By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP go back to where it all began in Sydney this weekend and 6 years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees an intense future for setiathome.berkeley.edu the innovative worldwide sailing league.
An Olympic champ and skipper of three Americas Cup-winning boats, Coutts coordinated with Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of the Oracle software application company, to introduce the series with 6 teams all owned by the league.
While the inaugural season which started 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 simply remarkable, actually, the uptake and variety of events now," SailGP president 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 good."
The concept of Formula One on water is implicit in the league's name and the contrast is not far from the mark when the world's best sailors press the F50 hindering catamarans to their limits at what are breathtaking speeds for waterborne vessels.
"We didn't set out to simply attract the avid sailing fan, we try to make this sport understandable and explainable for all sports fans," Coutts added.
"The majority of our fans are not passionate sailors, which's one of the reasons we've grown so quickly. We are attracting individuals that much like viewing a race, they don't need to comprehend anything about sailboats."
A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans turned out to watch Tom Slingsby's Australia group win the second round of the series in Auckland last month.
"I believe you'll see several of our events this year now like that, perhaps even topping that," said Coutts, a 62-year-old New Zealander.
"The most crucial thing is the fans seeing on broadcast ... however the fan experience on site is likewise vitally essential. We desire fans to come and have a fun time and see some excellent racing."
Technological development is important to SailGP and hundreds of thousands of data points are passed on from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for the usage of race organisers, groups and to assist broadcasters enhance the viewer experience.
360 DEGREE VIEW
Coutts is delighted about some more innovations coming online as Artificial Intelligence is significantly utilized to resolve the mountain of information.
"The big advancement for us moving forward is the 360 degree view from on board the boat, with listening to the team comms," he said.
"The viewer will be taken on board and ride along with the Australian group in a race, and be able to browse anywhere they desire. That's the future."
There have, naturally, it-viking.ch been challenges over the six years with the second season interfered with by the COVID pandemic and race days still sometimes at the mercy of wind conditions.
A shortage of F50s meant the French group was unable to complete 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 for that reason race for the very first time this weekend and one of the most for yewiki.org Coutts is that all but one of the teams are, or soon will be, independently owned or run.
"These groups are now selling for $50 million, I would never ever have anticipated that this at an early stage," said Coutts, who prepares to bring another number of groups on board next year.
"We understood that that was the entire method the design was set up, that group owners would be able to trade their teams and hopefully make money out of it, but I didn't believe we 'd attain it this early. That's been a great surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, modifying by Michael Perry)
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Sailing Bigger and Faster, SailGP Back where everything Began In Sydney
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