The Cup May Stay, but There's No Going Back on Speed SAN FRANCISCO - The future of the America's Cup was one victory from becoming Emirates Team New Zealand's responsibility: one victory from returning to New Zealand, with the Italian team Luna Rossa Challenge expected to be its challenger of record. Monica M. Davey/European Pressphoto Agency The skipper of Oracle Team USA, Jimmy Spithill, left, and its owner, Larry Ellison, holding the America's Cup on Wednesday. But Team New Zealand - despite an 8-1 lead and a wealth of talent on board - could not manage to win that last race. And so the Cup - with its burdens and delights - remains in the hands of Larry Ellison, the software mogul and genuine sailing enthusiast who owns Oracle Team USA. The Cup is the oldest major trophy in sport, dating to 1851, but Ellison and his very expensive lieutenant Russell Coutts have pushed it - in the face of considerable resistance - into a postmodern place: one where speed and thrills are the new expectation, along with innovative, high-quality television images and close-to-the-shore racing. The consensus within Oracle is that there is no going back, and there are many in the rarefied Cup community who agree. "I think this regatta has changed sailing forever," Ellison said. The plans for the next Cup remain unclear, although a person briefed on negotiations said Thursday that the next challenger of record for the Cup was set to be the Hamilton Island Yacht Club from Queensland, Australia. It would be a surprising choice and a welcome one, in that it would bring one of yachting's leading nations back into the competition. No Australian team has challenged since 2000 because of a shortage of Australian sponsors and tycoons interested in investing in the Cup. But the Australians were the first nation other than the United States to win the trophy, wresting it from the New York Yacht Club in 1983 with the help of an innovative winged keel. Thursday was the 30th anniversary of Australia II's victory, and the Cup that has just concluded in San Francisco had a strong Australian flavor. Team New Zealand had two Australians in its 11-man crew: Glenn Ashby and Adam Beashel. Oracle's skipper and helmsman, Jimmy Spithill, is Australian, as were three key members of his crew: Joey Newton, the strategist Tom Slingsby and the young wing trimmer Kyle Langford, who replaced the suspended Dirk de Ridder for the Cup match. The challenger of record is the official challenger for the Cup and must reach agreement with the defender on the rules governing the next competition. Tom Ehman, the key Oracle adviser and vice commodore of the Golden Gate Yacht Club, said that he would "neither confirm nor deny" that Hamilton Island Yacht Club was the next challenger of record and said that Golden Gate and Oracle Team USA would announce the challenger's identity in due course. "What I can say is that G.G.Y.C. has received a challenge," Ehman said. I received it on the water on Wednesday immediately when our boat crossed the finish line and won. Commodore Norbert Bajurin was with me. We received and then we accepted the challenge, and I'm satisfied that it's a bona fide yacht club under the deed of gift. Ellison said on Wednesday that he would be open to a return to San Francisco for the 35th America's Cup but that nothing had been decided. He said he planned to consult with his team and others in sailing before reaching a conclusion. "As Larry said, we want to sit down with our partners, the club, the team and the prospective teams, and the city, obviously, if we're going to do it here again," Ehman said. That's not clear, but I think it's certainly a clear preference after what we just saw. Though often delayed by rules governing wind limits, the final series of races was compelling and close on San Francisco Bay. Oracle won the series, 9-8, although it had to win 11 races to defend the Cup after absorbing a two-point penalty imposed by an international jury that had found the team guilty of illegally modifying its boats in a series of preliminary regattas in smaller, 45-foot catamarans.