The America’s Cup once was a big deal. I can remember putting together a proposal, sent to the sports editor of Gannett News Service, a quarter-century ago, to cover the America’s Cup near Perth, in Australia.

And it was not a ridiculous notion. At the time, the America’s Cup was big. Very big. (I remember it being televised live by ESPN, in 1987, with cameras attached to the boats, which were racing in Australia, and sitting and watching it for hours at a time, in the middle of the night in California. This was the competition in which Dennis Conner recaptured the Cup for the U.S.)

Two-plus decades later, the America’s Cup seems as if the greatest competition in sailing is being slowly drowned by legal challenges and freakish boats.

It will be something of a relief when Emirates Team New Zealand gets around to finishing off Oracle Team USA in the America’s Cup final series. The Kiwis need only three more victories to make it so.

The UAE is not quite an impartial spectator to the event. It may not have gotten much attention, outside of courtrooms, but the 2010 America’s Cup was to have been held off the coast of Ras Al Khaimah, one of the country’s northern emirates — until Oracle went to court and got RAK disqualified, as The National reported.

So, yeah. Not much sympathy in the UAE for Oracle or Larry Ellison.

Where did the America’s Cup go wrong?

Two major issues.

–The resort to legal battles to decide practically every aspect of the America’s Cup. From where it is held to what form the competition will take, to what sorts of boats race the event.

Lawyers spend a lot more time on the race than do fans. (Quick, go to ESPN.com, and check the “worldwide leader” coverage of the Cup. Almost nonexistent.) And the legal battles are slow and confounding and off-putting.

(And, it turns out, the defenders, Oracle, were caught cheating and penalized two races, the harshest penalty in the event’s history.)

–The boats racing this summer’s America’s Cup may as well have been handed down from Martians. Not only are they multi-hulled, which is just wrong, they have the ability to rise up out of the water and reach speeds of 45-50 miles per hour — with only bits of the craft actually in/on the water. Rather like those bugs that weigh so little they can run across water.

To fix this, the America’s Cup must go back to single-hull boats. So what, if they are not the absolutely cutting edge of sailing technology? What few fans remain want to be able to watch boats for which they have a vague affinity. Something like boats they may have been in — as opposed to this experimental freak show.

About the only thing this Oracle production has gotten right? Staging it in San Francisco Bay, which allows people on shore to watch the races, if they have any interest. San Francisco Bay, with its strong winds and tides is a great site for the competition.

After the Kiwis win, I hope they bring some sense to this event. A return to mono-hulls would be a great start. A straight-forward and easily grasped system for organizing the competition would be good, too.

This can still be a big event. It certainly was 25 years ago.