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Folk­boat at a sail­ing regatta at Laboe, wiki­me­dia, author Voll­w­ert­BIT, Cre­ative Com­mons License

Swe­den, late sum­mer 1941: The Royal Swedish Sail­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (Skan­di­navisk Sei­jler­for­bund) pub­lishes the final draw­ings and build­ing reg­u­la­tions for the Nordic Folk­boat. In total, 59 design drafts have been sub­mit­ted – a num­ber non-expected to attend – the jury made their choice on. The basic idea for a ‘scan­di­na­vian unity-class’ moved into gear already 1939 through C.G. Fast, mem­ber of the Gothen­burg Sail­ing Asso­ci­a­tion on the Scan­di­na­vian sailors day. Chal­lenges which have been made on the Nordic Folk­boat, were a rel­a­tively advan­ta­geously priced pro­duc­tion, made of local lum­bers, and afford­ing a bed­room and liv­ing space for three to four people.

Today the all­rounder Folk­boat has an inter­na­tional fan­base from Europe to the USA with more than 4000 by now built boats. The Ger­man Folk­boat Asso­ci­a­tion is firmly estab­lished in the Nordic Folk­boat cul­ture and counts a proud num­ber of about 800 mem­bers. For all, who would like to respire this his­toric airstream, we rec­om­mend you the oncom­ing hanse­boot boat­show 2011 at Ham­burg. With a spe­cial exhi­bi­tion area on 200 square metres in fair hall B4 (open­ing 29 octo­ber, 16 pm) with boats of 7 decades and the pre­miere of a spe­cial edi­tion, the 70th Folk­boat birth­day will be cel­e­brated on the 52. boat­show edi­tion of the hanse­boot 2011. Fit­ting, nautical-solid ele­gance for Men and Women on– and off­shore offers you the lat­est Gaas­tra Basic Col­lec­tion with all­rounders per­fect to com­bi­nate like Gaas­tra shirts, blouses polos, pullovers and win­ter­jack­ets. Ahoy and Happy Birthday!

Sneek­week 2011 with Gaas­tra Sports­wear as spon­sor © 2011 KWS

Sneek­week 2011 with Gaas­tra Sports­wear as spon­sor, © 2011 KWS (2)

What a plea­sure! The 76th edi­tion of the pop­u­lar Dutch Sneek­week in the home­town of Gaas­tra Sneek, pre­sented itself this year from august 6–11 anew as a spe­cial high­light amongst the Euro­pean Sail Events 2011: 6 days full of sail­ing pas­sion, organ­ised by the ‘Konin­klijke Water­sportv­erenig­ing Sneek’ (KWS) and Gaas­tra as one of the spon­sors, attracted this year again thou­sands of par­tic­i­pants and vis­i­tors in spite of spor­tively weather con­di­tions.

A great TV-Report about the Sneek­week 2011 was done by the Dutch chan­nel SBS 6: Here you can watch it online at full lenght and look back to the best moments of last weeks Sneek­week! And for the read­ing plea­sure, we refresh­ingly rec­om­mend you the Sneek­week Jour­nal. The 77th edi­tion of the Sneek­week 2012 will run from august 4–9. Till then, ensures the present, strongly Lim­ited Gaas­tra Sports­wear Sneek­week Col­lec­tion 2011 for Women and Men with Sneek­week Poloshirts and Sneek­week Sweat­shirts your fash­ion­able enter­tain­ment. Save your favourite colour and size now, only as long as stocks lasts!

Sneek­week 2011 with Gaas­tra Sports­waer as spon­sor, © 2011 KWS (3)

Gaas­tra Sneek­week 2011 Sweatshirt-Roerkoning, www.gaastraproshop.com

Swan­line, www.nautorswan.com

Nautor’s Swan was founded in Fin­land in 1966 by Pekka Koskenkylä with the inten­tion to build the first 10m yacht capa­ble of both cruis­ing and rac­ing. A highly crafted but strong yacht that com­bines speed and com­pe­tence in rac­ing with com­fort and man­age­abil­ity. Fibre­glass was the pri­mary build­ing mate­r­ial, with the trim­mings in wood and always with the con­sis­tently high demands in cre­at­ing the best and supe­rior yachts capa­ble of mas­ter­ing all the world’s seas under any con­di­tions. These val­ues are syn­ony­mous to the high qual­ity ones of Gaas­tra, that’s why Nautor’s Swan and Gaas­tra share a spe­cial part­ner­ship with Gaas­tra as one of its offi­cial part­ners. The first Swan 36 was deliv­ered in spring 1967 to British sailor Dave John­son, who skip­pered the yacht with remark­able suc­cess in tour­na­ments around the British Isles. These rac­ing achieve­ments gen­er­ated immense pos­i­tive feed­back that estab­lished Nautor’s Swan as a man­u­fac­turer of high per­for­mance rac­ing yachts. Over 2,000 Swans have been pro­duced till now of which almost all are still in use. The next upcom­ing event that attracts the world’s elite of Nautor’s Swan own­ers will take place from 9 – 15 July 2011 at the 15th edi­tion of ‘The Swan Euro­pean Regatta’ in Cowes (UK), organ­ised by the pres­ti­gious Royal Yacht Squadron. A wide range of com­peti­tors from across the globe span­ning the clas­sic and mod­ern Swan model range will par­tic­i­pate in this spe­cial Nautor’s Swan Regatta with Gaas­tra as its part­ner. The Offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop con­grat­u­lates to 45 years of style and high performance!

Gaas­tra Sneek, home­town Netherlands

Sneek, Zeil­mak­erij Douwe Gaastra

You are still look­ing out for a spe­cial chal­lenge in june? You can still reg­is­ter for the Kleine Sneek­week 2011 till com­ing Wednes­day, 25th May 2011 and set up for the main Sneek­week, that will take place from august 6th to 11th this year. The Kleine Sneek­week will wel­come pas­sion­ate sailors and many vis­i­tors for the 41st time in the his­toric atmos­phere of Gaas­tra home­town Sneek and on beau­ti­ful Sneek­er­meer. The Kleine Sneek­week is orga­nized by the Konin­klijke Water­sportv­erenig­ing Sneek (Royal Water Sports Asso­ci­a­tion of Sneek) with Gaas­tra as the famil­iar spon­sor also this year again.

Nat­u­rally, the heart of Gaas­tra will always beat in this lovely town, because every­thing began 1897 in Sneek. The 22-year-old Douwe Gaas­tra set up his sail­mak­ing com­pany in Sneek with the ambi­tion of mak­ing sail­ing faster as well as more com­pet­i­tive and effi­cient. In a short space of time, Gaas­tra then became a well-established name in the global world of sail­ing and is nowa­days the high-quality fash­ion brand for nau­ti­cal lifestyle and pro­fes­sional sail­ing gear. Enjoy the Kleine Sneekweek!

Gaas­tra says Happy Birth­day to Koningin Beat­rix © wiki­me­dia, Emiel Ketelaar

Oranje boven! Orange ban­ners, orange-coloured foods and drinks, orange clothes like the Gaas­tra Queens­day Poloshirt, orange acces­sories and even orange water foun­tains: Orange craze (dutch: Oran­jegekte) rules the whole Nether­lands today! On the Koninginnedag, the birth­day of the Queen of the Nether­lands is cel­e­brated nation­wide. Although the real birth­day of Queen Beat­rix is on the 31th Jan­u­ary, the Queens­day feast­ings are offi­cially today, which is orig­i­nally the birth­day of Queen Juliana, the mother of Queen Beat­rix. But in win­ter, you nat­u­rally can not cel­e­brate like in spring­time and the Dutch love to cel­e­brate their lovely Queen the most appropi­ate way! That’s why this day of national unity and togeth­er­ness (Dutch: saamhorigheid) bears offi­cially the date of the 30th of April. Start­ing with the Queen’s Night (Dutch: Koningin­nenacht) espe­cially in The Hague, the night before Konig­innedag is cel­e­brated in most cities as well accom­pa­nied by the Queen’s Dance (Dutch: Koninginnedans) in Rot­ter­dam. Gaas­tra that was founded in 1897 by the famous Douwe Gaas­tra who orig­i­nally started as a sail­maker in the city Sneek, has a long tra­di­tion and a deep bond to its Dutch her­itage and roots.

There­fore we cel­e­brate this spe­cial day with you as well with a spe­cial Gaas­tra Voucher of 10 EUR, which is valid ONLY TODAY the 30th of April 2011 lat­est until mid­night: The Gaas­tra Code is exclu­sively valid for the whole Gaas­tra range in the Offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop. Need more orange this sum­mer? More Gaas­tra shirts or Gaas­tra blouses? More Gaas­tra jack­ets and Gaas­tra fash­ion of the Spring/Summer Col­lec­tion 2011? Choose your favourites with a min­i­mum order value of 30 € and then just use your Gaas­tra Voucher Code „queens­day“ dur­ing pay­ment trans­ac­tion and save your Spe­cial Queens­day Dis­count! Nat­u­rally the Gaas­tra code is usable only one time on each order and not to be com­bined with other vouch­ers. Happy Shop­ping and Happy Birth­day Queen Beatrix!

Gaas­tra Women Poloshirt Queensday

Gaas­tra Men Poloshirt Queensday

Gaas­tra Pro Sail­ing Gear, Sail­ing Jacket Atlantic

New sail­ing sea­son, new Gaas­tra Pro Sail­ing Gear: Go on board with pro­fes­sional sail­ing jack­ets like the ocean sail­ing jacket Cape Horn, the tech­ni­cal bomber jacket Atlantic or soft­shell jacket Brighton from Gaas­tra. Gaas­tra Pro is the ulti­mate pro­fes­sional line, which uses cutting-edge tech­nol­ogy like strong breath­able Toray, Kevlar, BEMIS and high-quality mate­ri­als like Riri zip­pers to pro­vide you the best com­fort and pro­tec­tion under all pos­si­ble weather con­di­tions. As the founder Douwe Gaas­tra already said in 1897: „You don’t ask the sea any ques­tions, you just dress for the occa­sion“. Gaas­tra Pro is tested by pro­fes­sional crew under extreme rac­ing con­di­tions and by a water col­umn of 10.000 — 20.000 mm as well. This inno­v­a­tive sail­ing wear guar­an­tees opti­mal pro­tec­tion and com­fort for all types of sail­ing: The Pro Col­lec­tion con­sists of the GX-01 series for ocean/offshore sail­ing, GX-02 for coastal sail­ing and Gaas­tra GX-03 for inshore sail­ing. Choose your Gaas­tra Pro favourites from the wide range of sportive and func­tional sail­ing wear includ­ing new arrivals in the Offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop for men and women. Where will your sail­ing routes lead you this year?

Gaas­tra Sail­ing Jacket Cape Horn

Gaas­tra Sail­ing Jacket Cowes Women

Gaas­tra Longsleeve Carnac

Gaas­tra T-Shirt Hyeres Sport

Gaas­tra Queens­day Cloth­ing 2011

Orange craze! Only eight days left and the whole Nether­lands will turn into Oranje: On April 30th, every­body will cel­e­brate the Queens­day (Koninginnedag), the birth­day of the Queen of the Nether­lands. Gaas­tra with its Dutch her­itage, cre­ated a Gaas­tra Queens­day Poloshirt 2011 exclu­sively for its online shop. This spe­cial Queens­day Wear for women and men has a spe­cial design at front and offers you the per­fect Queens­day cloth­ing in high-quality Gaas­tra mate­ri­als and pro­cess­ing. You know that nor­mally we offer you a wide range of colours, but for this lim­ited Koningin­nendag Poloshirt Col­lec­tion, there is nat­u­rally only one to choose: Orange! Save your Gaas­tra Queens­day Poloshirt of this strictly lim­ited edi­tion the fastest way at our Offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop and ben­e­fit of the quick deliv­ery. Oranje boven!

Nowa­days the most inno­v­a­tive and famous brand for nau­ti­cal pro­fes­sional sports­wear and mar­itime high-fashion, in 1897 the founder Douwe Gaas­tra started Gaas­tra orig­i­nally as a sail­mak­ing com­pany in the lit­tle Dutch city Sneek.

He knew what deal­ing with the sea is all about when say­ing „You don’t ask the sea any ques­tions, you just dress for the occa­sion“. All his exper­tise made Gaas­tra the renowned brand it is today and espe­cially the pro­fes­sional Gaas­tra Pro Per­for­mance Wear sup­ports all lovers of nau­ti­cal adven­tures. For all those, whose heart belongs to the sea for­ever like Douwe Gaas­tras did, we made a very Spe­cial Poloshirt that’s ded­i­cated to the father of the sea, Douwe Gaastra.

Gaastra_SAIL_Amsterdam

After 5 years the biggest pub­lic event of the Nether­lands is back! From the 19th to the 23rd of august vis­i­tors will see impres­sive fleet of tall ships from all over the world. More than 500 sail­ing her­itage ships and spe­cial replica‘s will dis­play nau­ti­cal his­tory on the spec­tac­u­lar Sail-In Parade! Gaas­tra E-Store is proud to present this year´s  SAIL AMSTERDAM Col­lec­tion 2010. But there is more to look forward …

Win an overnight stay in Amsterdam

for the SAIL 2010!

If you would like to feel the nau­ti­cal impact of this adven­tur­ous event by your­self its best to go there! With Gaas­tra E-Store and Short­stay Ams­ter­dam you can win 1 of 3 exclu­sive overnight stays for the SAIL AMSTERDAM 2010!

Just click and answer the fol­low­ing question…

Good luck!

Your Gaas­tra E-Store Team

… the his­tory of Gaas­tra begins in 1897, when the 22-year-old Douwe Gaas­tra sets up his sail­mak­ing com­pany in Sneek (Nether­lands), with the ambi­tion of mak­ing sail­ing faster as well as more com­petive and effe­cient. In a short space of time, Gaas­tra then becomes a house­hold name in the global world of sail­ing. If you are inter­ested in more infor­ma­tion please visit http://www.gaastra.eu/en/brand/heritage