The Valencia Louis Vuitton Act 12 begins, the final competition for the year, begins on Thursday.

It will also be the final time Alinghi will compete against the challengers in a match race before the America’s Cup Match.

When racing resumes in April 2007 with Act 13, the 12 teams will battle in a final fleet racing regatta. After that, Alinghi is on its own for over two months of in-house testing and training while the challengers fight for the Louis Vuitton Cup, and the right to face the Defender in the 32nd America’s Cup Match.

Louis Vuitton Act 12 has plenty of significance in its own right. The winner of the ACC Season Championship will be determined over the next two weeks.

Luna Rossa Challenge currently holds the inside track with a one point lead built on the strength of its performance in May. But Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing are just one point back.

The challengers are also fighting for Louis Vuitton Ranking points, which are used to form a final challenger ranking ahead of the Louis Vuitton Cup. Based on their position on the final challenger ranking table, the challengers will collect bonus points that can be cashed in during the Louis Vuitton Cup.

BMW Oracle Racing and Emirates Team New Zealand are currently tied at the top of this table.

"The level of competition in the challenger fleet has never been higher," said BMW Oracle Racing skipper Chris Dickson. "That means the Louis Vuitton Cup (next year) will be extremely hard-fought".

"Each point you can carry into that series might be the difference between an early elimination or continuing through to the final rounds", he added. "The challengers have everything to fight for in these Acts."

One team has announced it will sail a different boat in Louis Vuitton Act 12 compared to what we say in Acts 10 & 11 – the home side Desafío Español 2007 will race ESP 88.

The other new boats in the harbour, Alinghi’s SUI 91 and Mascalzone Latino-Capitalia Team’s ITA 90, are expected to stay ashore – although teams have until 24 hours before the first race to make a substitution. In the case of the Italians, this is unlikely.

"The reason for us using ITA 77 and not ITA 90 for this Act is quite clear", explained Cameron Dunn, a helmsman with the team. "We’ve basically had ITA 90 in the water sailing doing a lot of structural testing and a little boat speed testing against ITA 77. Everything has been very, very positive so far".

"We did have a small issue with ITA 90 around the traveller area and it is taking some time to fix. For that reason we didn’t think it was prudent to pull her straight back out before Act 12 and race straight away with her, as we just haven’t had enough time to feel confident in the boat, yet".

The weather in Valencia has been very difficult for the teams since the conclusion of Louis Vuitton Act 11 nearly one month ago, with a handful of classic summer sea breeze days scattered amongst lighter and heavier conditions. The temperature in Valencia has rarely reached the typical afternoon high for this time of year of near 35-degrees.

"The sailing conditions continue to be tricky and changeable. Since the last Act we’ve had a few days with near boat-breaking chop and moderate breeze, and a lot of tricky light to moderate sea breezes like we experienced in the two May regattas," said BWM Oracle Racing navigator Peter Isler. "Every day is different and I think most teams are starting to realize that it’s nearly impossible to rely on any sort of medium range forecast."

Racing is scheduled to begin on Thursday afternoon, when the weather forecast calls for a warm sunny day with 7 to 10 knot Easterlies.9