America's Cup: "This race is live!" - the woman with the voice of the America's Cup
Tatjana Pokorny
· 25.09.2024
The conditions are checked before every race in the Louis Vuitton Cup and also from 12 October in the America's Cup. The winds must be consistently above 6.5 and below 21 knots at several points on the Cup course between nine and four minutes before the start in order for a race to start. If the limit values are exceeded or undercut at even one measuring point, the clock is reset to the initial nine minutes and the procedure starts all over again.
The Cup synonym for "Action!"
Only in clear and persistently adverse conditions can Race Officer Iain Murray and his team postpone the start for longer or postpone the races to the next day. However, if the conditions are acceptable, i.e. within the specified limits, then race committee member Melanie Roberts takes to the microphone in addition to her other regatta management duties. Typically, she says: "This is the race committee. We have passed the wind test." And then this sentence: "This race is live!"
Mel Roberts pronounces this simple sentence so confidently and promisingly that it has come to epitomise the America's Cup. "This race is live" opens up pre-start excitement, battles for position, speed rushes or doldrums and boats falling off their foils or coming back up and chasing across the America's Cup course off Barcelina. "This race is live!" is the Cup synonym for "Action!" in film or "Go" in other sports. "This race is live!" heralds a duel under sail that currently only exists in the America's Cup.
Melanie Roberts gives the verbal pre-start signal for the Louis Vuitton Cup and America's Cup races like nobody else. It's 29 years since the American, who grew up in San Diego, sent a letter and a five-dollar note to the America's Cup team OneAustralia as an enthusiastic and compassionate nine-year-old. She wanted to use her pocket money for a week to help the team get back on course for the Cup after "OneAustralia" sank in 1995.
Five dollars pocket money for a sunken Cup yacht
She received the five dollars back in a letter dated 24 April 1995. The sender was "OneAustralia" skipper John Bertrand, who thanked her personally and sincerely for the "great support". At the same time, he assured the girl from San Diego that "I am happy to tell you that we did not have to use your money and I am therefore sending it back to you".
The tactician on board "OneAustralia" when the America's Cup yacht from Down Under dramatically broke in two and sank in strong winds was none other than Iain Murray, the current regatta director for the Louis Vuitton Cup and the 37th America's Cup match. Mel Roberts - the woman with the calm and full voice - is his assistant. They have already worked together in the 36th America's Cup in Auckland. And they continue to do so well and successfully.
"When I was little, we had the America's Cup at the club." Mel Roberts
The "Auld Mug" directly inspired Mel Roberts on her course from primary school age. As a little Sabot sailor, she grew up with an everyday view of the ornate silver jug. Between 1987 and 1995, the America's Cup was displayed in a glass jar at her local San Diego Yacht Club, for which Dennis Conner was the first to win the "Auld Mug" with "Stars & Stripes". "As a child, I thought the America's Cup was simply an integral part of the club," she says today in Barcelona with a smile.
In a quartet on the launch ship
In Barcelona, Mel Roberts is part of the race committee quartet on the start boat, where race activities are monitored and decisions are made. There are also the mobile teams on the water. Iain Murray makes the decisions based on information from his crew. Crew member Mel Roberts gets up at 5 a.m. every day, goes for a jog and then goes to work at the heart of the America's Cup in Barcelona.
She normally works full-time in a similar role for the SailGP sailing league. But she is taking a break until November in view of the ongoing America's Cup. That's a good fit. At SailGP, Melanie Roberts, who initially worked as a regatta coordinator for the St Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco after graduating from college, operates the league software, designs the courses, manages races, directs communications and also helps with documentation.
As a globetrotter, Mel Roberts not only enjoys working with her colleagues, but also the many trips around the world that her job at the leading events in international sailing entails: "I love travelling," says the likeable, calm woman as simply and convincingly as "This race is live!". For 13 years now, she has been increasingly involved in the specific race management technologies used in top regattas. Whether and how the America's Cup and SailGP are similar, she says - of course not.
Teamwork with the childhood hero
She became a New Zealand fan after her last America's Cup stint. In times of coronavirus, those who worked for the America's Cup in Auckland in 2021 have grown into a close-knit "Cup family". The fact that the SailGP has visited New Zealand's South Island twice in a row has made Mel Roberts happy. She is also looking forward to returning to Auckland, where the New Zealand summit of the fifth SailGP season, which starts at the end of November, will take place in mid-January 2025.
For the next four weeks, however, Barcelona will remain the centre of Mel Robert's activities in her fourth America's Cup engagement after her debut as a regatta management assistant in 2013, alongside Iain Murray in software operations in 2017. She is popular among her colleagues and is considered smart and reliable. As a girl, she would never have thought that she would one day work for and with one of her childhood heroes: "Iain Murray has so much experience, and he is calm and composed. We work well together. He is very well respected."
The woman with the voice of the America's Cup is one of the pillars on which the sport can be reliably delivered. The fact that overtime is normal in this job and extra days are the order of the day doesn't bother Mel Roberts: "That's normal for us. You have to be very flexible in this job." If she or her colleagues are hungry because they haven't had time to eat, that's not a problem in Mel's environment. The woman is a passionate baker.
Biscuit queen in the America's Cup
Shortly before the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup final, she had already made provisions. On one of the race organisers' office tables in Barcelona's World Trade Centre at the America's Cup port of Port Vell, there are rows of boxes with contents as promising as Mel Robert's voice. They are filled with delicious brownies, maple syrup walnut cookies and coconut biscuits. If it wasn't for the top job she does, you could hire her for that talent too.
