Sailing-Bigger And Faster SailGP Back Where Everything Began In Sydney

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By Nick Mulvenney


SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP returns 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 global sailing league.


An Olympic champ and skipper of three Americas Cup-winning boats, Coutts partnered with Larry Ellison, annunciogratis.net the billionaire founder of the Oracle software business, visualchemy.gallery to launch the series with 6 teams all owned by the league.


While the inaugural season which began in Sydney in February 2019 featured just 5 rounds, 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 variety of occasions 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 appearances excellent."


The idea of Formula One on water is implicit in the league's name and wiki.lafabriquedelalogistique.fr the contrast is not far from the mark when the world's finest sailors press the F50 hindering catamarans to their limits at what are awesome speeds for waterborne vessels.


"We didn't set out to simply interest the passionate sailing fan, we attempt 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 reasons why we have actually grown so rapidly. We are interesting individuals that simply like viewing a race, they do not need to comprehend anything about sailboats."


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


"I think you'll see numerous of our occasions 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 site is likewise essential. We desire fans to come and have a fun time and see some terrific racing."


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


360 DEGREE VIEW


Coutts is excited about some more developments coming online as Artificial Intelligence is significantly utilized to overcome 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 audience will be taken on board and trip together with the Australian group in a race, and have the ability to browse anywhere they desire. That's the future."


There have, of course, been challenges over the six years with the 2nd season interfered with by the COVID pandemic and race days still sometimes at the mercy of wind conditions.


A shortage of F50s indicated the French team was not able 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 full fleet of 12 boats will therefore race for the very first time this weekend and among the most pleasing aspects for Coutts is that all but among the teams are, or soon will be, privately owned or run.


"These groups are now costing $50 million, I would never have anticipated that this early," said Coutts, who to bring another couple of groups on board next year.


"We understood that that was the whole way the design was set up, that team owners would have the ability to trade their groups and hopefully 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, editing by Michael Perry)