The ninth and penultimate leg of the Volvo Ocean Race has finished with a great victory by PUMA Ocean Racing. Despite that, Torben Grael's ERICSSON 4 has won this tenth edition of the VOR because PUMA will not be able to reach them in the next and last leg.
Let's celebrate these two great teams with some spectacular images from this leg taken by VOR official photographers:


Volvo Ocean Race/Rick Tomlinson

Volvo Ocean Race/Dave Kneale

Volvo Ocean Race/Rick Tomlinson

Volvo Ocean Race/Rick Tomlinson

A part from the final classification, the main event of this leg was that Telefonica Blue was forced to suspend racing after running aground on a rock soon after the start in Marstrand suffering damages to the keel and appendages.

Telefonica hits a rock:

Volvo Ocean Race/Rick Tomlinson

The boat immediately started to take on water:

Gabriele Olivo/Telefonica Blue/Volvo Ocean Race

The damages:

María Muiña/Equipo Telefónica

Photograph by Ingo Arndt/Minden Pictures

Jellyfish, Squids, Octopuses, Krill... every kind of underwater creature that inhabit the abysses usually share a see-through, translucent body, sometimes vividly colourful. Ingo Arndt and Chris Newbert have admirably portrayed some of them in this National Geographic gallery.
Click here for further info


Photograph by Ingo Arndt/Minden Pictures

Photograph by Ingo Arndt/Minden Pictures

Photograph by Ingo Arndt/Minden Pictures

Photograph by Ingo Arndt/Minden Pictures




Photograph by Chris Newbert/Minden Pictures

Photograph by Chris Newbert/Minden Pictures

Photograph by Chris Newbert/Minden Pictures

Photograph by Ingo Arndt/Minden Pictures





You can find more pictures of creatures from the abyss in the following posts:

• The enigmatic Frilled Shark
• The Piglet Squid, a squid with Gonzo's face!
• The jellyfish who cheated death
• The colourful underwater world of Nudibranchs
• Return of the Giant Jellyfishes!
• Creatures from the Abyss

©Carlo Borlenghi

This weekend we (me and Carlo Borlenghi) have been in Porto Cervo for the Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta 2009. We've been lucky this time with three days of 20 knots mistral pushing these nineteen wonderful giants in the middle of the wonderful islands of Maddalena archipelago, an amazing group of islands in the Straits of Bonifacio between Corsica and north-eastern Sardinia, that is a National Park and definetely the best place to go sailing in Italy.
Enjoy this brief selection, and if it's not enough check Carlo's website:


©Guido Trombetta

©Carlo Borlenghi

©Carlo Borlenghi

©Carlo Borlenghi

©Carlo Borlenghi

©Carlo Borlenghi

©Carlo Borlenghi

©Carlo Borlenghi

©Carlo Borlenghi

Yesterday has been a very sad day for the sailing world. Me and Carlo Borlenghi were in Porto Cervo for a regatta when we received the news about the sudden departure of Beppe Barnao.
He has been The Journalist for the Italian sailing world for many decades. Everybody knew him, his talent and what kind of good and genuine person he was. Carlo has always spoken to me about him as one of the men that has taught him more in his life. We all miss him a lot. Ciao Beppe

Carlo Borlenghi/BPlan