KEY POINTS:
It's only 10 feet. But already some are saying Alinghi's changes for the 33rd America's Cup are the loaded dice of the America's Cup holder.
Most obvious is the bigger boat, a 90-footer (27.7m), as opposed to the current 80-footer (24m), which might need up to 21 crew on board as opposed to the current 17.
Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth was phlegmatic as he helped announce the changes - bigger, faster boats capable of handling winds of 8 to 30 knots (the average speed in this last regatta was 10-11 knots). The old boats, he said, had reached the end of their design evolution.
Most people wanted a new concept to stimulate them and to take the Cup back to being a design and technology/innovation contest. They would be harder to sail than the current class, with less emphasis on helpful tools like hydraulic winches and more on the athleticism of the sailors.
It's an intriguing prospect but not everyone wants it. A 90-footer puts the cat among the pigeons, design-wise and financially, even if Alinghi are saying there will probably be only one boat per team to cut costs.
New teams will have to build or buy an old boat (to take part in the pre-regattas) and a new one to race in what it appears will no longer be called the Louis Vuitton regatta (Alinghi termed it the main event), as this long-time and respected sponsor seemingly bows out.
But it's defenders' privilege. If you win the Cup, you set the rules and that is what Alinghi are doing. By coming up with a new class of boat, Alinghi are dealing themselves an advantage if, as it appears, they are the only body involved in deciding the class rule.
Last time the yacht design/class rule was changed, it was done in consultation with challengers and other designers. This time, it appears Alinghi will do it all themselves.
The challengers have to be up and racing in their new boat 18 months after Alinghi decide on the class rule, giving them an edge in designing, building and honing the new boat. New Zealand may not be too disadvantaged, as they have a long history in round-the-world yachts, which these are closer to.
What it means for the spectators is a possible return to the days of 5-0 walkovers. The close racing of this regatta was exciting and compelling. But it is clear Alinghi felt they did not have the speed edge they were looking for. Hence the 90-footers.
Never mind excitement. It's all about winning.
Valencia or not? As reported previously, plans to hold the next Cup at Valencia in 2009 alongside a neighbouring and related European Grand Prix in Valencia, masterminded by F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, went a bit wobbly.
The Swiss, ever the careful planners, were unable to announce the date and venue of the next Cup because they were still in a tangle with the Valencian authorities over the amount of money expected to be paid for hosting the next America's Cup.
The Valencian authorities, warmed and secure after Ecclestone's financial arrangements, had been resisting Alinghi's Ernesto Bertarelli and his plans for an increased payment. That situation remains.
In addition, the Swiss confirmed they were still talking over proposals to extend the port to accommodate F1 plans to have a street circuit for the GP running through part of the port.
Michel Bonnefous, head of America's Cup Management, said the issue was whether or not the extension to the port would allow an America's Cup regatta to be held there.
That sentence covers an awful lot of possibilities but it is understood Bertarelli is also finding F1 perhaps a less accommodating ally than he first suspected and that issues are arising, such as F1's stubborn insistence on clean venues so their sponsorships are given pride of place.
You sense an agreement will be reached and Valencia will host the Cup in 2009 but, if not, it will be held elsewhere no later than 2011.
An option could be Italy. The country was entranced with the Cup this year and greeted the act in Trapani, Sicily, with enormous enthusiasm and they followed their +39, Mascalzone Latino and Luna Rossa challenges with rare national pride.
It looks as though there might be about the same number of challengers next time, although this could increase from 11, with the addition of Britain's Team Origin.
New zealand will be there again, with most of their principal players intact.
But let's hope the next regatta is not as full of ifs, buts and maybes as this one. Ironically, for a team that pinned its hopes on the slickness and grittiness of its sailing team, it was sailing mistakes that coloured the final stages for the Kiwis.
They were closer, much closer, than the 5-2 scoreline suggested. And those marvellous races, the giddy lead-changing of race three and that wondrously exciting finish to race seven also owed much to the tricky conditions off Valencia.
It was, as Alinghi's Australian design chief Grant Simmer said, a regatta of metres in the end and Alinghi's famous Kiwi tight five maintained their cool under pressure.
In such conditions, even the smallest mistakes were costly and so it proved in race seven. It was a race the New Zealanders should have won. A mistake at the bottom gate, going left when everyone other than Alinghi supporters wanted them to go right; the luffing duel; and the dial-down when they incurred a penalty rather than tacking away and coming back to fight again were all costly errors.
Then, right at the end in that gloriously close finish, Team New Zealand did their penalty turn too far from the line. The turn will always cost a boat momentum and had to be done with precision, finishing all but over the line on the turn.
The name associated with most of these mistakes was tactician Terry Hutchinson but it is an unfair association. This was a race in conditions in which it was easy to be wise after the event. Hutchinson could also, theoretically, have been overruled by others in the afterguard.
You had to agree with Grant Dalton when he said Alinghi had done a better job. On the water, perhaps. The Swiss insistence on sending off the losers to an almost invisible end to their regatta at the Cup ceremony rankled. The Kiwis didn't like it.
Sport in New Zealand is about athletes knocking seven bells out of each other and then having a friendly beer at the end. The rewards are there to be seen for the winners; the losers know they finished second and being there to see the winners celebrate kind of rubs it in even more.
But there is a note of respect in saluting an opponent, respect which seemed to be missing at the end of the 32nd America's Cup. The loser should not be ignominiously sent to the far end of the port, or be told to go to a losers' press conference.
Maybe it was a bit of payback for the way some Swiss felt Alinghi were treated by the worst excesses of the Blackheart campaign and some Kiwis who went a bit over the top.
There is now not a lot of love lost between these two teams. Watching them go at it again next time will be absorbing, whenever that might be.
