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By Nick Mulvenney

SYDNEY, wiki.piratenpartei.de Feb 7 (Reuters) - SailGP returns to where everything began in Sydney this weekend and 6 years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees a bright future for the ingenious worldwide sailing 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 application business, asteroidsathome.net to the series with six teams all owned by the league.

While the inaugural season which kicked off 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 just incredible, in fact, the uptake and variety of occasions now," SailGP chief executive 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 looks 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 press the F50 foiling catamarans to their limits at what are breathtaking speeds for waterborne vessels.

"We didn't set out to simply appeal to 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 avid sailors, which is among the factors why we've grown so quickly. We are appealing to individuals that much like viewing a race, they do not have to comprehend anything about sailboats."

A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans turned out to see 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, perhaps even topping that," said Coutts, a 62-year-old New Zealander.

"The most crucial thing is the fans seeing on broadcast ... however the fan experience on website is likewise essential. We want fans to come and have a good time and see some terrific racing."

Technological development is integral to SailGP and hundreds of countless information points are passed on from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for using race organisers, teams and to help broadcasters enhance the audience experience.

360 DEGREE VIEW

Coutts is thrilled about some more developments coming online as Artificial Intelligence is increasingly used to resolve the mountain of information.

"The big 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 be able to take a look around any place they want. That's the future."

There have, naturally, been obstacles over the 6 years with the 2nd season interrupted by the COVID pandemic and race days still often at the mercy of wind conditions.

A lack of F50s indicated the French team 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 for that reason race for the very first time this weekend and one of the most pleasing elements for Coutts is that all but one of the teams are, or soon will be, privately owned or run.

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

"We understood that that was the entire way the design was set up, that team owners would be able to trade their groups and hopefully generate income out of it, but I didn't think we 'd attain it this early. That's been a good surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Michael Perry)