Ben Booth brings a unique perspective to his coaching, as he has spent a lifetime rowing in waves along with undergoing many years of intensive, international training in Zen meditation and the martial arts. Ben is known for the integration of his extensive mind/body training to his rowing coaching, to unlock reserves of untapped potential.

Ben Booth has been rowing the coastal since the 1990s. He’s hit the sea with everything from traditional working rowboats to surf boats to the early Open Water rowing shells before settling on the World Rowing coastal class as his craft of choice.

A true pioneer in US coastal rowing, Ben was the first athlete to represent the USA in the World Rowing Coastal Championships (2015 - Lima, Peru). Since then, he has continued to represent the US, attaining A-final finishes in both the solo and the quad, and is currently the only North American to have reached the A-finals in the men’s solo (C1X). When the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club needed someone “strong and crazy enough” to be the first single rower to compete in the rough and wild 45k race around Hong Kong Island, they reached out to Ben. He summarily set the course record, which continues to stand. On a more local front, Ben has won the 32k Blackburn Challenge in Massachusetts USA for numerous years, and holds the course record in three different boat categories.

Ben’s specialty is rough water rowing, and he is well known for pushing the limits of what is possible in a coastal rowing boat. He encourages athletes to explore the “wave rider” lifestyle, and some of the early World Rowing promotional videos featured Ben’s footage to showcase this “wild side” of coastal rowing.

Diving further into the sport, Ben designs and builds innovative coastal rowing boats, and is the Co-founder of Next Boatworks, the first World Rowing spec coastal rowing boat manufacturing company in the USA.

In addition to rowing, Ben spent many years living in Zen Temples and in wilderness retreats. He studied Zen Sword under Korean Zen Master Chang Sik Kim. He lived in China, studying Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi in full-time training settings. After China, he travelled to India, where he lived with a guru of Kalaripayattu and did an extended retreat in a yoga ashram.

Ben has been a professional coach and educator since the early 2000s. He has been an instructor on all three of the USRowing coastal coaching certification courses, and a member of the USRowing coastal rowing committee. He is the founder of the nonprofit organization Dharma Voyage, where he leads young people on ambitious coastal rowing adventures. Ben has also taught mental/physical awareness and fitness at a diverse selection of places, such as Kripalu, the Sakya Institute for Buddhist Studies, Mass College of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, in numerous gyms and health centers and in retreats, camps and intensives throughout his New England home.