What Would Carlo Do?

Remembering Carlo Borlenghi

The sailing world lost one of its great photographers with the sudden passing of Carlo Borlenghi.

For me, it was also the loss of a friend, a colleague, and someone who had been part of my photographic life for nearly five decades.

I first met Carlo in Naples at the One Ton Worlds, when we were both young photographers finding our way in the sport. Carlo was working from a tiny outboard boat that seemed to spend as much time collecting plastic bags around the propeller as it did chasing sailboats.

Even then, you could see that he saw things differently.

Over the decades that followed, our paths crossed all over the sailing world—at major regattas, America’s Cups and countless days on the water and in helicopters. We were competitors, certainly, but we were also friends. There was a camaraderie among sailing photographers in those days that I will always treasure.

There are so many Carlo stories.

At the Kenwood Cup in Hawaii, we spent days flying in helicopters, chasing boats and light and trying to put ourselves in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment.

At the 2000 America’s Cup in Auckland, when Luna Rossa raced AmericaOne in the Louis Vuitton Cup Final, Carlo and I found ourselves on opposite sides. He was, of course, with the Italians and Luna Rossa, while I was photographing AmericaOne.

We would share digital cards and photographs with each other, and somehow Carlo decided that I was his good luck charm.

Those are the memories that keep coming back.

But what stays with me most is the way Carlo saw.

Since his passing, I have found myself going back through his coffee-table books, simply looking at the photographs again. Even after all these years, I am struck by what an extraordinary talent he was and by that very special eye.

Carlo didn’t just document sailing. He understood its beauty, power and emotion. He understood light, weather, boats and people—and he had an instinct for knowing where the photograph was going to happen before it happened.

When I am out on the water or in the air and conditions are difficult—when I am trying to decide where to position myself, where the light is going to be, or whether to push a little harder to get the photograph—I have often found myself asking:

“What would Carlo do?”

I suspect I will be asking myself that for the rest of my career.

Just recently, I had lunch in Newport with Susan Maffei (Suma), who worked alongside Carlo for so many years. She showed me some wonderful photographs she had taken of Carlo himself at work. Seeing him behind the camera rather than behind the photographs brought back another flood of memories.

I was also deeply touched to be contacted by The New York Times to share some memories for Carlo’s obituary. Trying to distill a lifetime of friendship and photographic adventures into a few words wasn’t easy.

Carlo also holds a very special place in the history of the Ultimate Sailing Calendar.

When I decided in the mid-2000s to begin featuring other photographers and expand the calendar into a portfolio of the very best sailing photography from around the world, Carlo was the first photographer I invited.

Until then, the calendar had been entirely my photography, so opening its pages to another photographer was a big step for me. There was never really a question about who I wanted to feature first. It was Carlo.

His work went on to grace the pages of the calendar many times over the years, and I was always proud to have his photographs alongside mine and those of the other extraordinary photographers who became part of the Ultimate Sailing family.

That makes Matias Capizano’s remembrance of Carlo in this month’s Behind the Lens story especially meaningful. Nearly two decades after I first invited Carlo into the calendar, his influence is still being felt by photographers today.

And that influence reaches far beyond the pages of the Ultimate Sailing Calendar.

Carlo’s photographs will endure, of course. But so will the way he inspired those of us who stood beside him with cameras in our hands—and the generations of photographers who came after us.

I feel very fortunate to have known him, photographed alongside him, laughed with him, competed with him and learned from him.

The next time I am bouncing around in a RIB, hanging out of a helicopter or looking across the water wondering where I need to be to make the picture, I already know the question that will go through my mind.

What would Carlo do?

We will miss you, Carlo.