Giant squid terror for yacht race

Jules Verne would have been delighted. Not only is the trophy for the fastest round-the-world yacht trip named after him, but one of the competing boats was grappled this week by a giant squid.

The trimaran Geronimo, skippered by the former holder of the Jules Verne Trophy, Olivier de Kersauson, was seized by a squid just like the submarine Nautilus in Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.

After the boat slowed mysteriously near Gibraltar, chief mate Didier Ragot found a 10m squid clinging to the hull.

"It was an impressive sight," he said. "Its tentacles were as thick as my arm, with my oilskins on."

After the trimaran was slowed the squid let go and returned to the depths.