The chief executive Grant Dalton and the chief operating officer Kevin Shoebridge have spent their limited budget on the essentials, not creature comforts, as those who have visited their spartan home base in Auckland can confirm. The Kiwis have also had the moxie to think outside the box while staying inside the rules.

The four cycling grinders on board are the most obvious manifestation of this. Known as cyclors — a portmanteau of cyclists and sailors — they have become the symbol of this Cup and, like many a design breakthrough, represent an idea that looks obvious only in retrospect.

The Swedes tried it in the America’s Cup long ago, but only below decks. Other teams, including Oracle, claim they had considered the idea before rejecting it, but only the Kiwis have truly made it work.

And it has worked not only because strong legs can produce more wattage with less effort than strong arms on traditional hand-powered grinding pedestals. It has worked because it has allowed the Kiwis to produce that wattage while keeping their hands free for other onboard duties, supplementing the work of Burling and the wing trimmer Glenn Ashby.

“That’s a massive factor,” said Andy Maloney, one of Team New Zealand’s cyclors. “We pride ourselves on not everything being put into Peter’s or Glenn’s hands, whereas you see Jimmy Spithill and Tom Slingsby pretty much doing 99 percent of the work on the Oracle boat, and they look pretty hectic. They get pretty flustered when it’s a tight race, whereas we delegate the jobs a bit more evenly across the boat because we can use our hands.”