A hearty bowl of cereal, check. A good night's sleep, check. Perfect conditions, check.

Tauranga paddler Tim Taylor is hoping these favoured routines will hold him in good stead as he sets off on his attempt to break a 29-year-old solo kayak record.

Tim Taylor takes off from Pilot Bay on his 24-hour paddling record attempt. Photos: Tracy Hardy.

At 8am this morning, Tim set off from Mount Maunganui's Pilot Bay for a return trip to Coromandel's Opito Bay in an intended 220km solo mission.

The 24-hour paddle is an attempt to eclipse the current world record of 194.1 km set by Randy Fine in 1986.

'I'm feeling pretty excited, and a little bit nervous. All of the above,” says Tim, speaking to SunLive from Pilot Bay.

'I got a real good sleep, I ate tonnes yesterday so all I wanted to do was zone out at night.”

There was a late change of start line for the solo kayak attempt due to a spate of variable weather, with south-westerly and westerly winds replacing his preferred north-easterlies.

Tim's revised plan is to paddle as far as Opito Bay on the Coromandel, then turn around and paddle back to the Mount. The original plan was to paddle from Omaha Beach in Auckland to Pilot Bay.

By heading north, he hopes to take advantage the south-west winds that are forecast, paddling through the night and hopefully returning to Tauranga 24-hours later.

Tim makes some last-minute alterations before setting off.

And he couldn't have asked to be greeted with better conditions for the record attempt.

'We have a nice little south-east breeze,” he says. 'It's currently 10 knots, so that's real good for us. It will be slightly behind me and hopefully that will push me up the coast.

'Tonight its talking five knot variable winds so basically its flat and that's as good as I could have asked for.”

This morning he will sit about 5-10km off the coast before hugging the coastline on the return leg tonight.

Throughout the attempt, Tim will be followed by support boat the ‘Klingon' - a 13.2 metre charter boat based in Tauranga that will shepherd Tim for the entire journey to ensure he is well fed and kept safe during the night.

There will be eight supporters and witnesses on board, including his mother and sister, and their job is to accurately record Tim's progress and share it on Facebook, via: www.facebook.com/24hrkayak

Tim's progress can be followed during the attempt via the SPOT tracker on his kayak. It links to a Google map and sends a signal roughly every 20 minutes.