Sailing-Bigger and faster, SailGP back where it all began in Sydney

SYDNEY : SailGP returns to where it all started in Sydney this weekend and six years on from the inaugural race, co-founder Russell Coutts sees a bright future for the innovative international 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 company, to launch the series with six teams all owned by the league.

While the inaugural season which kicked off in Sydney in February 2019 featured just five rounds, this weekend's race will be the third round of 13 the now 12-strong fleet will contest on the 2025-26 schedule.

"It's just amazing, actually, the uptake and number of events now," SailGP chief executive Coutts told Reuters at the Sydney Opera House on Friday.

"We're obviously sitting at 13, and looking 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 want to get to. So yeah, the future looks good."

The idea 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 foiling catamarans to their limits at what are breathtaking speeds for waterborne vessels.

"We didn't set out to just 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, and that's one of the reasons why we've grown so quickly. We are appealing to people that just like watching a race, they don't have to understand anything about sailboats."

A bumper crowd of 25,000 ticketed fans turned out to watch Tom Slingsby's Australia team win the second round of the series in