After a testing week on their bodies, Team New Zealand have been rewarded this morning by hitting their target for the America's Cup weigh-in and a big breakfast straight after it.
Despite delays to the start of the finals due to Auckland's recent community outbreak of Covid-19, one date on the calendar that didn't change was today's weigh-in, with Team NZ and Luna Rossa needing their 11 onboard crew to weigh between 960kg and 990kg.
Team NZ grinder Andy Maloney told 1 NEWS the team passed after a tough week of management.
"For a lot of us, we've been watching what we eat quite carefully and for the last few days, you probably don't eat as much — you probably eat half your portions," Maloney said.
Maloney said the team could be divided into two groups heading into today's weigh-in — those struggling to lose weight and those struggling to maintain it.
"I was in the group who was well above my weight," he said.
"But I had to try and keep my muscle mass on for as long as possible and then watch what you eat and get down to that weight... Normally, we do eat a lot to stay up to weight as well because when you're grinding for five hours out on the water you're eating a lot as well.
"At the end of the day, we cut that portion in half and because we're burning so much out on the water it falls off quite naturally."
Maloney added that, despite how it sounds, the week was much tougher on other members of the squad than the grinders.
"It's hardest on the smallest guys on the team like Pete [Burling], Blair [Tuke] and Glenn [Ashby].
"For them to drop a couple of kilos — that's a high percentage of their body weight and they normally don't eat as much as us on a normal day either.
"For them to drop a couple, they have to work pretty hard at it... But everyone's done pretty well."
Ashby himself told 1 NEWS earlier this week the weigh-ins "take its toll" on the team but they've also learned to be strategic with it, looking at weight as a "resource" that they can distribute between themselves with the average weight of a sailor being 90kg.
Glenn Ashby said crew aboard Te Rehutai treat their bodyweight like a "resource" which can be traded between them.
"We've got guys that are over 100kg and we've got guys in the 70s like myself. It's a balance and you have to allocate that resource."
Most of the resource goes to the "big engines" of the boat, the grinders, who Ashby said can go through an impressive amount of food to maintain their output.
"With the amount of effort and the amount of sailing we've been doing, it's actually quite hard for the guys to keep at weight — they're burning a lot, particularly the grinding guys — so they've got to keep refueling all the time.
"When you see the piles of food that those guys have on their plates, it's pretty impressive what they get through."
Maloney came in 300g under his target weight today, which he said was in the low-90s, so he rewarded himself the only way he knew how.
"I treated myself to a big breakfast afterwards and a nice croissant.
"We were treated to a nice potato rosti this morning too."
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