By Nick Mulvenney

SYDNEY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP go back 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 international league.

An Olympic champ and skipper of 3 Americas Cup-winning boats, Coutts partnered with Larry Ellison, the billionaire creator of the Oracle software company, to launch the series with 6 teams all owned by the league.

While the inaugural season which began in Sydney in February 2019 featured 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 fantastic, in fact, the uptake and number of occasions now," SailGP president Coutts informed 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 wish to get to. So yeah, the future appearances great."

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 finest sailors push the F50 hindering catamarans to their limits at what are breathtaking speeds for waterborne vessels.

"We didn't set out to simply interest the devoted sailing fan, we try to make this sport easy to understand and explainable for all sports fans," Coutts added.

"The majority of our fans are not passionate sailors, which is among the factors why we have actually grown so quickly. We are appealing to individuals that much like viewing a race, they do not need to comprehend anything about sailboats."

A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans ended up to watch 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 crucial thing is the fans enjoying on broadcast ... but the fan experience on website is likewise essential. We want fans to come and have a good time and see some great racing."

Technological development is integral to SailGP and numerous countless information points are communicated from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for making use of race organisers, teams and to help broadcasters improve the viewer experience.

360 DEGREE VIEW

Coutts is excited about some more developments coming online as Artificial Intelligence is progressively employed to resolve the mountain of information.

"The big advancement for us going 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 in addition to the Australian group in a race, and have the ability to take a look around any place they desire. That's the future."

There have, obviously, wiki.dulovic.tech been challenges over the six years with the second season interrupted by the COVID pandemic and race days still in some cases at the mercy of wind conditions.

A lack of F50s meant the French group was unable to compete 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 the very first time this weekend and among the most pleasing aspects for Coutts is that all but one of the teams are, or soon will be, privately owned or run.

"These teams are now costing $50 million, I would never have predicted that this at an early stage," said Coutts, who plans to bring another number of teams on board next year.

"We knew that that was the whole way the design was established, that team owners would have the ability to trade their teams and hopefully generate income out of it, but I didn't believe we 'd attain it this early. That's been a great surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, modifying by Michael Perry)