It seems the sailing world's latest child circumnavigator, Laura Dekker, age 14, confounded hovering media vultures over the weekend by suddenly appearing in Gibraltar, then leaving again in secret to set out alone on her trip around the world. Dekker originally planned to make her solo departure out of Portimao, Portugal, where she and her father brought her 38-foot Jeanneau Gin Fizz Guppy after leaving Holland earlier this month on a shakedown passage. The media, apparently, were on hand in Portimao on Saturday, expecting to make a fuss over Laura's long-awaited official farewell. Meanwhile, the sneaky teen, after a enjoying a private farewell with family and friends, set out alone from Gib that same day.

Those in the sailing universe will instantly recognize Neil Pryde primarily for all its windsurfing mojo, but also as a straight-up sailmaker. I made my second transat, for example, back in 1992 under a suit of sweet Neil Pryde sails on a recently built Taswell 56 named Antipodes. So I was more than a bit intrigued on learning this a.m. that Neil Pryde has just announced they are getting into the bicycle business.

Their bikes, not surprisingly, are both high end and performance oriented…

Here we go again. It's getting so you can write these "youngest solo circumnavigator" stories just by filling in some blanks on a form. Except in the case of Laura Dekker, age 14, who set out yesterday from Den Osse, Holland, on her 38-foot Jeanneau Gin Fizz Guppy on a shakedown cruise to Portugal with her dad, you pretty much have to throw most of your teen RTW sailor stereotypes right out the window.

For one thing, I don't really get the sense the record is what motivates her. I think all she really wants to do is go on a long bluewater cruise by herself. She was born on a bluewater cruising boat, she's been sailing her previous Guppy, a 28-foot Hurley 800, on her own in the English Channel and North Sea since she was 11, and her parents genuinely seem ambivalent about her plans. (Her mom, Babs Mueller, was until very recently dead set against the trip, while her dad, Dick Dekker, decided to support her only after failing to dissuade her.)

I have just spent more than 24 hours during this weekend's Downeast Challenge (Marblehead to Rockland race) listening to fellow crew and SEMOSA member Charles "May I Cast Off Now?" Lassen explain to me that the now famous whale-jumping-on-boat photo on which I blogged earlier is naught but a clever Photoshop image. Mr. Lassen posits the couple involved somehow negligently damaged their boat themselves (see above) and the fake photo is part of an insurance scam. He claims to have trusted informants in Cape Town researching this theory now.

Many others online have made similar assertions. I therefore look forward to hearing some very creative explanations of how this video of the event was created.

Just a few hours ago that crazy Italian guy, Alessandro di Benedetto, arrived safely in Les Sables d'Olonne, France, thus completing his solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world. He now holds the world's record for smallest boat (21 feet) ever to do this. The fact that he was dismasted and has been sailing with a jury-rigged mast since before he rounded Cape Horn makes this feat especially phenomenal.

So far the only recognition I find of his return is the simple one-word statement on his website: Arrived. Right over a tracking map that puts him on the Brittany coast. Though I do imagine there must be some kind of wild party going on there right now.

Cynics at various online forums are insisting this must be a Photoshopped image, but I don't think so. News outlets in South Africa are reporting this as fact: on Sunday a large southern right whale hurled itself on to a 33-foot steel sloop belonging to Paloma Werner and Ralph Mothes, who run the Cape Town Sailing Academy. This occurred in Table Bay. The whale reportedly was uninjured, but the boat didn't fare so well.