SAILING closer to the wind than John Prescott, Iain Percy exploded his old boat in Valencia nine days ago. “I can’t wait for our new one,” a beaming Percy said afterwards. It is a familiar refrain at the America’s Cup, even repeated, hopefully ironically, by teams who are in new boats that are stalling.

You could be forgiven for not noticing, but a sailing race has been unfolding in the Mediterranean — the 32nd America’s Cup, the oldest prize in sport. The absence of a British-based challenge, after the unfortunate ducking of Peter Harrison’s dream in the wake of the 2003 Cup, has switched many off. The last preliminary races of 2006 have finished, but when the Cup reaches a climax from next April, there will be plenty of British interest.

A rich seam of talent from these shores runs through the first Cup being held in Europe since the schooner America came in 1851 to beat the best Britain could offer off the Isle of Wight. Even the architect of the signature building in the remodelled port of Valencia is English.

Percy, the 30-year-old Olympic gold medal-winner from Winchester who has something of the swashbuckler about him, is at the helm of +39 Challenge, one of three Italian boats. Ian Walker, skipper of the GBR Challenge, is the tactician and Andrew Simpson completes a trio of Britons on board. Even with the new boat, they will struggle to be among the leading challengers to unseat Alinghi, the holders, but even with the old boat Percy has been beating some of the bigger guns at the start.

Those who bemoan the lack of a British challenge and pin their hopes to the mast of Keith Mills, the man who helped to bring the 2012 Olympic Games to London and is trying to draw together interest for the next America’s Cup after Valencia, are perhaps missing the point.

The America’s Cup is no longer a cup of nations, it is a cup of corporations. So expensive and specialised has it become, with the richest teams getting through £60 million per campaign (of usually about four years), that has become inevitable. It is not called Formula One on water for nothing. The Cup is held by a land-locked Swiss team, Emirates, the airline, bankrolls the New Zealand team, a German car manufacturer sponsors the American team, there are Kiwis on every boat and the Germany team is full of Danes. Ferrari want the best driver, they pick Michael Schumacher; Emirates Team New Zealand want the best young helmsman to keep their older one honest, they pick Ben Ainslie, Britain’s double gold medal-winning Olympian.

“I see it as an international game now,” Percy, who, like Ainslie, was not part of the Cowes-based GBR Challenge team, said. “Your mates might be British in the majority, but they certainly won’t be all British and you’re certainly not going to win by having a totally British focused team. Every person in the team — and the sailors are a small part of that — has to have international merit. It could be Britishfunded, it might have a British flavour for a marketing reason, but to win this thing you don’t handicap yourself. There are a handful of Brits around that standard.

“Keith is obviously looking at the project. One of its attractions and one of its problems is ‘where’s it going to be?’, ‘what boat is it going to be in?’ That’s why it has been around 150 years, it’s why it has got all this mystique, but it is also why it is a pain in the a*** for sponsors sometimes.”

Mills will not be thinking of putting together a tub-thumping jolly British boat, but Percy would certainly be one of his targets. “Keith Mills is still very interested in heading a British bid,” Rod Carr, the chief executive of the Royal Yachting Association, said. “In this Cup there are four boats at the top, probably four in the middle and four at the bottom. There is no interest in being one of the last. Without being arrogant we would want to compete, and to do that you probably need £15 million a year.”

“We were in Valencia in May and answered a few questions. We are well on the way to scoping things out. That hasn’t been finished and it will take the autumn to do that. Keith is determined to make a decision at Christmas.”