With all avenues of appeal exhausted in the New York Supreme Court, it is finally with some certainty that we can say that Valencia will be the venue for the 33rd America’s Cup. Amen to that. Not that I objected greatly to Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, which was the point of Alinghi’s last-ditch appeal to the Court. The sailing conditions there were more likely to be stable and predictable than what Valencia is expected to provide in late winter. With 20-mile legs, and the opportunity for the two super-boats to split to opposite sides of the course, this America’s Cup could yet be decided on meteorology more than differences in boatspeed.

But no matter. At last it looks like we have a match. Even now, writing before Christmas, I can’t bring myself to believe that we are finally looking at a yacht race again, for fear of jinxing our good fortune and overlooking some legal nook or cranny that yet drags this tragi-comic farce back to New York again.

Alingi 5 docked in front of the Alinghi base in Valencia
© Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

I went to the World Yacht Racing Forum in Monaco in early December, where we got to see Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth sharing the same stage. Looking a little the worse for wear, it has to be said. Coutts apologised for “having a little dust in the throat”. He followed that by predicting that the next speaker - Butterworth - would be as bad as he was.

This raised a titter round the auditorium, to see the skippers of these two teams joking around together after a big night out on the tiles. After all the public acrimony of the past two and a half years, it was a little surreal. Whether or not there was a message in their mutual inebriation I’m not sure, but the message I took away from Monaco was that if the many disagreements over the 33rd America’s Cup had been settled by sailors, these two opponents would have reached a middle-ground a long, long time ago. Sailors like to fight on the water, lawyers like to fight in court, and billionaires like to... well... just fight.

Whatever their public, professional disagreements, it was clear from Monaco that the bond of friendship between Coutts and Butterworth remains as strong now as it did in the days when they were racing side by side for Team New Zealand or Alinghi. Coutts made a point of thanking Brad “for being Brad”.

Monaco was also the first time that many of us - media, professional sailors, industry big hitters - had had the chance to watch some footage of these enormous multihulls on the big screen. The audience was stunned into silence at the sight of these leviathans carving through glassy-flat water. With Alinghi 5 and BMW Oracle Racing’s trimaran reportedly capable of travelling up to four times the speed of the wind, people are finally waking up to the thrill of these boats.

While the popular view of these giant multihulls has been to look upon them as some grotesque form of Frankenstein’s monster, born out of all the nastiness of a court battle in New York, it’s clear that the more the sailors have got to know these boats, the more they’ve fallen in love with them. While initially Ernesto Bertarelli was denounced as a heretic for suggesting that he’d carry the multihull concept through to the 34th Cup should he prove successful in his defence of the 33rd, there are others that are coming round to the idea too.

Asked whether multihulls could be expected to produce close match racing, Coutts replied: “It’s possible you could have a good match race, that the two multihulls are well matched. That idea shouldn’t be discarded.” Butterworth said that he’d adapted to multihull sailing, implying that if he could, couldn’t anyone? That raised a laugh, but the conversation also got people wondering if the 33rd Cup really does mark a new era in the event’s direction, rather than the unfortunate blot on the America’s Cup history which most perceive it to be.

The World Yacht Racing Forum really did get people thinking and wondering in ways that might never have happened otherwise. Paul Cayard, having turned 50 this year, seems increasingly to be taking on a role of elder statesman within the sport, and he had this to say on his website a few days after Monaco. “In the midst of the Forum, a light bulb went off in my head; we may have missed a great opportunity in the past two years. Rather than just sitting around and waiting in frustration, we, the Challengers, should have taken the initiative to put forward a Protocol to resolve a lot of the problems plaguing the current match. We have a unique opportunity right now; neither Alinghi and BMW Oracle knows who will be holding the cards for the 34th America's Cup. So this is a time where each may be more willing to agree to a ‘fair and independent’ event managment structure. Either could find themselves on the Challenger side for 34th America's Cup and that party would certainly want a modern and objective event organization. So after I mentioned this idea, many people came to me and said, ‘Hey, that's a great idea. Its not too late. Get to work!’

Cayard is right, because once either the Swiss or the Americans win in February, asking them to manage the 34th Cup fairly will be as much use as asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. It was ever thus with the America’s Cup. Let’s hope his pleas for independent management gain some traction.

Two weeks before Monaco, just a couple of small bays along the Mediterranean coast in Nice, the Louis Vuitton Trophy was drawing to a thrilling conclusion. With eight teams competing at this regatta, Nice served as a reminder of all the great sailing teams that have been left out in the cold by this selfish DoG fight between Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing. Indeed BMW Oracle was one of the teams competing in Nice, although they didn’t even make it to the semi-finals. The Kiwis, the almighty Emirates Team New Zealand, swept through to the finals but fell 2-0 to the brand new upstart Italian team, Azzurra. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because you remember the popular Italian team that competed in the Louis Vuitton Challenger series of 1983 and 1987. All neutrals were delighted to see Azzurra topple the Kiwis, and it was a reminder of the close racing that the Version 5 monohulls produced in Valencia 2007.

Now we are about to witness a very different kind of contest in Valencia 2010. It’s unlikely to produce the photo-finish finale that defined Valencia 2007, but it could be very exciting for different reasons. Beyond this forthcoming match it will be very interesting to see what direction the America’s Cup takes from there. It comes down to the raison d’etre for the America’s Cup. Is it meant to be a design race, or a close match race? Because rarely do you get both. Let’s hope that the 33rd America’s Cup proves that theory wrong. After two-and-a-half years of court room tedium, we deserve a treat again.