As the curtain falls on the European debut of America's Cup racing in Valencia, questions abound over whether there is light at the end of the tunnel for Britain or whether it is another false dawn.

There is renewed impetus in the forward march of the GBR Challenge team's journey to a second consecutive appearance on the America's Cup stage. Just as their great hope, HSBC, pulled the plug on all talks, in has come Charles Dunstone, the founder and CEO of Carphone Warehouse, who is even wealthier than Peter Harrison.

However, Dunstone has no intention of pouring his corporate millions into the cup. He enjoys sailing his own boat but has kept a low profile. Even now, taking a major role and an asset stake in Britain's future participation is conditional on finding a major financial partner.

On Oct 10, Ed Gorman in the Sunday Times reported that Charles Dunstone is thought to have committed about £10 million of his own money to the project alongside a roughly equal amount from Peter Harrison, the syndicate founder.

As importantly, he would want to see a wholesale review and then restructuring of the management at the Cowes-based team.

GBR Challenge has confirmed that Charles Dunstone, Founder and CEO of Carphone Warehouse (Europe's leading retailer of mobile phones), is taking an active role in the team and is now assisting them to secure the necessary additional funding. The Dunstone's proposal is to use GBR Challenge as a vehicle to promote a leading humanitarian charity.

The naming rights for the team would be donated to a global humanitarian charity selected by nominated Trustees through a professional tender process. The team is now offering commercial companies the opportunity to be a supporting partner in this unique and high profile campaign.

Britain's ailing America's Cup bid for 2007 may be set to receive fresh impetus from sailing-mad tycoon Charles Dunstone, boss of Carphone Warehouse.

The withdrawal of the HSBC bank as a potential title sponsor has left GBR Challenge in a race against time to raise funds for a new campaign. But Dunstone is working on an idea to use GBR Challenge as a vehicle for a leading humanitarian charity.

"It has been well received and has changed people's thinking," he said. The plan is to offer naming rights to the charity and then to offer other sponsorship opportunities to commercial companies.

"The idea we are trying to get across is to use the team and the America's Cup to do something positive", Dunstone told The Sunday Times. "From a company's point of view it ticks a lot of their boxes - corporate social responsibility, humanitarian work and brand awareness in one package."

GBR Challenge are aware time is running out - the later a team leaves it, the later they are able to look at signing top crews and develop their boats, sails and equipment.

"If we don't do this now, we will never have a chance to be a top team," said Leslie Ryan, the team's marketing boss "We need to have the boats ready to race by March."

Britain's GBR America's Cup challenge team seem to have lost HSBC as title sponsor.

Last Friday the team members were told in a confidential update that a principal commercial backer was on the brink of signing up, yet a senior figure at the bank said: "As we stand today, we will not be sponsoring the GBR Challenge."

HSBC's move counts as a significant setback for GBR. Contact has been maintained with two would-be other sponsors, thought to be Barclays and HP.

Meanwhile, GBR Challenge design team members and engineers from the Wolfson Unit, Southampton, successfully completed phase three of tank testing for upgrading GBR 70 and GBR 78 to the America's Cup Class Rule at the QinetiQ Marine Research Facility, Gosport.

"With three phases of tank testing behind us", the Team said. "the focus will now move to the build shed here at the GBR Challenge base in Cowes where GBR 70 &78 have been prepared for modifications".

As teams gather in Valencia for next month's second European warm-up regatta, the stage is being set for confirmation of a multi-million-pound sponsorship for GBR Challenge and the sale by owner Peter Harrison of a stake in the team he backed with £22m in Auckland in 2002-03.

Final details have still to be agreed, and a delay is necessary to allow the announcement in Doha, Qatar, tomorrow of the latest steps by the financially beleaguered Tracy Edwards to secure a round-the-world race in giant multihulls, scheduled to start next February.

The same sponsor, believed to be HSBC, is to finance that as part of a plan to become involved in the development of leisure facilities in the gas- and oil-rich sheikhdom.

Britain's GBR Challenge will not be at next month's America's Cup warm-up act regattas in Valencia, as negotiations with a prospective principal sponsor continue through further rounds of meetings.

Chairman Peter Harrison had set the end of August as the deadline for continuing with the follow-up to the GBR's debut in the 2003 cup, and a deal with one of the leading sponsors from Jaguar's shut-down Formula One team* appeared to be on the point of signature two weeks ago.

"The deadline was only going to be imposed if we weren't making progress - but we are," said commercial director Leslie Ryan. "I am hoping for a decision any day now."

Ryan concedes that the negotiations have taken longer than expected, and that in turn has caused concern with the potential sailing team members, many of whom raced last week in Sardinia at the Rolex Swan Cup.

Meanwhile, GBR's design team, under Derek Clark, have moved to the larger scale test tank at Qinetiq in Gosport this week ahead of modifying GBR 70 and 78 to the new version of the America's Cup Class rule, which comes into force in 2005.

The GBR Challenge team were absent from the opening of the America's Cup regatta in Marseille yesterday but the team are on the cusp of securing sponsorship for the 2007 event.

GBR sources say that a title sponsorship deal, likely to be in excess of £15 million, will be signed at a meeting tomorrow. A formal announcement could be made within a week.

The funds will come from one of four companies GBR have been courting for nearly a year. They are two high street banks, an oil company, and a United States-based corporation.

The Mariantic website has posted an excerpt from a story by Ed Gorman of the London Times that states, "there is a possibility that Iain Percy, the Finn class gold medal-winner at the Sydney Olympics, may yet join the GBR Challenge after deciding two months ago to work with a new Italian America's Cup team instead".

"It appears Percy is less than satisfied in Italy and despite their public dust-up with him when he decided to sign with the Italian +39 syndicate, the British team are keen to speak to him again."

We are not sure how he can be "less than satisfied in Italy " as he has been at the Olympics since it was announced he was joining +39...Also rather far fetched, we think, is this paragraph; "Even more intriguing is their hope to speak again to Ben Ainslie, the triple Olympic medal-winner who won his second gold medal in the Finn class at Athens and who has joined Team New Zealand (TNZ) for the next Cup as a helmsman.

Although Ainslie is thought to be under contract to TNZ, the GBR Challenge has not given up hope of luring him back to Britain."

Bought by ACM to be used as a display boat, GBR 44 left the compound in Cowes last week en route to her new temporary home of Marseille before to be exhibited ashore in Valencia.

GBR 44 started life as Nippon 44 and was one of a pair of training boats purchased in 2001, providing GBR Challenge with a training platform in preparation for last Louis Vuitton Cup.

Peter Harrison, chairman and backer of Britain's America's Cup team, will pull the plug on the GBR Challenge unless another sponsor willing to invest up to £30 million is found by the end of August.

GBR Challenge have five prospective backers for the 2007 event in Valencia with whom they have been in talks since the of end of last year. Representatives of some of them will come to Skandia Cowes Week next week for talks.

But if deals are not signed, Harrison is unlikely to carry on. He spent around £22 million on the first challenge in 2003 and another £3 million in Britain on funding research, tank testing, renting a temporary base in Valencia and maintaining a small core team.

Harrison, who has funded ongoing operations since returning from Auckland in March 2003, said: "The decision can't be far away. We only have another month."

Harrison, who returned Britain to the America's Cup for the first time since 1987, has made a very attractive pledge for the 2007 event. He will put in £20 million if commercial partners can be found to put in a further £20-30 million to make up the balance for the the £40-50 million budget needed.

In recent weeks GBR 70 has returned to sailing in the Solent under Adrian Stead.

Several overseas sailors have visited the British set-up, including Ed Baird, skipper of Young America in the 2000 Cup. He had been in talks about the possible team leader/skipper role. Cameron Appleton, one of Dean Barker's Team New Zealand tune-up helmsman, has been sailing on GBR 70.