Diego Botín speaking to Carlos Pich for Seahorse Magazine (October 2025 – Issue 548)
We spoke to the most fashionable sailor in Spain, Diego Botín, back home for a few days in his hometown of Santander, not on vacation but training in the 49er. His summer is intense, combining SailGP campaigns and Olympic preparation, but he also finds time to discreetly train on a Moth. He recently competed at the World Championships in Garda, leaving him with a bittersweet feeling…
Seahorse: How was your Moth World Championship?
Diego Botín: Very interesting! I’m fortunate to be part of Gonzalo Redondo’s development group (see pg28) and the technical side of things is particularly interesting to me. Actively collaborating with the designer and the shipyard to have the best possible boat is always a satisfying challenge. Most of the top sailors use the Bieker, a Moth that is the benchmark. Many try to match or surpass it, but it’s a difficult task! We’ve pushed hard. We went to the previous worlds in New Zealand and were far behind the Biekers. Since then we did a very good job, and I think in Italy we were on the same level speed-wise, even with a chance of winning.
Regarding sails, I’ve been working with Doyle Sails and we developed a good sail optimised for the expected conditions: southerly thermals of 10-12kt, somewhat less good with more wind. But that week the wind didn’t drop below 13kt!
SH: Expectations…
DB: With the training we had squeezed in, I felt I could have finished maybe sixth, or even sailing well enough in the top five. Even so ending in ninth overall I’m very happy, even more so when compared to the previous worlds where I didn’t even make the top 20. Plus in Italy there was a more competitive and better-prepared fleet.
SH: Do you feel the lack of time training on the Moth?
DB: A little, yes. In New Zealand there’s a group of youngsters who dedicate a lot of time to the Moth, over 100 days, some even 200 days a year. I’ve sailed quite a bit given my limited availability, but nothing close to that. Three months before the worlds we went to Garda with Joel (Rodríguez, his flight controller at SailGP) to train on-site. We were able to complete three sessions of 10-12 days each. In total we spent almost 40 days on the water there. I was then barely able to sail in Santander because the boat’s arrival from New Zealand was so delayed and, due to class rules, the shipyard couldn’t start manufacturing new parts until very late. So we put all our energy into getting to know Garda and waiting for the new parts to arrive.
SH: Does being on a development team enrich you beyond the application to this class?
DB: Of course I’m used to 49ers and SailGP, which are practically one-design classes. In the Moth there are more development possibilities. More or less rigid masts, sails with different materials that stretch differently and with different luff curves, and so on. Foil sizes and shapes, hull size, wing angle. Systems are extremely important, being able to make changes to the sail trim to adapt it to the foils, etc. There is huge scope. The same in construction. The compromise between the strength and weight of the materials and the loads they support. We’ve come very far, but we have enormous room for improvement. It’s fascinating. It’s very similar to a smaller America’s Cup.
SH: Do you plan to continue sailing the Moth?
DB: Yes, yes, definitely. I like it a lot. Look closely and you’ll see that many people who have sailed the Moth and moved away end up coming back. There are great legends who have been there for 20 years and are still there. The boat is extremely fast for its size. The fleets are very large, with a maximum of 80 boats in the championships split into two or three groups. The starts are fun; it’s the law of the jungle… you have to find a space then somehow squeeze in!’
SH: What’s today’s optimal crew weight for the Moth?
DB: Generally 80-90kg, but what’s more important is how to hang on! Interestingly, the Laser sailors are very technical and luckily Joel, a Laser Olympian, has taught me a lot. But it’s a boat with enough adjustments if you are lighter, with flatter sails and softer masts. More important on what is now a highly technical boat is to trim constantly; you can’t lose focus for even a second.
SH: It would be inexcusable, for me but especially for the editor, to pass up the opportunity to also learn more about your season in SailGP?
DB: The truth is that it’s going well, always with our ups and downs. But in such a high-level competition that’s normal. You can’t always be at the top. You have to learn from the good and bad moments. We’re past the halfway point of the season and we’re fighting with the leading group. I’d say there are now four teams in contention to compete in the Grand Final: New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain and us, but both Canada and France are very close and they still have a chance. Being at the level of these giants consolidates us as a top team. Last season went very well for us; we felt everything went our way, finishing the year with the final victory. Now we think we’ve moved up another notch and if we do things right we’ll have a good final result. We won the events in San Francisco and New York, just before Portsmouth, where we didn’t do well. We had a lot of failures and on the last day we had a nosedive in the second race where we broke a lot of things. We lost the windward rudder, which exerts at least one tonne of downward force. It’s like having an elephant sitting on the stern and suddenly the elephant jumps out of the water! The boat suddenly pinched up without any chance of reacting. The fairings were destroyed, and they’re critical to performance. We were still able to compete in the third race of the day, having done what we could to salvage the situation, but we only just reset all the wing functions seconds before the start. Still, we got some very important points – it was like a wound that didn’t bleed much.
SH: Are you keeping the same crew group as last season?
DB: Yes, we’ve only changed the grinder, Stuart Dodson, who went to the Swiss team. Matthew Barber did a few events, but he’d already told us he wouldn’t be able to compete the entire season, so Andrés Barrio is sailing now. They’ve adapted very quickly.
SH: Is the team’s future in any jeopardy, or will you secure an independent SailGP franchise?
DB: There’s a lot of interest in buying our team and negotiations are ongoing with different groups and individuals. But we’re still being supported by the organisation, so ultimately everything hangs on their decisions. They set the conditions of sale, decide if and to whom they sell. We’ll see what the future holds. This year we added a new sponsor and have reduced the cost deficit. It’s not easy to add more sponsors, so the energy is focused on selling the team. I trust that we can continue developing in a solid way, without doing anything crazy, and that we will grow at the same speed as the league itself. But I can’t say much; we’ll have to handle whatever comes next. The only non-private teams are now us and New Zealand.
SH: The Future of the League?
DB: Fleet growth must happen in even numbers, because there will never be one fleet of more than 12 boats. With 12 boats now, such a large wind bubble shadow is created that if you’re behind it’s really difficult to catch up. And in light winds it’s hard to take off. It looks as if next season there will be 14 teams, and the format will be two groups of seven. Each group will complete three races on Saturday and three on Sunday, with the top two from each side racing as the final four. Media interest will increase because the number of races in each event will double. Afterwards, the hope is to continue increasing by two teams per year until reaching the maximum of 20, with two fleets of 10.
SH: Is it increasingly difficult for new teams?
DB: The first season isn’t easy at all. This year both Brazil and Italy got off to a good start; they’ve been smart taking on some experienced crew members. Martine’s [Grael] Brazil team quickly recruited an expert flight controller and trimmer, which has allowed them to progress more quickly. If they can sort out their unfortunate boat failure they will be in the top group by the end of this year. Opening up the nationality requirement to allow three crew members from other countries instead of just one certainly helped both the standard in the fleet and the closeness of the competition.
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