Mitch Booth - a madforsailing interview

A change of nation and a change of boat, all in search of Olympic Gold

After ten years, most Olympic crews have either hung up their sailing boots, moved on the bigger boats or at the very least changed classes. What kind of dedication is it that keeps somebody sailing the same boats towards the same goal for over 25 years? To start with Booth can't quite answer the question but in the end it comes back to the usual obsessive story, "My lifetime ambition of winning an (Olympic) gold". And Booth really is convinced that he still has it in him to take the ultimate prize. "If I ever thought I had no chance of winning a gold medal I would say okay, I have given it a good shot and I am going to walk away from it but I still enjoy the competition immensely."
With a bronze medal in Barcelona and Silver in Savannah already under his belt, Booth is clearly no stranger to the pressures of Olympic racing. What, I ask him are the particular challenges of this exclusive event? "The Olympics is a funny regatta," he says with a chuckle. "You have to get it right at the right time. It's a small fleet so it is very much a speed race. It's not so much about sailing the percentages with a small fleet. It's more about having the boat perfectly tuned for the conditions and getting it right on the day."

Which takes us neatly on to what he will be doing differently for Athens. Perhaps surprisingly he doesn't think he will be doing anything different, just the same things better. "It's not about how can we restructure the whole game plan," he says. "It's about how can we just tweak it up a bit and improve a few things and just get it right at the right moment".

Mitch Booth's commitment to the Tornado class is legendary. While the vast majority of the fleet held out for years against change he battled away, eventually forming a breakaway Tornado Sport class. His dedication was finally vindicated in November 2000 when ISAF effectively chose Booth's new 'Tornado Sport' over the original Tornado for the Games in Athens. While his motivation lay in part to securing the future of a class he loved, it was equally driven by a desire to improve his own chances of Olympic gold. "From a totally selfish point of view I knew that I had a much better chance to win a gold medal in the new configuration than the old," he says. "The old boat to be honest, just didn't do it for me anymore. I couldn't see myself getting enthusiastic about going sailing and putting in the amount of time that I know you have to put in to maintain peak performance. With the boat change it has given me a new enthusiasm."

Following the changes the Tornado is undergoing a new period of development. "The number one thing we are looking at at the moment is the mast," say Booth. "We have found that the second trapeze upwind adds a bit more compression. That changes the performance of the boat but it also makes the mast a little more unreliable."

Changes are also under way in the design of the sails - and not just in obvious areas. According to Booth, "the main and the jib have to be very efficient upwind but not so versatile for going downwind because you have the spinnaker on it for that. You are not running flat like we used to do in six knots of breeze. Then you would have a very full jib that you would probably struggle with upwind but you would get the benefit downwind". He expects subtle things to change most.


See page three for Mitch's Views on big-boat sailing...