IT is quite a course Neil Hunter has charted for himself since he first set sail from Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. After Sydney and San Francisco, it is next stop New York for the 23-year-old, Scotland’s sole participant on the Sail GP series, which could be called the closest thing to Formula 1 on the waves.

Featuring catamarans capable of death-defying top speeds of 100km an hour, a home leg follows in Cowes in August before the big finale in the waters off Marseille. Once that is out the way, Hunter has the small matter of an assault on the 2021 Americas Cup in Auckland as part of team Ineos UK.

That will the Scot’s second taste of the most famous race in sailing, having been the youngest participant in the race back in 2017, living out his boyhood dreams as he shared a spot in the crew with Ben Ainslie. Born into a sailing family, you could say he had a fair wind at his back by the time his dad bought him a dinghy at the age of two.

“I was brought up around boats from a very young age,” Hunter told Herald Sport. “My mum was part of the first women’s team to sail round the world, she did the Whitbread round the world race in 89-90 and my dad is also a professional sailor, he delivers people boats and stuff.

“So it was kind of natural that I would be into sailing. I grew up around boats and obviously living in Lamlash I was always near the water.

“I couldn’t really put a finger on the first time I was in a boat, I just can’t remember not being in one,” he added. “My family had a cruising yacht from pretty much when I was born so we used to go cruising up the West Coast of Scotland, then my dad bought me a dinghy when I was two, we used to go sailing in that then when I was old enough I would go sailing in it on my own.”

As groundings go, it doesn’t get much hard core than sailing each day in the icy cold and frequently choppy waters off the west of Scotland in winter. This child prodigy has grown grateful for his tough paper round.

“I guess sailing in Scotland is winter, if that is your norm, it makes you fairly tough compared to some of the people you are competing against,” says Hunter. “It develops your sailing a lot when you are exposed to extremes like that very early in your career.

“For sure it was pretty cool to be the youngest out there in the 2017 Americas Cup, It had been a dream of mine since I was young but I guess it is every sailor’s dream to compete in the America’s Cup. Ultimately the race for us it was a bit of a disappointment, we got a few things wrong in our design and we ended up getting knocked out in the semi-finals and the qualifiers. But just to get my first Americas Cup knocked off by the age of 22 was pretty awesome, particularly when I was sailing with some of my heroes.”

In Sail GP, Hunter is what is called a grinder – a gruelling task which combines huge athleticism and extreme precision in a sport where a moment’s hesitation can have severe consequences. Like Lewis Hamilton in F1, the punishing gym regime he maintains is as full-on as you will find in any sport.

“Sail GP is a new class this year, we are sailing the fastest boats in the world, at speeds up to 100km an hour, six nations pitted against each other, five venues around the world this year,” he said. “At the end of the year, the winner takes a million dollars prize money.

“It has revolutionised the crowd side of things, with all the racing close to the shore, they have really taken it to the spectators. It is live streamed on facebook, and on the sail GP act, they are really trying to turn it into a spectator sport.

“Our expectations with the GB team for the season were to be competitive come the last race in Marseille, we have a very inexperienced team compared to others, so to be winning races in the second event is very pleasing.

“I am a grinder – which basically means trimming sails and turning handles. A huge par tof my job now is gym work, staying physically fit so two sessions a day, six days a week. It is as full on as any other athletic sport. It has gone from being a sit-down sport to having some of the top athletes in the world being needed to power these boats. I also have a bit of a more technical job, trimming the front sail.

“For sure there have been a few capsizes - in the extreme sailing series, we capsized a couple of times in Sydney. These boats are so full on, so on the edge the whole time, that sad things do happen. The potential is so high for having an absolute major all the time.

It is high end, professional stuff, a different pathway to the one which might have taken Hunter to the Olympics. “I was part of the British Olympic squad on the pathway to the Olympics with my brother in the 1400class, but when I was 18 I got offered a job by Ben Ainslie for the last Americas Cup, so at that point I had to decide what route I was going to go down,” says Hunter. “So competing at the Olympics is not something which is currently on my radar, but it could potentially come back in the future.”