye in the helming roles and Josh Armit in the other trimming position.

At 24, Woodall is eligible to sail in the Youth, Women’s and main America’s Cup regattas, and she said this weekend’s event was a good chance to perform in a race setting.

“We’re here to do as well as we can. [There’s] definitely a big underdog mentality going on with our team I think, but it’ll be awesome to get out there racing with other boats and yeah, looking forward to see how we go.

“Obviously, it would be epic to get a good result here, but aside from that, I think the learning that we’re going to get from this event, A, from time on the water and then B, time on the water in a bigger fleet and in a fleet with the sailors of such calibre.

“The learning is just going to be awesome and I think we’ll be able to take that forward through the rest of this campaign, whether that’s into the Youth America’s Cup or into the Women’s America’s Cup, and really try to share our learnings with the wider group going forward and create some key pieces of information that we can take out throughout the campaign.”

America’s Cup preliminary regatta

Cagliari, Sardinia. May 22-26 from 1am (NZT).

Friday: Practice racing.

Saturday: Up to three fleet races.

Sunday: Up to three fleet races.

Monday: Up to two fleet races and the final two-boat match race.

Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.