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By Nick Mulvenney

SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP returns to where it all started in Sydney this weekend and prazskypantheon.cz six years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees a brilliant future for the ingenious global sailing league.

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

While the inaugural season which started in Sydney in February 2019 included just 5 rounds, visualchemy.gallery 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 remarkable, really, the uptake and number 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 desire to get to. So yeah, the future looks good."

The idea of Formula One on water is implicit in the league's name and wiki.vst.hs-furtwangen.de the contrast is not far from the mark when the world's finest sailors push the F50 hindering catamarans to their limitations at what are breathtaking speeds for waterborne vessels.

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

"The majority of our fans are not avid sailors, and that's one of the reasons we've grown so quickly. We are attracting people that much like watching a race, they don't have to comprehend anything about sailboats."

A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans ended up to see Tom Slingsby's Australia team win the 2nd 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 crucial thing is the fans seeing on broadcast ... but the fan experience on site is also critically important. We desire fans to come and have a good time and see some excellent racing."

Technological innovation is integral to SailGP and numerous thousands of information points are communicated from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for making use of race organisers, groups and to assist broadcasters enhance the viewer experience.

360 DEGREE VIEW

Coutts is delighted about some more innovations coming online as Artificial Intelligence is increasingly used to resolve the mountain of data.

"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 trip along with the Australian team in a race, and have the ability to browse any place they want. That's the future."

There have, naturally, been obstacles over the 6 years with the second season interrupted by the COVID pandemic and race days still often at the grace of wind conditions.

A shortage of F50s indicated the French team was unable 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 therefore race for systemcheck-wiki.de the first time this weekend and one of the most for Coutts is that all however one of the teams are, or quickly will be, independently owned or run.

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

"We understood that that was the entire method the design was established, that group owners would be able 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 great surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, modifying by Michael Perry)