KEY POINTS:
Brad Butterworth's Auckland family are still waiting to hear from him since he led Switzerland's Alinghi to victory over Team New Zealand.
"We don't expect to for a couple of days. That's fine," his sister Trudy Butterworth said.
"We've left him messages. He must be exhausted. It's just huge, we were so excited watching the last race. He has been keeping us all entertained."
Ms Butterworth won't let on whether she supported Team New Zealand or her brother's Alinghi in the America's Cup.
"Where do your loyalties go? It's hard, it's so hard."
Brad and Trudy were taught as children to sail by their father Bill Butterworth at the Panmure Basin and then Kohimarama Beach.
"It's just what we did," Ms Butterworth said.
Butterworth's mother Alice said she had been watching the races "from start to finish".
"He's always been incredibly competitive, right from when he was a young boy. I'm just a proud mum."
She was not the only one up late.
TV ratings figures show more than 150,000 diehard Team New Zealand fans were watching at 1am yesterday.
It was down from the 220,000 viewers estimated by AGB Nielsen to have seen race one, but a more than respectable 158,121 people were up to see the first 1 1/2 hours of the race.
Swiss media were much more interested in Alinghi's triumph. The Berner Zeitung relegated the yachting to its sports section, but rated it above the doings of national hero and world tennis number one Roger Federer.
Despite it being the America's Cup, US sports media was saturated with baseball coverage and the BBC had the cup action under the "other sport" tab.