“It was absolutely brutal for the team, and it was a hard pill to swallow,” said Team New Zealand’s skipper, Glenn Ashby, who was the only member of that losing team on this year’s crew. “For the sailors and all the other guys who are with the team, it is a great redemption and, I guess, a relief to right the wrongs of the last campaign.”

To survive and remain in the game, Team New Zealand and its chief executive, Grant Dalton, had to overcome existential challenges, including internal divisions and an early shortage of financing.

Some of Team New Zealand’s money troubles were linked to the decision to strip it of the chance to host a preliminary regatta in Auckland. That move by the America’s Cup event authority cost the Kiwis government funding and led to a lengthy arbitration dispute with the Cup organizers and a multimillion-dollar award this year to Team New Zealand.

Still, the Kiwis survived only by reducing salaries and taking calculated risks on design like the long-secret decision to add cycling pedestals to their boat to generate power, instead of the conventional hand-cranked pedestals used by other teams. The move freed some of the Kiwi grinders’ hands to help control the boat’s foils and other systems.

The team also made the right calls on navigational control systems for the challenging AC50 foiling catamarans and on which foils to use in the light winds that prevailed in Bermuda. Perhaps most important, the team successfully navigated the contentious transition from the popular veteran helmsman Dean Barker to the 26-year-old Peter Burling.