GitLab

By Nick Mulvenney

SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP returns to where it all started in Sydney this weekend and six years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees an intense future for setiathome.berkeley.edu the innovative global sailing league.

An Olympic champ and skipper of three Americas Cup-winning boats, Coutts partnered with Larry Ellison, the billionaire creator of the Oracle software application company, to launch the series with 6 teams all owned by the league.

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

"It's just incredible, really, the uptake and number 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 wish to get to. So yeah, the future looks 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 finest sailors push the F50 foiling catamarans to their limits at what are spectacular speeds for waterborne vessels.

"We didn't set out to just appeal to the avid sailing fan, we attempt to make this sport reasonable and explainable for all sports fans," Coutts added.

"Most of our fans are not devoted sailors, and that's one of the reasons we have actually grown so quickly. We are interesting people that much like watching a race, they do not need 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 think you'll see numerous of our events this year now like that, perhaps even topping that," said Coutts, a 62-year-old New Zealander.

"The most crucial thing is the fans watching on broadcast ... but the fan experience on website is likewise critically important. We want fans to come and have an excellent time and see some terrific racing."

Technological innovation is essential to SailGP and numerous countless information points are passed on from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for making use of 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 increasingly used to work through the mountain of information.

"The big advancement 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 trip in addition to the Australian group in a race, and have the ability to take a look around wherever they want. That's the future."

There have, of course, been difficulties over the 6 years with the 2nd season interfered with by the COVID and race days still often at the grace of wind conditions.

A lack of F50s meant 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 complete fleet of 12 boats will therefore race for the very first time this weekend and among the most pleasing elements for Coutts is that all but among the teams are, or quickly will be, independently owned or run.

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

"We understood that that was the entire method the design was established, that team owners would be able to trade their groups and ideally generate income out of it, however I didn't believe we 'd attain it this early. That's been a great surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, modifying by Michael Perry)