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Do you know this fash­ion­able Gaas­tra product?

Also in the merry month of May, we give you as a Gaas­tra Blog reader the chance to win a great Gaas­tra prod­uct: And this month, we will even raf­fle off 3 times a fash­ion­able item from the offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop! The ques­tion is: What’s the name of the prod­uct you see on the detail pic­ture? Search, find and win this lovely item! Go on Search & Win tour­ing and send the cor­rect answer to denis@gaastraproshop.com by tues­day, the 22^nd of May mid­night at the lat­est – with a bit of luck, you will pos­si­bly belong already next week to the 3 lucky win­ners, who will rejoice over this fash­ion­able Gaas­tra prod­uct with the spe­cial, sum­merly detail. Your Gaas­tra Blog and Shop crew wishes ‘Best of luck’!

Capri Sail­ing Week, Vol­cano Race 2012 may 19–25, Photo by: Rolex / Carlo Borlenghi

From 19–25 May, the Rolex Vol­cano Race 2012 sets sail within the Rolex Capri Sail­ing Week 2012 to its sec­ond edi­tion in the Tyrrhen­ian Sea – through the Pon­tine Islands and around the Aeo­lian Islands includ­ing the active vol­cano of Strom­boli. Organ­ised by the Inter­na­tional Maxi Asso­ci­a­tion (IMA) in con­junc­tion with the Yacht Club Gaeta E.V.S. and the Yacht Club Capri, the Rolex Vol­cano Race 2012 off­shore race for mono­hull Maxi yachts will debut this year as a two-legged race.

Start­ing at the his­toric town Gaeta on sun­day, 20 may, about twenty-two yachts will chal­lenge at leg one with approx­i­mately 100-nautical miles to Capri. Sail­ing teams from eleven coun­tries as the Sir Peter Ogden Jethou (GBR) sail­ing crew spon­sored by Gaas­tra, the DSK Pio­neer Invest­ments team with Danilo Salsi (ITA), the Nilaya yacht crew (BEL) with Filip Bal­caen and Bouwe Bekking as tac­ti­cian as well as the Y3K wally yacht team with Claus-Peter Offen (GER), will face the alto­gether 400-nautical miles com­pet­ing with the Greek demigo ‘Aeo­lus’, ‘Guardian of the winds’ of Homer’s Odyssey – the UNESCO World Her­itage Aeo­lian Islands, where leg two is tak­ing the fleet around, are named after him. From the magic island Capri, the crews are head­ing for the main event with 300-nm.: Along the active vol­canic island Strom­boli, the island Vul­cano and Alicudi sail­ing back to Capri, where Rolex will host a cel­e­bra­tion din­ner and award cer­e­mony at La Can­zone del Mare, an exclu­sive sea­side venue, on fri­day. Gaas­tra Blog wishes all teams good speed and all friends of nau­ti­cal fash­ion a casual-elegant sea­son with the Gaas­tra Capri Regatta Col­lec­tion 2012!

Tech­ni­cal Sail­ing Cloth­ing, Gaas­tra Pro Gear

In 1897, Douwe Gaas­tra estab­lished Gaas­tra as a sail-making com­pany in the Dutch town Sneek set­ting out to make sail­ing faster and more effi­cient. This day, you’ll find this centuries-long expe­ri­ence from sail­ing pooled together in the pro­fes­sional Gaas­tra Pro Gear – sail­ing cloth­ing tested by pro­fes­sional sail­ing crews under extreme sail­ing con­di­tions. Whether tech­ni­cal sail­ing jack­ets made of high-quality, 2 or 3 layer TORAY fab­ri­ca­tion, sail­ing pants or wind-and water­proof softshell-jackets as well as func­tional longsleeves with reflec­tive 3M scotch­lite prints: World­wide recre­ational and pro­fes­sional sailors rely on sail­ing clothes by Gaas­tra enjoy­ing opti­mal pro­tec­tion and com­fort for all types of sail­ing, on all types of water and in all kinds of weather conditions.

The leg­endary Audi Azzurra Team, the Jethou rac­ing yacht crew, the olympic sail­ing team Steven and the Dutch pro­fes­sional sailor Pieter-Jan Postma for exam­ple trust in the tech­ni­cal Gaas­tra sail­ing gear and state-of-the-art high-tech tech­nolo­gies as water­proof and breath­able TORAY fab­ric, highly durable IBQ Kevlar® fab­ric, ther­mo­plas­tic adhe­sive BENIM film and Riri Storm® & Riri Aqua® zip­pers keep­ing you dry and com­fort­able. Gear up now com­fort­ably for the sail­ing sea­son 2012 in the new Pro Gear Shop with the lat­est Gaas­tra Sail­ing Clothing!

Ham­burg Port Anniver­sary 2012 run­ning from 11 to 13 May

In a few days, the 823rd Ham­burg Port Anniver­sary will clap on all the sails: Also this year, more than a mil­lion vis­i­tors will attend the world’s great­est port fes­ti­val with its man­i­fold pro­gramme around the famous Ham­burg Land­ing Stages (Lan­dungs­brücken). Majes­tic tall ships, cruise ves­sels, mod­ern naval units, mag­nif­i­cent her­itage ships and cruis­ing ships as the ‘MSC Lir­ica’, ‘MS Deutsch­land’ and nat­u­rally the cit­i­zens’ of Ham­burg dar­ling ‘Queen Mary 2′, arriv­ing on sun­day, will be on spot at the mar­itime Ham­burg event 2012. A spe­cial high­light at Hamburg’s Port Anniver­sary 2012 this year: The world pre­miere and chris­ten­ing of the brand-new AIDAmar on sat­ur­day evening — it will be the ninth mem­ber of the AIDA fleet.

Alto­gether, about 300 ves­sels will be involved at the 3-day event turn­ing the Port of Ham­burg into a com­plete sea of masts and espe­cially the wind­jam­mers will be high in num­ber this year. Among them as pre­mieres, the 65 metres long three-masted bark ‘Alexan­der von Hum­boldt II’ and the 115 metres long four-masted ship ‘Star Flyer’. Vist­ing Ham­burg as well, the impos­ing four-masted ship ‘Kruzen­shtern’ and the sail train­ing ship ‘Dar Mlodziezy’ with her 26 sails. Don’t miss the Open Ship oppor­tu­ni­ties nei­ther and the fas­ci­nat­ing tug­boat Bal­let on sat­ur­day! The com­plete Ham­burg Port Anniver­sary 2012 Pro­gramme, the Ham­burg Live Web­cam and the largest assort­ment of nau­ti­cal Gaas­tra Fash­ion for the Ham­burg run­way you’ll find here. Ahoy!

Gaas­tra Men’s Fash­ion 2012, Heiko Kan­zler, www.heikokanzler.de

What are the sum­mer fash­ion high­lights 2012? How do the season’s trend colours look? And which acces­sories are the fash­ion must haves 2012? At our Gaas­tra Blog, we keep all friends of nau­ti­cal fash­ion steadily updated on the lat­est Gaas­tra col­lec­tions, pre­sent­ing fash­ion styling tips, exclu­sive pre­views and also pho­tographs of Gaas­tra shoot­ings. Of course, we are enthu­si­as­tic about Gaas­tra: But what does the wide world of lifestyle and fash­ion blog­gers say about the cur­rent Gaas­tra Fash­ion Trends?

Get your inspi­ra­tion from our com­piled ‘Blog­ger Best of’! Get on Marita’s Dolce Vita deck with her Gaas­tra women’s sea­sons’ high­lights, come to know why Gabriela of ‘Net­zge­flüster’ blog is think­ing of pack­ing bags or by which women acces­sorie fash­ion pirat­ess Vreni is thrilled. Gaas­tra men as well can take their cue from the blo­gos­phere by fol­low­ing the fresh Men’s Fash­ion 2012 airstream by Heiko Kan­zler, who’s appre­ci­at­ing as a pas­sion­ate drop-top dri­ver Gaastra’s func­tional fash­ion fea­tures. Or learn, what the Dutch artist Daan Roukens is think­ing about Gaas­tra and why he’s hav­ing a fancy for the Gaas­tra boat shoes Mast. With plea­sure, Gaas­tra loves to talk with fash­ion blog­gers per­son­ally as well: So the Dutch blog­ger Juan reported on his Gaas­tra Brand Expe­ri­ence at the Ams­ter­dam flag­ship store in 2012. Enjoy discovering!                                    

Gaas­tra Women’s Fash­ion 2012, Net­zge­fluester Blog, www.netzgeflüster.net

Gaas­tra Women’s Fash­ion 2012, www.myshoppingbag.de

Jethou sail­ing crew, Gaas­tra Pro Gear equipped

The small chan­nel island Jethou is sit­u­ated east of the Baili­wick of Guernsey: The Judel/Vrolijk designed car­bon rac­ing yacht built by Green Marine in Lyming­ton (Vit­ters Ship­yard Hol­land Yacht­ing Group) is named after it. Curi­ously enough, the sail­ing crew around Sir Peter Ogden of the IRC 60 Jethou with Stu­art Bran­son, Brad But­ter­worth and Ian Bud­gen among oth­ers on deck, is big­ger than the num­ber of inhab­i­tants on the 44 acres large island Jethou – it amounted to three in 1996 last. Cur­rently, it is leased by Sir Peter Ogden, pro­fes­sional sailor and also known as the founder of the IT com­pany Computacenter.

The 62-feet yacht Jethou was purely build for breath-taking speed: The ultra light car­bon fiber hull and the com­plete car­bon lac­quer­ing from hull, deck, inte­rior to deck­head, pave the way for con­stant high posi­tions at inter­na­tional sail­ing regat­tas of the state-of-the-art rac­ing yacht. Quite recently in April, the Gaas­tra spon­sored Jethou sail­ing crew at Pal­maVela 2012 off Mal­lorca won the first prize! Also at the Copa del Rey, the Giraglia Rolex Cup or at Les Voiles de St. Tropez, the Jethou team is sail­ing com­pletely equipped with Gaas­tra Pro Gear tech­ni­cal sail­ing cloth­ing. Apro­pos, the black beauty was pro­nounced ‘Best look­ing IRC yacht of the year’ by Sea­horse mag­a­zine. Step on board with Gaas­tra on deck of the Jethou and you’ll catch why!

Queen’s Day cloth­ing by Gaastra

There’s no mon­day blues in the Nether­lands today: For the whole coun­try is shin­ing in the Royal House colour Orange and cel­e­brates the 74^th birth­day of Queen Beat­rix at count­less parades, pub­lic fes­ti­vals and con­certs! The Dutch cel­e­brate this royal birth­day always on the 30^th of april, although it is the offi­cial birth­day of Queen Juliana, the mother of Queen Beat­rix. For the real birth­day of Queen Beat­rix is in win­ter on the 31^st of jan­u­ary, she offi­cially cel­e­brates it on this tem­per­a­ture friendly spring day.

The Queen of the Nether­lands vis­its this year the cities Rhenen and Vee­nen­daal in the province Utrecht and Gaas­tra is feast­ing as well – nat­u­rally in orange! Dis­cover the orange Gaas­tra Queen’s Day Cloth­ing for Men, Women and Chil­dren with a large assort­ment of orange polo shirts and t-shirts, orange blouses and shirts, valu­able, orange sweaters with elbow patches and trendy, orange boat shoes and swim trunks. In 2010, Queen Beat­rix has vis­ited Gaastra’s home­town Sneek last – in cel­e­bra­tion of the 75^th jubilee of the Sneek­week sail­ing regatta. Be always pre­pared for every royal visit: With Gaas­tra! Our Gaas­tra Blog and Shop Crew con­grat­u­lates Queen Beat­rix and wishes every­body a very orange mon­day and a great start in may! 

Queen’s Day Ams­ter­dam: Orange Craze! © NBTC

Antigua Sports­wear Col­lec­tion 2012 by Gaastra

From 29 April to 4 May, the Antigua Sail­ing Week 2012 is tak­ing place: The old­est Caribbean sail­ing regatta off the largest British Lee­ward Island Antigua, gath­ers sailors from all over the world and yachts rang­ing in size from 24 to over 100 feet at the his­toric Antigua Eng­lish and Fal­mouth Har­bour also this year. To the tradition-rich Antigua Sail­ing Week, that marks the end of the Caribbean regatta sea­son, about 2000 vis­i­tors from abroad are expected. About 115 yachts are reg­is­tered for the races. The mono­hulls set up the biggest sail­ing class with about 76 par­tic­i­pants this year, amongst them also state-of-the-art yachts as Peter Harrison’s 115-foot Farr-designed ketch Sojana with Marc Fitzger­ald as Sojana’s skip­per. Already on fri­day, the fast cruis­ing yacht chal­lenged at the ‘Guade­loupe to Antigua Race’ orga­nized by the Antigua Yacht Club and yes­ter­day on sat­ur­day, 28 april, at the re-introduced 50-mile ‘Yacht­ing World Round Antigua Race’!

For five rac­ing days run­ning from sun­day to fri­day, wednes­day will be the lay day, the inter­na­tional teams will face the Caribbean trade winds. On shore, locals and vis­i­tors are par­ty­ing from day into the evening the whole week with steel bands, bar­be­cues and Caribbean rum punches. As a trib­ute to the dream­like Caribbean vaca­tion island Antigua and inspired by its spe­cial sail­ing con­di­tions with its never-ending shades of sea, Gaas­tra presents its Antigua Sports­wear Col­lec­tion 2012 for Men, Women and Kidsthis sea­son. In bold shades of blue as navy, atlantic blue and dis­cov­ery as well as in a pas­sion­ate scar­let red, the Antigua sail­ing adven­ture kicks off!                                                                                                   

Antigua Gaas­tra Fleece­jacket Joy, Grey, Women

Antigua Gaas­tra Polo shirt Jolly Roger, Red, Women

Antigua Gaas­tra Fleece­jacket Key West, Atlantic Blue, Men

Antigua Gaas­tra Shirt Kasey, White, Men

Tour de Belle-Ile 2012, Gaas­tra T-Shirt Tri­nite, Atlantic Blue

From Provence to Bre­tagne: Today is the last regatta day at the Semaine Olympique Fran­caise 2012 off the South­ern French Hyeres. Tomor­row, 28^th of april 2012, the next big France sail­ing regatta will take place. The Tour de Belle-Ile 2012! To the fifth edi­tion of the Brit­tany sail­ing regatta lead­ing around the biggest Bre­tagne isle, the Belle-Ile, Gaas­tra Sports­wear is the offi­cial spon­sor for the first time this year and proud to present the first Gaas­tra Tour de Belle-Ile Sports­wear 2012.

The col­lec­tion for men and women offers Gaas­tra T-shirts and longsleeves made of high-quality cot­ton fab­ric with stretch for com­fort­able wear­ing and a good fit. Dec­o­rated with valu­able details and huge Tour de Belle-Ile print at back, this spe­cial Gaas­tra Sports­wear fresh­ens every sailor’s heart with atlantic blue colours. Addi­tion­ally, Gaas­tra has cre­ated par­tic­u­larly nau­ti­cal chic Tour de Belle-Ile 2012 Polo Shirts: Made of high-quality cot­ton piqué with stretch and equipped with valu­able Tour de Belle-Ile embroi­dery and appli­ca­tions at front, back and at the sleeves. Set sail now to the offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop while stocks last!

More Tour de Belle-Ile back­grounds? Here!

Portofino Italy, Lig­urian Coast, Andi Buch­ner, GNU Free Doc­u­men­ta­tion License, ver­sion 1.2

The rows of houses pic­turesquely paint the small but very mighty Portofino har­bour in pas­tel col­ors as yel­low, ochre and rose, har­boured in the Golfo del Tigul­lio bay the clear blue water hugs the white lux­ury yachts and with Mediter­ranean lifestyle, Lig­uria hol­i­day­mak­ers relax highly fash­ion­able in the for­mer Ital­ian fish­ing vil­lage: Portofino is located just 36 km east of city Genoa, the cap­i­tal of Lig­uria, and belongs to the Riv­iera di Lev­ante, the east­ern part of the Ital­ian Riv­iera stretch­ing from Genoa to the Tus­cany. Esti­mated by Italy lux­ury hol­i­day­mak­ers, yachts­men and Lig­uria sail­ing enthu­si­asts, Portofino’s guest list is long: Here, Sophia Loren, Grace Kelly, Richard Bur­ton, Frank Sina­tra and many more enjoyed the Dolce dolce Vita in the ‘50s and ‘60s and till this today, the fishermen’s vil­lage is the meet­ing place for every­body who’s any­body. In may, three Italy sail­ing regat­tas at Portofino orga­nized by the Yacht Club Ital­iano will be held: The Pirelli Regatta 2012, Portofino Rolex Tro­phy 2012 und Tro­feo Siad Bom­bola d’Oro 2012 will make the Marina di Portofino (Web­cam) shine even more brightly.

The Ital­ian Riv­iera pearl of beauty is the per­fect place to relax but also to dis­cover the smil­ing land­scape of the same-named Portofino penin­sula with its nat­ural pre­serve Portofino (Parco nat­u­rale regionale di Portofino). Above the jet set bay, the famous Castello Brown from the six­teenth cen­tury is enthroned – the most noted Portofino sight offers a beau­ti­ful panorama view of the bay. To be rec­om­mended as well, a Portofino boat trip to San Frut­tu­oso bay, roman­tic Camogli or Santa Margherita. Fash­ion­able Riv­iera Looks you’ll find at Gaas­tra this sea­son – dis­cover the summerly-casual Portofino Clas­sic Col­lec­tion 2012 in pecu­liar pas­tel colours!