By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP go back to where everything began in Sydney this weekend and six years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees a bright future for the ingenious worldwide 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, wiki.die-karte-bitte.de to introduce the series with six groups all owned by the league.
While the inaugural season which began in Sydney in February 2019 included simply 5 rounds, surgiteams.com this weekend's race will be the 3rd round of 13 the now 12-strong fleet will contest on the 2025-26 schedule.
"It's just remarkable, really, the uptake and number of events now," SailGP president Coutts informed Reuters at the Sydney Opera House on Friday.
"We're certainly sitting at 13, and aiming to increase that over the next seasons to someplace 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 idea of Formula One on water is implicit in the league's name and setiathome.berkeley.edu the contrast is not far from the mark when the world's finest sailors push the F50 hindering catamarans to their limits at what are spectacular speeds for waterborne vessels.
"We didn't set out to just attract the avid sailing fan, we attempt to make this sport understandable and explainable for all sports fans," Coutts added.
"The majority of our fans are not avid sailors, which is among the factors why we've grown so quickly. We are attracting individuals that much like enjoying a race, they do not have to comprehend anything about sailboats."
A of 25,000 ticketed fans turned out to see Tom Slingsby's Australia group win the second round of the series in Auckland last month.
"I think you'll see numerous of our occasions this year now like that, maybe even topping that," said Coutts, a 62-year-old New Zealander.
"The most essential thing is the fans watching on broadcast ... however the fan experience on website is also critically important. We desire fans to come and have a fun time and see some terrific racing."
Technological development is essential to SailGP and numerous countless data points are relayed from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for the usage of race organisers, teams and to assist broadcasters enhance the audience experience.
360 DEGREE VIEW
Coutts is delighted about some more innovations coming online as Artificial Intelligence is progressively employed to work through the mountain of data.
"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 trip along with the Australian group in a race, and be able to browse any place they want. That's the future."
There have, naturally, been difficulties over the 6 years with the 2nd season disrupted by the COVID pandemic and race days still sometimes at the mercy of wind conditions.
A scarcity of F50s meant 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 full fleet of 12 boats will for that reason race for the very first time this weekend and among the most pleasing aspects for Coutts is that all however among the groups are, or soon will be, privately owned or run.
"These groups are now selling for $50 million, I would never ever have predicted that this early," said Coutts, who prepares to bring another couple of teams on board next year.
"We understood that that was the entire way the design was established, that team owners would be able to trade their groups and ideally generate income out of it, but I didn't believe we 'd attain it this early. That's been a nice surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, modifying by Michael Perry)
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Sailing Bigger and Faster, SailGP Back where all of it Began In Sydney
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