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."