Kiwi sailor Liv Mackay will make her long awaited debut with the New Zealand SailGP team on Friday in Sydney.

The regatta will be just the second event where women have been on board on race day as part of the competition's women's pathways programme.

After a season so far spent watching, waiting and working, Mackay told 1News she’s ready to spread her wings in the penultimate round of the circuit.

“It’s been a good training day yesterday,” Mackay said on Thursday.

“We only had a practice with two boats, so I can’t wait for all eight on the start line. It’ll be full on and really cool.”

The opportunity to race in Sydney comes just months after fellow teammate Erica Dawson had her debut in Spain, although their roles are very different.

“I’m the sixth sailor on board which changes with wind conditions,” she said.

“But I’ll remain sixth this weekend which means steering out of manoeuvres, helping starts and its quite full on in the harbour so helping with communications and everything.”

There's no underestimating how important Mackay's inclusion will be as the Kiwis currently sit fifth on the leaderboard out of eight teams.

Flight controller Andy Maloney said with a mathematical chance of moving into first place overall, it makes for a crucial weekend of racing down under.

“Conditions look primo for the weekend,” Maloney said.

“We're going to have 12-15 knots on day one then 15, 20-plus on day two so super exciting racing.”