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By Nick Mulvenney


SYDNEY, hikvisiondb.webcam Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP go back to where all of it started in Sydney this weekend and 6 years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees a brilliant future for the ingenious global sailing league.


An Olympic champ and skipper of 3 Americas Cup-winning boats, Coutts partnered with Larry Ellison, the billionaire creator of the Oracle software application business, to launch the series with 6 teams all owned by the league.


While the inaugural season which began in Sydney in February 2019 included simply five rounds, this weekend's race will be the third round of 13 the now 12-strong fleet will object to on the 2025-26 schedule.


"It's just amazing, actually, the uptake and variety of occasions now," SailGP chief executive Coutts told Reuters at the Sydney Opera House on Friday.


"We're certainly sitting at 13, and aiming to increase that over the next seasons to somewhere around 20. If you compare that to Formula One that has 24, that's sort of where we wish to get to. So yeah, the future looks excellent."


The idea of Formula One on water is implicit in the league's name and the comparison is not far from the mark when the world's finest sailors push the F50 foiling catamarans to their limitations at what are awesome speeds for waterborne vessels.


"We didn't set out to just attract the avid sailing fan, we try to make this sport reasonable and explainable for all sports fans," Coutts added.


"The majority of our fans are not devoted sailors, which's one of the factors why we've grown so quickly. We are interesting individuals that much like watching a race, they don't need to comprehend anything about sailboats."


A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans turned out to view Tom Slingsby's Australia group win the second round of the series in Auckland last month.


"I think you'll see several of our events this year now like that, maybe even topping that," said Coutts, larsaluarna.se a 62-year-old New Zealander.


"The most crucial thing is the fans watching on broadcast ... however the fan experience on site is also essential. We desire fans to come and have a good time and see some great racing."


Technological innovation is integral to SailGP and hundreds of thousands of information points are passed on from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for making use of race organisers, groups and to help broadcasters improve the viewer experience.


360 DEGREE VIEW


Coutts is thrilled about some more developments coming online as Artificial Intelligence is progressively used to resolve the mountain of data.


"The huge development for us moving forward is the 360 degree view from on board the boat, with listening to the group comms," he said.


"The viewer will be taken on board and trip along with the Australian team in a race, and be able to browse any place they desire. That's the future."


There have, of course, been difficulties over the 6 years with the second season disrupted by the COVID pandemic and race days still sometimes at the mercy of wind conditions.


A shortage of F50s implied the French team was unable to contend at this year's season-opening race in Dubai and damage to the boat once they got it ruled them out of the Auckland leg.


The complete fleet of 12 boats will therefore race for the very first time this weekend and bphomesteading.com among the most pleasing aspects for Coutts is that all but among the teams are, or quickly will be, independently owned or run.


"These teams are now costing $50 million, I would never ever have actually predicted that this early," said Coutts, who plans to bring another number of teams on board next year.


"We understood that that was the entire method the model was established, that group owners would have the ability to trade their groups and hopefully generate income out of it, however I didn't think we 'd attain it this early. That's been a great surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, modifying by Michael Perry)