Tim Jeffery in Trapani

The Daily Telegraph's yachting correspondent shares his views on the America's Cup - Italian style

Gauge the vox pop in Trapani and the near universal sentiment would be let's keep America's Cup racing here: The town is terrific. Local interest runs high. Gear failures and a man overboard mean there's been plenty of action in the races while Saturday's BMW Oracle versus Emirates Team New Zealand match was as climatic as the memorable 1992 America v Il Moro di Venezia or AmericaOne v Prada clashes from 2000.

All this is taking place not just at the toe of Italy, but one of the last toeholds of Europe on its southern flank. It was little more than a month ago that the Cup was at Europe's northern edge, in Malmo, Sweden, and the contrast between the restrained Scandinavian support and the sheer exuberance of the Latin spirit could not be greater.

Want to know when an Italian boat is round a mark or crossing the finish line? Strain your ears and you might just hear the horns and cheers for Luna Rosa, +39 or Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia Team from where you are.

As an evangelical exercise, taking the Cup to different locations and cultures has been a terrific success. Adding extra hours to the school day before the Louis Vuitton Acts 8 and 9 so that children could take time off during the racing and 20,000 people in the Cup village are emblematic of just how wholeheartedly the Tranpanese have embraced the America's Cup.

Each day, a handful of members from each team has been put on the stage, with the microphone handed around the public for an open-house Q & A session. Neat.

At the weekend, spectator boats numbered more than a hundred. None bigger than the new Moby Lines ferry owned by Vincenzo Onorato who brought guests down from Rome to watch Capitalia Mascalzone Latino race.

Sicily is an ancient place and many different peoples have left their footprint here. As for Trapani on its northwest tip, the Greeks colonised the off-lying islands, now 're-discovered' as hideaways by the likes of Giorgio Armani and Gerald Depardieu. The Arabs laid out a maze of streets. The Normans established early substantial buildings and the developed the coral trade. The Spanish constructed the fortifications around the town before the final and elegant Italian phase began. Until recently Trapani's prosperity was built on salt and shipbuilding, but they are in decline.

What does continue is the ancient means of catching tuna when they run through the islands in May and June. The mattanza, is a Hemingway-esque man and animal ritualistic battle of wills, where the giant fish are corralled in nets and killed in a bloody slaughter by fisherman with spears which turns the sea red. No wonder mattanza has entered the Italian language as a vernacular for massacre.

On the water, there's been scope for more vernacular. It was Paul Cayard in the 1992 Il Moro campaign who introduced non-Italian speakers to the phrase 'casino bestiale', the horror show of when things go wrong on board.

Several crews have had occasion to utter this and other choice words. The number of blown sails (the spinnaker count is 14 or 15) and broken spinnaker poles has been high. Capitalia Mascalzone Latino blew-up a jib track and +39 probably managed to break more and more often than most.

This is when the travelling road of the Act regattas really hurts the small budget teams. Time, spares and resources are finite. "When you have only one of this and only one of that, it's tough," admitted +39 tactician Ian Walker.

Just as the Trapanese have their own twist on pasta from the rest of Italy - the egg-less busiata - so they have their own weather here. Lots of it, in fact. In five days racing, no day has been the same. There’s been light airless conditions on Day 1, spanking hard sun and breeze on Day 2, the tail of a Mistral on Day 3 and the before, during and after effects of a cold front on Days 4 and 5 culminated in hard rain and electrical activity. Put the Egadi high islands in the way and the breeze curls around their sides and funnels in the gap between them, while a fast rising seafloor means the swell and waves can cut up rough. No wonder the boats have been so loaded and gear straining to breaking point.

“I think Malmo was the first time we saw real wind and the breakages started there, but I think some teams have been a little under-prepared after training in Valencia, “ commented Alinghi mainsail trimmer Warwick Fleury.

Perhaps there's some kind of jinx about home Acts for just as Desafio Espanol laboured in Valencia in June, and Victory Challenge in Malmo, so +39 have found ways to make life harder for themselves here.

The big teams have shown vulnerability too. Emirates Team New Zealand lost to K-Challenge largely because the lazy spinnaker sheet dropped out of the 'dick' (the soft cleat on the luff of the sail) and under the bow of the boat preventing them from gybing and covering a shift on which FRA 60 was gaining fast.

BMW Oracle Racing's loss the ETNZ in a 3sec/9m thriller, was due to the American crew just not being on it. "They did a better job than us," admitted grinder Craig Monk. "The steering, trimming and grinding wasn't working as well as it should at the top the run and that's what made the difference. TNZ caught about six more waves than we did."

With Larry Ellison absent, Chris Dickson's crew had seven people rotated into new positions so Monk's comment about taking time to find their rhythm makes sense, especially given changes in the key speed positions: Zac Hurst is trimming alongside Robbie Naismith and Paul Westlake is on the mainsail with Sean Clarkson moved to the traveller.

And whatever has gone on (or gone out of the door) at BMW Oracle this summer, there’s no mistaking the fact that Dickson’s got this campaign back to where many felt it should have been: the benchmark challenger.

Fittingly, today’s final Flight 11 (Tues) could see a straight shoot out between BMW Oracle and Alinghi for the winner of Act 8. If the Americans beat the Swiss, they would tie and win on countback.

France’s K Challenge started to put together a strong claim to be the best of the rest behind the Big Four - Alinghi, BMW Oracle, Luna Rossa and ETNZ - with Thierry Peponnet settling on an French brainstrust with Sebastien Col his tactician and Tanguy Cariou his strategist. But yesterday the French forfeited fifth place in the standings to Victory Challenge in losing to the Swedes and breaking down against Luna Rossa.

Trapani is not an unalloyed triumph however. The command and control culture of America's Cup Management continues to believe that the benefit of the Cup should accrue only to the event organiser and not shared with those without whom they wouldn't have an event; the teams. The latest folly was ACM to bar photographers - save their own official snapper - from the helicopters. Some of the best aerial images since Fremantle could have had a much wider distribution but that chance was denied. Sometimes ACM's talk of 'growing' the Cup rings a little hollow?