BARCELONA (Reuters) – “This is the race committee, we have met the wind limit and this race is live” is the phrase eager America’s Cup fans have got used to hearing when watching live broadcasts of the racing.
Mel Roberts, who hails from San Diego and is known as “the voice of the America’s Cup” at the event in Barcelona, works on the water with Regatta Director Iain Murray and software operator Kylie Robinson to make sure racing runs smoothly.
The professional race official admits the label feels strange.
“I’m definitely not the voice. We’ve got commentators who are actually trained to speak. Someone just sort of gave me the radio at the last Cup I think,” said Roberts, her familiar tone as measured and composed as it is over the airwaves.
Much of Roberts’s communication is via messaging applications so that she does not distract the crews while sailing with information aimed at their support teams or officials.
“Nothing I am saying has any emotion to it. I’m stating a fact and I think my voice is the same if I’m stating an unfortunate fact like ‘we’re abandoning the race’ or ‘we’ve exceeded the wind limit’ or if we are moving marks,” she added.
Roberts told Reuters on Saturday that any hint in her voice of relief, humour or frustration was not intentional and the deadpan approach was what she had adopted for the role during the last America’s Cup in Auckland in 2021.
Asked if she would like to do the job again at the next America’s Cup, Roberts said she would love to but it would depend who the winners and challengers of record wanted involved after the final between holders New Zealand and Britain.
Roberts said one of the most exciting things about the event in Barcelona was the advent of the first America’s Cup for women, which was won by Italy.
(Reporting by Alexander Smith; Editing by Clare Fallon)
