The sisters, who are from New Zealand, will be competing for their country in the two person dinghy event and they believe having the championships at home gives them a certain level of comfort.

"It's awesome to have the Youth Worlds here in New Zealand," said Courtney.

"Especially as it's my first Youth Worlds, it's nice not to have to journey anywhere. It's all familiar surroundings.”

Offering tough competition for the home duo will be Poland's Julia Szmit and Hanna Dzik who are returning to the championships to defend the title they won in Langkawi in Malaysia last year.

The Polish champions also finished a strong fifth at the 420 World Championships in San Remo in Italy in July.

At those same championships the French team of Violette Dorange and Camille Orion finished fourth in the under-17 section and will be contenders to grab a podium position this week.

Boys competing this week also enjoyed some success at the 420 championships where the United States' Wiley Rogers and Jack Parkin claimed a silver medal in the Open section while Spain's Luján brothers Enrique and Pablo, finished fourth.

Brazil were silver medallists at last year's Youth championships and Gustavo Abdulklech and Pietro Geronimi will be looking to elevate their country to the next level.

Meanwhile in the laser radial, the girl's fleet will boast three Rio 2016 Olympic competitors who will feel that experience can guide them to the podium this week.

Uruguay's Olympic flagbearer Dolores Moreira Fraschini and Malaysia's Nur Shazrin Mohamed Latif represented their countries at the summer Games and so did last year's Youth world champion, Hungary's Maria Erdi.

There will be a new champion in the boy's section as Australia's Alistair Young is now too old to compete in this event, paving the way for New Zealand's George Gautrey and Great Britain's Daniel Whiteley to improve upon their respective silver and bronze medals they won in 2015.

World Sailing awarded the championships to Auckland following the withdrawal of Oman.

A new host was required after Oman's sudden withdrawal in February -  with speculation suggesting the country could not meet new criteria designed to prevent discrimination.

This was brought in after the 2015 Youth Sailing World Championships in Malaysia were overshadowed by controversy when Israeli windsurfers Yoav Omer and Noy Drihan were unable to compete in Langkwai.

The country withdrew from the event in the Islamic nation after a crackdown which included the refusal of visas and a demand that they could not compete under their flag.

They also claimed to have been banned from displaying any Israeli symbol or logo on their surfboards or clothes, while it was said their national anthem would not be played in the event of a gold medal.

World Sailing condemned the events as "unacceptable" and introduced new rules which obliged host countries to guarantee that all competitors from all countries could compete equally.

It was thought that these regulations could not be met by the Oman Sailing Committee.

Action is set to take place this week across nine categories.

Men and women divisions will also take place in the 29er class and RS:X division as well as a mixed Nacra 15 competition.

Racing officially begins on Friday (December 16) and concludes on Tuesday (December 20) with a Closing Ceremony.