Carlo Borlenghi, the legendary maritime photographer whose lens captured four decades of the world’s greatest sailing moments, has died. His passing marks the end of an era for anyone who has followed international regattas, and particularly for those who watched the sport transform from traditional keelboat racing into the foiling revolution we see today.
Borlenghi’s relationship with Sardinia’s Yacht Club Costa Smeralda began in 1983, when he documented the Azzurra campaign for the America’s Cup. It was the kind of starting point that defined a career. Rather than treating that first assignment as a one-off, he returned year after year, building an archive of images that became the visual record of the club’s sporting history. His photographs didn’t just document races. They captured the salt spray, the tension on sailors’ faces, the geometry of hulls cutting through Mediterranean swells, and the human drama that makes sailing worth watching.
What separated Borlenghi’s work from others working in the same space was his ability to blend technical mastery with genuine artistic feeling. His images had a quality that photographs from a press camera don’t always achieve. There was depth in them. A regatta shot by Borlenghi told you something about the day, the conditions, the character of the event itself, not just who crossed the finish line first.
In June, the 79-year-old travelled to Porto Cervo for the return of the Sardinia Cup. The club had organised a photographic exhibition featuring images from historic editions of the regatta, and Borlenghi attended the launch. It was a fitting final visit for a man who had spent so much of his life in that location, watching the sport evolve beneath the Sardinian sun.
Photographers rarely receive the recognition they deserve in sailing, yet without them, our memory of the sport would be vastly poorer. Borlenghi understood this responsibility. His work wasn’t about ego or winning awards, though he won plenty. It was about preserving something real. Every image was a way of saying: this moment mattered, this race mattered, these sailors’ efforts mattered.
New Zealand sailors and sailing photographers will understand immediately what has been lost. Borlenghi’s influence stretched far beyond Sardinia. His images set the standard for how sailing should be documented and remembered. The Yacht Club Costa Smeralda has extended condolences to his wife Alessandra, his Studio Borlenghi team, and all those who knew him. Anyone who has ever seen a truly great photograph of a sailing race owes something to his legacy.
