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By Nick Mulvenney

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

An Olympic champion and skipper of 3 Americas Cup-winning boats, Coutts teamed up with Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of the Oracle software business, to release the series with 6 teams all owned by the league.

While the inaugural season which started in Sydney in February 2019 included just five rounds, this weekend's race will be the 3rd round of 13 the now 12-strong fleet will object to on the 2025-26 schedule.

"It's just incredible, really, the uptake and variety of occasions now," SailGP chief executive Coutts 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 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 press the F50 foiling catamarans to their limitations at what are breathtaking speeds for waterborne vessels.

"We didn't set out to simply appeal to the avid sailing fan, we attempt 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 reasons we have actually grown so quickly. We are appealing to individuals that simply like watching a race, they do not need to understand anything about sailboats."

A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans turned out to view Tom Slingsby's Australia group win the 2nd round of the series in Auckland last month.

"I believe 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 essential thing is the fans seeing on broadcast ... however the fan experience on website is likewise essential. We want fans to come and have a fun time and see some great racing."

Technological development is integral to SailGP and hundreds of countless data points are passed on from the boats to the Oracle Cloud for making use of race organisers, teams and to assist broadcasters enhance the viewer experience.

360 DEGREE VIEW

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

"The big advancement for us moving forward is the 360 degree view from on board the boat, with listening to the group comms," he said.

"The audience will be taken on board and trip in addition to the Australian team in a race, and have the ability to browse anywhere they want. That's the future."

There have, obviously, been challenges over the six years with the 2nd season interfered with by the COVID pandemic and race days still often at the grace 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 therefore race for the very first time this weekend and oke.zone among the most pleasing aspects for Coutts is that all however one of the groups are, or soon will be, privately owned or run.

"These teams are now costing $50 million, I would never have actually forecasted that this early," said Coutts, trademarketclassifieds.com who prepares to bring another couple of teams 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 teams and ideally generate income out of it, but I didn't believe we 'd attain it this early. That's been a nice surprise." (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, modifying by Michael Perry)