The pontoons were alive with people making last minute preparations, helpers both professional and amateurishly enthusiastic, plus the public wandering up and down.

After disappearing across the bay four years ago, the Artemis (new sponsor) Transat (French instead of Transatlantic) has plonked itself in the middle of one of the most popular tourist areas of the city, the Barbican.

That, at least, ensures that many more people will be aware that some sort of event is going on even if, these days, the inevitable security guards make sure that the pontoons are kept free of any spectators. It's not like that in France, where long queues of people, often whole families including the dog, wait patiently to file past all the boats taking photographs.

All sport is now more professional and so less accessible to the public, but the old style jamboree, even if it was more difficult to trek across to Queen Ann's Battery Marina and the home of the organising Royal Western Yacht Club, had much more connection between the racers and the general public.

Nor are there any multihulls this year. The main, 60-foot, class has, in any case moved into limbo as the new 70-footers appear and there would not have been room for them in Sutton Harbour.

They, too, are missed. Keeping things simple and focussed necessarily denies variety but when there is variety people complain about a maverick, incomprehensible mess.

There is also much more commercialism, with the scramble for brand recognition and prominence given much more effort than the promotion of the skill and personality of the competitors.

Still, at least the standard of the restaurants has improved and, if you want to concentrate on traditional skills, just contact Sophy Williams and her pupils learning to swipe the tops off bottles of Mumm champagne with a sabre. The drinking of the stuff remains consistently enthusiastic.