The crew of new Sydney to Hobart yacht Ichi Ban faced a hectic end to Christmas Day after the arrival of its new rudder from Malaysia was delayed for several hours because of security issues.

The rudder, which was required to replace one damaged last weekend was originally scheduled to arrive in Sydney on Wednesday morning.

However, it wasn't cleared by Malaysian customs officials in time to make the scheduled flight.

The vital piece was finally cleared and put on a later flight which arrived in Sydney around 5pm.

"The rudder didn't get onto the Air Malaysian flight because of security issues. They weren't familiar with what a solid carbon stock with a carbon rudder looked like," Ichi Ban's sailing master Roger Hickman said.

"While the courier allowed two hours at the airport. There was a lot of confusion."

After collecting the rudder from Sydney Airport, Hickman dashed back to the boat where the crew faced a busy night's work on the boat to get everything ready for tomorrow's 1pm start on Sydney Harbour.

"Instead of working from 10am to 5pm, we will work from around 6pm to midnight," Hickman said "We were working from 2 o clock this morning to 10 o'clock on the bearings."

Hickman said the new rudder, which arrived 11 hours later than planned, came through customs classified as personal baggage.

It was being fixed to the yacht at a Sydney boat yard and crew members said Ichi Ban, which is Japanese for "number one", would be back in the water late on Wednesday night or early on Thursday morning.

The gold coloured 15.83m yacht is one of the newest boats in the fleet and will be contesting its first ocean race.

Infinity III, the only other boat in doubt for the start, was cleared to race after it returned to the water following two weeks of repairs to damage caused by a accident involving a Jetcat.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP