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 everything started in Sydney this weekend and 6 years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees an intense future for the ingenious global sailing league.


An Olympic champ and skipper of three Americas Cup-winning boats, Coutts coordinated with Larry Ellison, the billionaire creator of the Oracle software application company, to release the series with six groups all owned by the league.


While the inaugural season which kicked off 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 object to on the 2025-26 schedule.


"It's simply fantastic, in fact, the uptake and variety 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 somewhere around 20. If you compare that to Formula One that has 24, that's sort of where we desire to get to. So yeah, the future appearances great."


The concept 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 push the F50 hindering catamarans to their limitations at what are spectacular speeds for waterborne vessels.


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


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


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


"I believe you'll see numerous of our events this year now like that, maybe even topping that," said Coutts, a 62-year-old New Zealander.


"The most essential thing is the fans seeing on broadcast ... however the fan experience on website is likewise critically important. We desire fans to come and have a fun time and see some great racing."


Technological innovation is essential to SailGP and numerous countless data points are passed on from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for making use of race organisers, imoodle.win groups and fishtanklive.wiki to assist broadcasters enhance the audience experience.


360 DEGREE VIEW


Coutts is delighted about some more coming online as Artificial Intelligence is increasingly employed to work through the mountain of information.


"The big development 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 in addition to the Australian group in a race, and have the ability to look around any place they desire. That's the future."


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


A shortage of F50s meant the French group was unable to compete at this year's season-opening race in Dubai and systemcheck-wiki.de 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 pleasing elements for Coutts is that all however one of the teams are, or quickly will be, privately owned or run.


"These teams are now costing $50 million, I would never ever have forecasted that this early on," 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 set up, that team owners would be able to trade their groups and hopefully generate income out of it, however I didn't think we 'd attain it this early. That's been a great surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, modifying by Michael Perry)