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1 Sailing Bigger and Faster, SailGP Back where all of it Began In Sydney

By Nick Mulvenney

SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP go back to where it all started in Sydney this weekend and 6 years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees a bright 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 founder of the Oracle software application company, to launch the series with six teams all owned by the league.

While the inaugural season which started in Sydney in February 2019 featured simply five rounds, this weekend's race will be the 3rd round of 13 the now 12-strong fleet will on the 2025-26 schedule.

"It's simply remarkable, 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 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 great."

The idea 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 limitations at what are spectacular speeds for waterborne vessels.

"We didn't set out to just interest the devoted sailing fan, we try to make this sport easy to understand and explainable for all sports fans," Coutts included.

"Most of our fans are not avid sailors, and that is among the reasons we have actually grown so rapidly. We are attracting people that just like enjoying a race, they don't need to comprehend anything about sailboats."

A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans turned out to enjoy 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 essential thing is the fans watching on broadcast ... however the fan experience on website is also vitally crucial. We desire fans to come and have a terrific time and see some excellent racing."

Technological development is essential to SailGP and hundreds of countless information points are relayed from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for making use of race organisers, groups and to help broadcasters improve the audience experience.

360 DEGREE VIEW

Coutts is thrilled about some more developments coming online as Artificial Intelligence is increasingly 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 team comms," he said.

"The audience will be taken on board and trip together with the Australian group in a race, and have the ability to browse wherever they desire. That's the future."

There have, obviously, been obstacles over the six years with the second season disrupted by the COVID pandemic and race days still often at the grace of wind conditions.

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

The full fleet of 12 boats will for tandme.co.uk that reason race for the very first time this weekend and one of the most pleasing aspects for Coutts is that all but one of the groups are, or quickly will be, independently owned or run.

"These groups are now selling for $50 million, I would never ever have forecasted that this at an early stage," said Coutts, who prepares to bring another number of teams on board next year.

"We knew that that was the entire way the model was set up, that group owners would have the ability to trade their groups and hopefully earn money out of it, but I didn't think we 'd attain it this early. That's been a great surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Michael Perry)