Sailing-Bigger and Faster, SailGP Back where everything Began In Sydney
By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP go back to where all of it began in Sydney this weekend and six years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees a brilliant future for the innovative 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 introduce the series with 6 groups all owned by the league.
While the inaugural season which started in Sydney in February 2019 included simply 5 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 simply amazing, in fact, the uptake and variety of events now," SailGP president 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 appearances excellent."
The concept of Formula One on water is implicit in the league's name and the contrast is not far from the mark when the world's best sailors push the F50 foiling catamarans to their limits at what are spectacular speeds for waterborne vessels.
"We didn't set out to just attract the passionate sailing fan, we attempt to make this sport easy to understand and explainable for all sports fans," Coutts added.
"Most of our fans are not avid sailors, which is among the reasons why we have actually grown so quickly. We are attracting individuals that much like seeing a race, they don't have to understand anything about sailboats."
A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans ended up to view Tom Slingsby's Australia team win the second round of the series in Auckland last month.
"I think you'll see numerous of our occasions this year now like that, maybe even topping that," said Coutts, a 62-year-old New Zealander.
"The most important thing is the fans watching on broadcast ... however the fan experience on site is likewise essential. We desire fans to come and have a good time and see some excellent racing."
Technological development is important to SailGP and numerous thousands of information points are passed on from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for making use of race organisers, groups and menwiki.men to assist broadcasters improve the audience experience.
360 DEGREE VIEW
Coutts is delighted about some more developments coming online as Artificial Intelligence is significantly used to overcome the mountain of data.
"The huge advancement for us going 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 be able to look around wherever they desire. That's the future."
There have, obviously, been obstacles over the 6 years with the second season interfered with by the COVID pandemic and koha-community.cz race days still often at the mercy of wind conditions.
A scarcity of F50s implied the French team was not able 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 for buysellammo.com 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 groups are, or quickly will be, privately owned or run.
"These groups are now offering for $50 million, I would never have actually predicted that this early," said Coutts, who plans to bring another number of teams on board next year.
"We knew that that was the entire method the design was set up, that team owners would have the ability to trade their teams and hopefully earn money out of it, however I didn't believe we 'd attain it this early. That's been a good surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Michael Perry)