KEY POINTS:
The contrast in fortunes in the Dalton yachting family could not be greater.
Grant Dalton, boss of Emirates Team New Zealand, is on top of the world in balmy Valencia after his team sailed into sight of reclaiming the America's Cup with a 5-0 thrashing of Luna Rossa in the Louis Vuitton Cup.
At the same time, his older brother Graham is alone, struggling through the North Atlantic, having already fallen out of contention in the round-the-world Velux Five Oceans solo race because he did not reach the American port stop at Norfolk, Virginia, in time.
While Grant Dalton is in the limelight as media flock to his team's success, a "hugely disappointed" Graham Dalton doubts anyone will be waiting for him at the oceans race finish in Bilbao, Spain, because the contest is already over.
"But it's not about having someone on the dock," Graham Dalton said a month ago.
"If you go sailing in the Velux Five Oceans because you are going to have the TV cameras and the media on the dock, then the motivation is wrong. If you want to be a star, go to Hollywood and be an actor.
"I'm going to Bilbao because I started something, and I'll finish it."
Graham Dalton's family and oceans race organisers have heard little from him in recent weeks.
He expected to return to New Zealand after arriving in Spain "and I suppose I will have to be responsible again ... I haven't seen my family for a while and I won't see them for a while longer."
Tragedy has plagued Graham Dalton's recent yacht racing and personal life. He had to pull out of the 2003 round-the-world race because his mother was dying.
His son, Anthony Graham Dalton, fell ill with cancer and died just before Christmas 2005. This race is in his son's memory. His yacht is named A Southern Man - AGD.
During the first leg, to Perth, his wife, Robbie, was diagnosed with breast cancer, but she chose not to tell him until after she had had a mastectomy, so that he would not abandon the race.
Since the start of the 48,200km race last October, Dalton has been caught in fierce storms, battled waves 20m high in the Southern Ocean, hit a seal, sailed with a hand burned with boiling water, and had 100 litres of diesel leak into his dehydrated food.
He has also suffered from illness and his yacht has had numerous equipment problems.
