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Gaas­tra Blue, Fash­ion Pre­view 2012/13, new Denim Collection

Kick­ing off late sum­mer 2012, Gaas­tra goes on deck with a new col­lec­tion: At the Gaas­tra Show­room Ham­burg, your Gaas­tra blog team already took a look (or rather sev­eral) on the new exclu­sive ‘Gaas­tra Blue’ Denim Fash­ion Col­lec­tion.

The nau­ti­cal his­tory of Gaas­tra, that took its course 1897 in the Dutch town Sneek as sail­mak­ers, is in the spot­light as well in this trendy col­lec­tion, stand­ing out due to its accented casual style – what is most notably com­ing into effect in the highly diverse and spe­cial blue colours. Com­pared to other col­lec­tions, Gaas­tra Blue presents more dis­creet in the use of logos, patches and appli­ca­tions – and is con­vinc­ing in its pure design, pre­mium mate­ri­als and exclu­sive man­u­fac­tur­ing in Italy. Gaas­tra Fash­ion and Denim Friends can be curi­ous about late summer!

Gaas­tra Men’s Shoes, Spring Sum­mer Col­lec­tion 2012

The lat­est Gaas­tra shoe trends of the spring sum­mer col­lec­tion 2012 boarded in the Gaas­tra Shop: This sea­son as well, Gaas­tra com­bines its decades-long sail­ing sports know-how with high-quality mate­ri­als and unique, nau­ti­cal Gaas­tra fash­ion looks. Slip resis­tant shoes for every sail­ing trip, tough boat shoes and trendy sneak­ers, pre­mium low shoes, sum­merly slip­pers and fem­i­nine bal­leri­nas as well as ele­gant Gaas­tra boots and ankle boots will make the shoe trend 2012 par­quet shine this sea­son fash­ion­ably and functionally.

Dis­cover fancy Gaas­tra Women’s Shoes as the Gaas­tra Women’s Boat Shoes Safari in an intense red or navy with a good foot­ing on all wet and slippy sur­faces and a 360° lin­ing ensur­ing the per­fect fit – or the sportive Gaas­tra Women Sneaker Chine made of a fash­ion­able com­bi­na­tion of metal­lic leather and embroi­dered can­vas as upper mate­r­ial. Gaas­tra Men’s Shoes berth this sea­son as well in a spe­cial mix of func­tion­al­ity and superb mar­itime style. The Gaas­tra Men’s Boat Shoes Pier for exam­ple, are made of valu­able suede and have a high-quality syn­thetic sole tak­ing care for a good foot­ing on all wet and slippy sur­faces. Dis­cover your Gaas­tra favourites in your wished size now for season’s start in your Gaas­tra Online Shop!

St. Maarten Heineken Regatta 2012, Gaastrastore.com Team att-en-sion

Yes­ter­day the Gaas­tra Team has landed and is set­tled now in St. Maarten. ‘After had a wel­com­ing diner at the famous Cap­tain Oliv­ers Club in the Oys­ter Pond Marina we received an area and tech­ni­cal brief­ing yes­ter­day to get a good under­stand­ing of the dif­fer­ent courses and expected haz­ards and dif­fi­cul­ties. Food and bev­er­age is on board now so we’re ready to fly.

Today we will get access to the boat, a Sun­sail 50 and set sail to open water for two days. To get used to the boat and do a first train­ing with the team. We’re the first to leave the har­bour and are head­ing for the island St. Barth, South-East of St. Maarten with crys­tal clear blue water and white sandy beaches. Of course wear­ing our Gaas­tra St. Barth sail­ing caps of the Les Voiles de Saint Barth Sports­wear Col­lec­tion 2012. The weather fore­cast is promis­ing us a 30 degrees tem­per­a­ture and good sta­ble wind con­di­tions so we’re look­ing for­ward to our first days of racing.

Day 2: Thurs­day March 1^st, First train­ing ses­sion Gaas­tra team successful

‘Yes­ter­day we left the har­bour under guid­ance of the har­bour pilot due to heavy weather con­di­tions. Roar­ing waves were break­ing over the reefs. He was lead­ing us through sev­eral sharp and some­times invis­i­ble reefs. With a 25 knots wind we left the har­bour and were directly con­fronted with an ocean swell of 5 to 6 metres. Dur­ing the first miles on sea all sails were trimmed and the first train­ing was focussed on get­ting all tasks right to gain max­i­mum speed. A max of 10 knots was reached. After one hour of sail­ing the first two wales were spot­ted. With a dis­tance of 5 metres we were close to an unex­pected and too close encounter, which could have been the end of our race. For­tu­nately the two wales were so kind to speed up their cross­ing. Already on our arrival we attached fish­ing gear to our boat and just before noon we catched the first fish. After a small strug­gle our cap­tain Jeroen Man­tel was able to get our catch on board: a young bar­racuda of approx. 50 cen­time­ters which he pre­pared for our lunch. Our first stop is at the island ‘Ile Forchue’ next to the famous island St. Barts where all the rich and famous are show­ing who has the largest.….…boat. The after­noon train­ing ses­sion will be a trip around St. Barth. With even more chal­leng­ing waves.

Day 3: Thurs­day March 2^nd, last train­ing day

‘After a bumpy night we started the 2nd day to train all kind of manoeu­vres and to opti­mize the ship. Dur­ing the train­ing we slowly headed back to St. Maarten to access the last stop before the regatta starts, Simp­son Bay. To reg­is­ter at the Heineken regatta office and to pick up Daniël Tuit. Due to ill­ness he had to skip the ini­tial flight and after his arrival we started with the 2nd train­ing day. While lay­ing in Simp­son Bay we vis­ited the famous bar The Laguna. The bar where the Heineken Regatta more or less reached his cur­rend sta­tus, while 32 years ago spec­ta­tors were throw­ing cold bear to the heated fin­ish­ing sail­ing teams. Heineken beer of course. So the day started with seri­ous train­ing and ended with seri­ous fun.’

Day 4: Fri­day March 2^nd, Gaas­tra Sail­ing Team starts with 3rd position

Today was the first offi­cial cours­ing day. Wind con­di­tions were great and although a lit­tle bit clowdy we had to put on our Gaas­tra Pro Longsleeve Sail­ing Gear to pro­tect our­selves against the burn­ing sun. Start­ing line was in Simp­son Bay and via Marigot we went fully around the island of St. Maarten and fin­ished in Great Bay at Philips­burg. After a dif­fi­cult start we were able to directly posi­tion our­selves at the front of the league. Shortly after the first miles we already suf­fered from our first mate­r­ial dam­age. The main­sheet stop­per wasn’t able to hold the line which caused an enor­mous volic­ity loss. This issue was solved by chang­ing to another cleat while we tacked. Unfor­tu­nately this action resulted in a posi­tion drop from posi­tion 2 to 6. Although all the six boats in the lead of the course had almost the same speed, due to bet­ter manoeu­vring we were able to fin­ish 3rd which was for us a great result com­ing back after falling behind due to mate­r­ial prob­lems. This result we cel­e­brated with a refresh­ing dip in Great Bay and a refresh­ing beer. Heineken beer of course. Let’s see what tomor­row brings.

Day 5: Sat­ur­day March 2nd, Gaas­tra Team att-en-sion moves up to sec­ond position

‘After reach­ing the 3rd posi­tion on the first day we went with the com­plete team ashore to the har­bour of Philips­burg to join all the fes­tiv­i­ties on the board­walk of Great Bay. All sail­ing teams were sur­prised with a unique mix of local and inter­na­tional music and nice food. Dressed in our Gaas­tra Orig­i­nal Water­sport out­fit we already soon got the att-en-sion of a lot of locals and an inter­na­tional film crew where our cap­tain Jeroen Man­tel was inter­viewed for a promo movie. The next morn­ing the 2nd race of the com­pe­ti­tion was on. We arrived well on time at the start­ing line which gave us a good posi­tion to check out our com­peti­tors. Espe­cially our main com­peti­tors which were ranked 1 and 2 after yesterday’s race. At 10.00h sharp the race started and we imme­di­ately got into a direct con­fronta­tion with Harten Heer which had taken the lead in this regatta one day ear­lier. Together with three other ships, head to tail or next to each other.

While Harten Heer and we were com­pet­ing with each other to get the head posi­tion in the race, Baltic, an Amer­i­can ship and ranked 2, imme­di­ately took over the lead and due to false wind we even dropped down to a 5th posi­tion. To try to win back this loss we decided to go for another course which was the rea­son why the com­plete field fall apart. After almost one hour of sail­ing alone we reached the final mark and met only one other boat, Harten Heer. This meant that we have been able to shake off all other com­peti­tors except for the one we hoped for. The last two miles to the fin­ish was a con­tin­u­ous bat­tle between the two ships with exchang­ing the lead posi­tion every other minute. After almost four hours of rac­ing Harten Heer won with only 10 sec­onds dif­fer­ence! Of course first we were dis­ap­pointed with being beated with only this small a dif­fer­ence. But shortly there­after we were very happy after hear­ing from the organ­i­sa­tion that we took over the sec­ond posi­tion in the Heineken Regatta! Tomor­row our main focus will be to at least hold this sec­ond rank because after win­ning two indi­vid­ual races, the other Dutch Team Harten Heer has the best papers to win the cham­pi­onship. Of course we want to be the best of the rest. But we’ll aim for more…’

Day 6: Sun­day March 3rd, Gaas­tra team wins sec­ond price at St. Maarten Heineken Regatta 2012

‘At 10.00h sharp the final race of the Heineken Regatta started. A short race with only a few marks and long stacks. With a wind reach­ing more than 35 knots it proved to be a chal­leng­ing race. The fleet kept very close to each other, which made it hard to manoeu­vre between the reefs as one of the many haz­ards in this final race. Although start­ing in 4th posi­tion, we man­aged to slowly move to the front of the race. The team was fully focussed to con­clude the Regatta with a 1st posi­tion in this final race. And in order to gain speed and addi­tional con­trol over the boat in these heavy weather cir­cum­stances we decided to shorten the sail, which gave us the tools to manoeu­vre around the con­tin­u­ously defen­sive sail­ing Harten Heer, the num­ber one in the course. Reach­ing the last mark we were again in a bat­tle with this oppo­nent. But this time we were the first to cross the fin­ish line!!

After a small cel­e­bra­tion on the boat we were invited to join the cer­e­monie for which the regatta organ­i­sa­tion and Heineken had pre­pared a large beach pavil­lion where more than 5000 peo­ple joined to watch the cer­e­monie: Fully dressed, from head to toe, in white Gaas­tra Gear we entered the stage to receive the 2nd price in our bare­boat class after reach­ing twice the 2nd and once a 1st posi­tion in the indi­vid­ual races. The Gaastrastore.com Sail­ing Team became 10th in the over­all Heineken Regatta 2012 Cham­pi­onship for bare­boats! In a regatta of more than 200 inter­na­tional sail­ing boats.

Hope you enjoyed read­ing the blog, we at least enjoyed writ­ing it. And of course sail­ing this great and unfor­getable event. Thanks Gaastrastore.com for sup­port­ing us dur­ing this event. Look­ing for­ward to the next Heineken Regatta.’                      

Jeroen Man­tel (Cap­tain), Ger­ton Lusink, Daniël Tuit, Jan-Willem Ver­sluijs, Niek Koop­man, Jan-Willem Velzen and Jeroen van Stijn

Nau­ti­cal Gaas­tra Fash­ion Spring Sum­mer 2012, Portofino Clas­sic Collection

The sun laughs, pas­tel colours paint the pic­turesque rows of houses along the Ital­ian Riv­iera and the Dolce Vita Lifestyle enchants both by sea and by land: Gaas­tra glares with its Spring Sum­mer Fash­ion 2012 inspired by this famous Ital­ian coast­line and enriches life eas­ily with the ‘Portofino Clas­sic Col­lec­tion’. This sea­son, pas­tel colours obvi­ously set the tone: Smooth mint­green, fruity apri­cot, roman­tic rose and tempt­ing vanilla belong dur­ing the upcom­ing sum­mer period to the fash­ion trend colours 2012. Gaas­tra shirts and Gaas­tra blouses addi­tion­ally refresh nau­ti­cally striped and with mar­itime multi-coloured checks and mille­fleur prints.

This ele­gant Gaas­tra Bre­ton line uni­fies anew a rich mix of mate­ri­als and nau­ti­cal fash­ion details as pat­terns, appliqués and emblems: The Gaas­tra Blouse Fal­ster of the Gaas­tra Women Portofino Clas­sic Col­lec­tion for exam­ple, con­sists of soft cot­ton with stretch for com­fort­able wear­ing and a good fit. It fash­ion­ably shines with a spe­cial embroi­dery on chest and a spe­cial designed under col­lar. Com­bined with high-value Gaas­tra Shorts Fender in beige, white or navy: Wow, true Dolce Vita! Gaas­tra Men per­suade for exam­ple in the Gaas­tra Shirt Ven­tura with com­fort­able wear­ing feel­ing, button-down col­lar and con­trast coloured under col­lar from the Gaas­tra Men Portofino Clas­sic Col­lec­tion or spor­tively in the pastel-coloured Gaas­tra Poloshirts Sky­sail in Vanilla or Sand.

More Gaas­tra Fash­ion Trends 2012? This way!

The count­down for the Caribbean sail­ing regatta Les Voiles de Saint Barth 2012 has started: To its third edi­tion run­ning from 2nd to 7th of april, Gaas­tra is anew the offi­cial part­ner of the exclu­sive regatta in the French Antilles sail­ing– and hol­i­day par­adise St. Barth, which became a shoot­ing star within the inter­na­tional sail­ing com­mu­nity in a short time. Fol­low­ing on from the suc­cess of the pre­vi­ous two edi­tions, this year even more sail­ing crews shall enjoy the extra­or­di­nary Saint Barth sail­ing con­di­tions. In the Maxi Class, breath­tak­ing boats as Pete Harrison’s Sojana, Baltic Nilaya, Swan High­land Breeze, F-class Fire­fly and Reichel/Pugh Ram­bler Yacht will chal­lenge this sea­son. Bouwe Bekking, last year on board of the High­land Breeze Yacht, will be the tac­ti­cian on the ‘Nilaya’ this april at Les Voiles de St. Barth 2012 – a rel­a­tively new boat, that won at the Super Yacht Cup Palma and at Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup Sar­dinia in its first year in the Super Maxi Divi­sion. Dip into the magic world of Saint Barth and get inspired: Dis­cover your Gaas­tra Fash­ion favourites from the lat­est exclu­sive Gaas­tra Les Voiles de Saint Barth 2012 Sports­wear Col­lec­tion com­fort­ably avail­able in the Gaas­tra Shop with world­wide and fast deliv­ery service!

St. Maarten Heineken Regatta 2012, Sail­ing Team ATT-EN-SION spon­sored by the offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop

The St. Maarten Heineken Regatta 2012 in the Caribbean hol­i­day– and sail­ing para-dise St. Maarten sets course this sea­son from 1^st to 4^th of march: To its 32. edi­tion the biggest sail­ing regatta of the Caribbean, orga­nized by the Sint Maarten Yacht Club, unites anew inter­na­tional sail­ing sports with much enter­tain­ment onshore under the motto ‘Seri­ous Fun’. The offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop is spon­sor­ing the Dutch sail­ing team „ATT-EN-SION“ from Wer­mond this year, the home­town of the lake coun­try and pop­u­lar sail­ing area ‘Kager­plassen’ near the Dutch town Lei­den. On the newest Beneteau Moor­ings 50.5 Monohull-Yacht, the sail­ing team goes on board with Jeroen Man­tel as cap­tain, with Ger­ton Lusink, Daniel Tuit, Niek Koop­mans, Jan-Willem Ver­sluijs, Jan-Willem Velzel and Jeroen van Stijn equipped with nau­ti­cal Caribbean Gaas­tra Sports­wear like the brand-new Antigua Sports­wear 2012 and the exclu­sive Les Voiles de Saint Barth 2012 Sports­wear from the Offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop!

The St. Maarten Heineken Regatta made its debut in 1980 with twelve par­tic­i­pants and cli­maxed 2008 with 289 boats. This year anew, more than 200 are expected, with about 2500 sailors from more than 25 coun­tries. Amongst them, more than one hun­dred will match with St. Maarten rental boats in the Bare­boat fleet on spot. But it’s not only the unique spirit of the Caribbean regatta attract­ing thou­sands on the Nether­lands Antilles Island. After the chal­leng­ing races, fun is fol­low­ing! Socia­ble and pas­sion­ate par­ties com­bined with local and inter­na­tional music acts will refresh on four evenings in a row. The Gaas­tra Shop with the biggest assort­ment of Gaas­tra Sail­ing Fash­ion and tech­ni­cal Gaas­tra Pro Sail­ing Gear wishes fresh days on deck and hot nights on shore!

Gaas­tra Children’s Cloth­ing 2012, Spring Summer

To the approach­ing sum­mer­time, our lit­tle ones are surely look­ing for­ward most: Then it’s time for going out! The new Spring Sum­mer Children’s Fash­ion 2012 Trends by Gaas­tra are ready yet and sur­vive every sum­mer adven­ture on– and off­shore. This sea­son anew, the Gaas­tra Sports Col­lec­tion sur­prises as smart mar­itime and casual func­tional children’s cloth­ing with many play­ful details like badges, appli­ca­tions, prints and the Gaas­tra fash­ion clas­sic: nau­ti­cal stripes. In many fresh and mul­ti­coloured com­bi­na­tions avail­able, they pro­vide the tough Gaas­tra kids sail­ing fash­ion with the unique nau­ti­cal casual look.

At the same time, our lit­tle sailors will tru­ely flour­ish: Since airy and sum­merly flow­ered pat­terns are on the kids trend fash­ion deck as well. Extra fash­ion­able kids cloth­ing, that’s what the Bre­ton Col­lec­tion stands for this spring sum­mer: It presents in a spe­cial mar­itime, Ital­ian Riv­iera Look this sea­son and will light up children’s eyes. At the same time, the slip-resistant Gaas­tra kids shoes will look after the per­fect grip on deck or while rol­lick­ing. Owing to max­i­mal non skid soles, you’ll always keep your lit­tle ones safe. Dis­cover the lat­est Children’s Fash­ion now in the Gaas­tra Kid’s Wear Mag­a­zine 2012!

Les Voiles de Saint Barth Mag­a­zine, Gaas­tra Sail­ing Fash­ion 2012

Dip into the magic world of Saint Barth…just about 21 km² large, the French Caribbean island is one of the most exclu­sive sail­ing areas world­wide and for many inter­na­tional celebri­ties an open secret as a lux­ury hol­i­day para-dise. Firmly fixed in the sail­ing regatta cal­en­dar 2012, the VIP island Saint Barth will be in the spot­light of inter­na­tional sail­ing teams and yachts dur­ing the Les Voiles de Saint Barth Regatta 2012 – anew with Gaas­tra Sports­wear as the offi­cial part­ner on deck.

Inspired by the exclu­sive spirit of the Caribbean regatta, the spe­cial play of sea colours and the sweet ‘Savoir Vivre’ on St. Barth, Gaas­tra presents the lat­est mar­itime sail­ing fash­ion col­lec­tion ‘Les Voiles de Saint Barth’. Par­tic­u­larly sporty and func­tional, the Sports­wear line sets sails and nau­ti­cally ele­gant, the Gaas­tra Bre­ton line – avail­able for Gaas­tra Women, Gaas­tra Men and Gaas­tra Kids. Turn over a new fash­ion leaf and get inspired by the brand­new Les Voiles de Saint Barth Mag­a­zine includ­ing the lat­est Gaas­tra Fash­ion Trends 2012 and by the Caribbean sail­ing par­adise island St. Barth! 

Fash­ion Trends 2012, Gaas­tra Spring Sum­mer Collection

The lat­est Spring Sum­mer Fash­ion Trends 2012 freshly arrived! Gaastra’s mar­itime sail­ing fash­ion jour­ney leads from the Ital­ian Riv­iera to the Caribbean par­adises Antigua and Saint Thomas this sea­son. Dis­cover the sporty Dolce Vita Feel­ing of the newest ‘Ital­ian Rivera’ line in sweet pas­tel colours as pis­ta­chio, vanilla and straw­berry com­bined with nau­ti­cal stripes or mille­fleur prints and an exclu­sive navy colour com­bined with shades of white within the Capri Regatta line – the whole time­less clas­sic Gaas­tra Bre­ton Col­lec­tion shines with Ital­ian Riv­iera Style, sub­tle ele­gance and a rich mix of materials.

The Gaas­tra Sports Col­lec­tion set sails this sea­son anew as casual and func­tional sail­ing fash­ion on all lon­gi­tude and lat­i­tude lines: The lat­est Gaas­tra Antigua Col­lec­tion anchors as fash­ion­able sports­wear with inno­v­a­tive mate­ri­als tested in the Gaas­tra Pro Sail­ing Cloth­ing Gear and is full of pas­sion. For the tra­di­tional nau­ti­cal colours red, white and blue are dom­i­nated this sea­son by an intense red. This year as well, you don’t have to break sweat, for ultra light and breath­able Gaas­tra jack­ets will keep you dry, com­fort­able and good-looking. The first fash­ion trends 2012 from the Gaas­tra spring sum­mer col­lec­tion for Gaas­tra Women, Gaas­tra Men and Gaas­tra Kids are now on deck in the offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop. Where will your jour­ney lead you?

Stephan Luca and Bern­hard Bet­ter­mann in Gaas­tra Jack­ets, Tirol Cross Moun­tain 2011 © action­press / Franziska Krug

The Ger­man actors Stephan Luca and Bern­hard Bet­ter­mann really leaned in the curves in Gaas­tra jack­ets at the Tyrolean sled-dog race ‘Tirol Cross Moun­tain’ for a good cause: The char­ity event last decem­ber in the Aus­trian ski area Küh­tai with Gaas­tra as its part­ner and about 200 Ger­man TV and film celebri­ties, attracted much atten­tion in the media.

And attracted at the same time with many fash­ion high­lights from the cur­rent Gaas­tra fash­ion col­lec­tion in 2020 metres above sea level. Actor Bern­hard Bet­ter­mann wore the sporty and func­tional Gaas­tra Jacket Lubber’s Line – either in orange, navy or khaki avail­able in the Gaas­tra Shop. Dis­cover more sporty and fash­ion­able Gaas­tra cloth­ing with high-value win­ter jack­ets, ski­wear, fleeces, soft­shells and many more Gaas­tra Men High­lights also at the Gaas­tra Sale in the offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop at present!