"Unless the matter is resolved in the next few weeks, the commercial reality is that the [lack of]viability of the America's Cup challenge syndicates will make it very difficult to continue."

Taking a businessman's point of view, he noted that you have to be able to assess chances of success when pursuing any particular course of action. Right now, he feels that neither Alinghi nor BMW Oracle could be confident of success, that eventually the two sides will have to bury the past and look to the future, and that the best compromise would be for Alinghi voluntarily to ditch its Spanish Challenger of Record club, the CNEV, while BMW Oracle voluntarily gives up its bid to be the Challenger of Record. 

When now Lord, then Tim, Bell was credited with selling then Margaret now Baroness Thatcher into No. 10 Downing Street and the prime ministership of the United Kingdom he at least appeared to have a client who would listen. Many moons later, one of the Bell Pottinger subsidiaries, the sports event company FastTrack, has been brought in to run the belated charm offensive that would see America's Cup holder Ernesto Bertarelli lifted from the near-pariah status he has had to endure following the successful defence in Valencia in 2007 and the ram-raid interpretation put on the publication of his blueprint for another defence in 2009, in Valencia, with the complicity of the specially-contrived Club Nautico Espanol de Vela as Challenger of Record. But, despite Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth being the ideal front man, mere schmoozing is not enough.

Soon after the successful defence by Alinghi in Valencia in 2007, but with clearly meticulous planning, had come the blueprint for America's Cup 33 that raised so many hackles. Out of the sun came the ambush move by Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle to persuade the New York Supreme Court that the structure did not meet the conditions of the 1887 Deed of Gift drawn up to regulate the competition of the Cup in perpetuity.

The Supreme Court in the person of Justice Herman Cahn agreed, threw out the Spanish, and gave Ellison's Golden Gate Yacht Club the position of Challenger of Record and the sole right to a best-of-three face-off with Bertarelli's Alinghi, whose home club is the Societe Nautique de Geneve.

Bertarelli's lawyers were already preparing their appeal before Justice Cahn's ink was dry and this week, in an Alice in Wonderland analysis of the wording of the Deed, Cahn's decision was reversed by a majority of 3-2 in the Appellate Division, the two-man dissent being written by the most senior of the five.

That has led to a series of unfotrunate moves. First, Alinghi was both triumphalist and aggressive in its statement after the fact. Second, Alinghi did not seize the moment and offer to hold inclusive talks having been put back in the chair. When you are in control, olive branch politics are easier. Third, BMW Oracle, boxed into a corner with little other option, gave notice that it would go to the New York State Court of Appeals, and, finally, Alinghi immediately issued an in your face, derogratory denunciation. Not clever; in now way subtle.

There was no way, for years, that the Northern Ireland Unionists and the IRA wanted to negotiate a settlement. In the end, it was the only way forward. It is possible that Robert Mugabe does not want a negotiated settlement to the troubles in Zimbabwe, but he has been pictured shaking hands with Morgan Tsvangirai, his opposition opponent.

Trouble is that both Bertarelli and Ellison can afford to ignore the interests of others, including those sailors who are seeing lifetime career opportunities evaporate. Alinghi ceo and skipper Brad Butterworth is able to sit in the Pier View pub in Cowes on Friday night having a drink and a natter with BMW Oracle  ceo and skipper Russell Coutts, whose visit was so fleeting that he never saw either of his Extreme 40 crews sail. But they can talk about everything from rugby to golf to investments in New Zealand but they cannot reach the sort of agreement for which Butterworth yearns and with which Coutts could live.

Meanwhile, BMW Oracle negotiator Tom Ehman says that they are open to talks, that their latest appeal can always be withdrawn in the month it will now take to register and the six after that in which to hear the case and deliver a decision. But his condition is that Alinghi relinquish control of the way in which the Cup is run.

If Sir Keith has a credible exit strategy for both sides, and that has yet to be tested, then he needs an ally. That ally is the general public and the court of public opinion, and their weapon should be have three components. They are pressure, pressure, and pressure.