Sailing-Bigger and Faster, SailGP Back where all of it Began In Sydney
By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP returns to where all of it began in Sydney this weekend and six years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees an intense future for the innovative global sailing league.
An Olympic champion and skipper of three Americas Cup-winning boats, Coutts teamed up with Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder 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, bytes-the-dust.com 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 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 someplace around 20. If you compare that to Formula One that has 24, that's sort of where we want to get to. So yeah, the future looks 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 limits at what are awesome speeds for waterborne vessels.
"We didn't set out to simply interest the avid sailing fan, we try to make this sport understandable and explainable for all sports fans," Coutts added.
"Most of our fans are not passionate sailors, which is among the reasons that we have actually grown so rapidly. We are appealing to individuals that much like viewing a race, they do not have to understand anything about sailboats."
A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans turned out to watch Tom Slingsby's Australia group 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, perhaps even topping that," said Coutts, a 62-year-old New Zealander.
"The most important thing is the fans enjoying on broadcast ... however the fan experience on site is also essential. We want fans to come and have a good time and see some terrific racing."
Technological innovation is to SailGP and hundreds of thousands of data points are relayed from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for using race organisers, teams and to assist broadcasters improve the audience experience.
360 DEGREE VIEW
Coutts is excited about some more innovations coming online as Artificial Intelligence is significantly employed to overcome the mountain of information.
"The huge development for us going forward is the 360 degree view from on board the boat, with listening to the team comms," he said.
"The audience will be taken on board and ride along with the Australian group in a race, and be able to take a look around anywhere they desire. That's the future."
There have, obviously, been obstacles over the six years with the second season interrupted by the COVID pandemic and race days still sometimes at the grace of wind conditions.
A shortage of F50s meant the French group was not able to contend at this year's season-opening race in Dubai and forum.batman.gainedge.org 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 aspects for Coutts is that all but among the teams are, wiki.rolandradio.net or quickly will be, independently owned or run.
"These teams are now costing $50 million, I would never ever have predicted that this early on," said Coutts, forum.altaycoins.com who plans to bring another couple of groups on board next year.
"We understood that that was the entire way the design was established, that team owners would have the ability to trade their groups and hopefully make cash out of it, however I didn't think we 'd attain it this early. That's been a great surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Michael Perry)