kasaranitechnical

By Nick Mulvenney

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

An Olympic champion and skipper of three Americas Cup-winning boats, Coutts teamed up with Larry Ellison, the billionaire creator of the Oracle software company, to the series with six teams all owned by the league.

While the inaugural season which started in Sydney in February 2019 included just 5 rounds, this weekend's race will be the third round of 13 the now 12-strong fleet will contest on the 2025-26 schedule.

"It's simply incredible, in fact, the uptake and variety of events 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 appearances 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 best sailors press the F50 hindering catamarans to their limitations at what are awesome speeds for waterborne vessels.

"We didn't set out to simply appeal to the passionate sailing fan, we try to make this sport understandable and explainable for all sports fans," Coutts included.

"The majority of our fans are not passionate sailors, and that is among the reasons that we have actually grown so quickly. We are appealing to individuals that much like viewing a race, they do not have to understand anything about sailboats."

A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans turned out to watch Tom Slingsby's Australia group win the 2nd round of the series in Auckland last month.

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

"The most important thing is the fans enjoying on broadcast ... but the fan experience on site is also vitally important. We desire fans to come and have a fantastic time and see some excellent racing."

Technological development is essential to SailGP and numerous thousands of data points are communicated from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for the 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 utilized to work through the mountain of information.

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

"The audience will be taken on board and ride together with the Australian team in a race, and be able to take a look around any place they desire. That's the future."

There have, obviously, been obstacles over the six years with the 2nd season disrupted by the COVID pandemic and race days still often at the grace of wind conditions.

A scarcity of F50s suggested 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 therefore race for the first time this weekend and among the most pleasing elements for Coutts is that all however one of the groups are, or quickly will be, independently owned or run.

"These groups are now offering for $50 million, I would never ever have actually anticipated that this at an early stage," said Coutts, tandme.co.uk who prepares to bring another number of groups on board next year.

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