Sailing-Bigger and Faster, SailGP Back where it all Began In Sydney
By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP to where all of it began in Sydney this weekend and 6 years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees an intense future for the innovative worldwide sailing league.
An Olympic champion and skipper of 3 Americas Cup-winning boats, Coutts teamed up with Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of the Oracle software application company, to release the series with 6 teams all owned by the league.
While the inaugural season which kicked off in Sydney in February 2019 included just 5 rounds, wiki.tld-wars.space 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 simply amazing, 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 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 good."
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 finest sailors press the F50 foiling catamarans to their limitations at what are spectacular speeds for waterborne vessels.
"We didn't set out to just appeal to the avid sailing fan, we try to make this sport understandable and explainable for all sports fans," Coutts added.
"The majority of our fans are not passionate sailors, and that's one of the reasons that we've grown so quickly. We are interesting individuals that much like enjoying a race, they don't have to comprehend anything about sailboats."
A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans ended up to watch Tom Slingsby's Australia team win the 2nd round of the series in Auckland last month.
"I believe 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 crucial thing is the fans viewing 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 fantastic racing."
Technological innovation is integral to SailGP and numerous thousands of data points are passed on from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for wiki.myamens.com making use of race organisers, teams and to assist broadcasters enhance the audience experience.
360 DEGREE VIEW
Coutts is excited about some more innovations coming online as Artificial Intelligence is increasingly used to work through the mountain of information.
"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 viewer will be taken on board and ride together with the Australian team in a race, and have the ability to take a look around anywhere they want. That's the future."
There have, obviously, akropolistravel.com been obstacles over the six years with the 2nd season interrupted by the COVID pandemic and race days still in some cases at the mercy of wind conditions.
A scarcity of F50s suggested the French group was unable 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 complete fleet of 12 boats will therefore race for the very first time this weekend and asteroidsathome.net among the most pleasing elements for Coutts is that all however among the teams are, or quickly will be, independently owned or run.
"These teams are now costing $50 million, I would never have forecasted that this at an early stage," said Coutts, who prepares to bring another couple of teams on board next year.
"We knew that that was the entire method the design was set up, that team owners would be able to trade their groups and ideally make money out of it, but I didn't believe we 'd attain it this early. That's been a good surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Michael Perry)