THE ROYAL Thames Yacht Club stands in the heart of Knightsbridge, an unpretentious building set back from the road. The first challenge for the America’s Cup, in 1870, was made through this historic club and the next one, the challenge by Team Origin for the 33rd edition of the cup, is to be similarly chaperoned.

The neat closing of history’s circle would please Sir Keith Mills, the multi-millionaire who masterminded London’s Olympics bid and launched Team Origin, the best funded British campaign for two decades. Though, in name, Team Origin has shied away from a national association, the ambition to bring the America’s Cup home for the first time brings emotional purpose to the project.

“Britain is where everything started in the America’s Cup,” says Michel Bonnefous, chief executive of the 32nd cup. “With its maritime history and sailing tradition, it should be in the cup every edition.”

Now all that Mills and the New Zealander Mike Sanderson, his chief executive, have to do is wait for the outcome of the match being played out in Valencia between Alinghi and Emirates Team New Zealand. Whoever wins has the right to decide the venue and rules for the next challenge, which makes planning for a challenge a hazardous occupation. If New Zealand win the cup and put it on the mantelpiece for two years before encouraging a challenge, Team Origin, among many teams, would have to rethink not just their financial and logistical strategies but their whole commitment to the cause.

It is unthinkable that the momentum built up among sponsors and the media during the past three years, through the Louis Vuitton Cup and the spectacular racing over the past week, would be forfeited on a national whim. But the cup remains a sporting anachronism. Either way, these are exciting times for Mills and Sanderson. A core of 15-20 members of the Origin sailing team have been signed up – 60% British – while Mills’s political skills have been put to good use in establishing his team’s credentials in the corridors of power. Team Origin could yet be the challenger of record for the next cup, which is almost unheard of for a new syndicate.

A team underwritten by Mills, led by Sanderson, winner of the Volvo Ocean Race, and potentially skippered by Ben Ainslie, double Olympic gold medallist, would command respect. The cup needed a great match this year and it has one, an epic duel between Alinghi, which has the faster boat, and Team New Zealand, which has the better team. Suddenly sailing is back where it was in 1983 when Alan Bond ended America’s 132-year domination of the sport.

“It’s become human again,” says Mills. “You could tell after that third race that Alinghi were rattled. I spoke to Brad Butterworth [skipper of Alinghi] and he said the team had made mistakes. This isn’t the America’s Cup of four years ago, this is a different event. I’ve talked to companies in the UK and they’ve said, ‘Very interesting, but what’s it got to do with us? It’s just a billionaire’s plaything’, then they come out and see the scale of it and they really do get it. They can see the potential, see it’s a big sporting event offering a unique perspective.”

If that sounds like a sales pitch, it probably is. Team Origin has found the America’s Cup a hard sell, but a cracking series between two evenly matched teams has given the search for sponsorship a boost. “Sponsorship is a crowded marketplace,” Mills adds. “No British team has come close to winning for a long time, so just think what it would be like if we did and then defended it as well.”

For potential multinational sponsors of Origin, Asia will be a more lucrative marketplace than the UK, which, in one sense, makes racing in New Zealand a more attractive proposition. In New Zealand, where ratings for the opening race were higher than for the All Blacks’ Tri-Nations match against South Africa, Sanderson has been packing up his house with his wife Emma Richards, the round-the-world yachtswoman, and preparing for the challenge ahead. It will be Sanderson’s task to harness the collective expertise of the team to a common cause and establish a clear identity for the first British challenge since 2000.

“The most exciting thing about this cup is that it’s winnable,” says Sanderson. “If you have a good programme, a good team and good funding, you’ve a good shot at winning it. It’s about focus, drive and commitment, about making the right decisions.”

Team Origin has started to build an impressive infrastructure. “I believe in getting the fundamentals right and adding the gloss later,” adds Sanderson. “A big part is not pretending you have the right answers all the time. You’ve got to listen and establish the Team Origin way, pooling experience.”

The full team will be announced in September and, having already purchased Alinghi’s old boat, a second training boat will be bought in the autumn, allowing Origin to start training. The rest of the programme and the location for the team’s base will depend on the result of the cup match. So far, so good for Team Origin.