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Rolex Miami OCR 2011, Men’s 470 fleet, Photo By Rolex, Daniel Forster

This win­ter, the sails are set for the 22^nd time: The upcom­ing renowned US Sail­ing Rolex Miami OCR 2012 regatta will be held from jan­u­ary 22^nd to 28^th, this time in the pic­turesque Bis­cayne Bay. The sec­ond of seven regat­tas within the ISAF Sail­ing World Cup 2011–2012 cir­cuit is open for ten olympic and three par­a­lympic classes – at the same time, the Rolex Miami OCR 2012 marks also the final selec­tion event for the US Par­a­lympic Team – Sail­ing. ‘With 2012 being the last year of the Olympic qua­dren­nium, we expect an increase in Pa-ralympic class par­tic­i­pa­tion as all of the world’s top Par­a­lympic hope­fuls will be com­ing to Miami straight off the IFDS World Cham­pi­onships, also held in Florida,’ said Gary Bodie (Hamp­ton, Va.), regatta co-chair.

The ISAF Rolex Miami OCR 2012 will be fol­lowed by the Tro­feo Princesa Sofia 2012 Palma Spain in april, the french Semaine Olympique in Hyeres, the Delta Lloyd Regatta Medem­b­lik 2012 from mai 23–27, the Skan­dia Sail for Gold Regatta Wey­mouth and the ger­man Kieler Woche. Since 1990, the pres­ti­gious Miami regatta is orga­nized by the United States Sail­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (US Sail­ing), which has been founded just as Gaas­tra in the year of 1897! Pas­sion for sailing=1897! The US Sail­ing Asso­ci­a­tion with its head­quar­ter in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, sup­ports in addi­tion a wide-ranging amount of national US Sail­ing Cham­pi­onships and the US Sail­ing Team Alpha­Graph­ics. Gaas­tra blog wishes all par­tic­i­pants a suc­cess­ful week in Miami – all sail­ing passio-nates can pro­fes­sion­al­ize with high-value tech­ni­cal Gaas­tra Pro Sail­ing Gear off­shore or dress up with nau­ti­cal Gaas­tra Fash­ion onhore as the Gaas­tra Voiles de Saint Barth 2012 Col­lec­tion — com­fort­ably and with world­wide deliv­ery ser­vice in the offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop!

Gaas­tra Voiles de Saint Barth Col­lec­tion 2012 — exclu­sive nau­ti­cal fash­ion new arrived!

Caribbean sea breeze has arrived in the Gaas­tra Online Shop: To the exclu­sive Caribbean sail­ing regatta Les Voiles de St. Barth 2012, Gaas­tra presents as the offi­cial part­ner the lim­ited and mar­itime Saint Barth nau­ti­cal fash­ion col­lec­tion! The mean­while third edi­tion of the French West Indies Regatta will be held from 2–7 april 2012 in the Caribbean French Antilles sail­ing– and VIP hol­i­day par­adise Saint Barth and is organ­ised by the St. Barth yacht club. The already sec­ond Gaas­tra St. Barth Col­lec­tion refreshes in bright and airy colours: Navy, laven­der, white, olive, berry, turquoise and frutto reflect fash­ion­ably the sweet life on the Caribbean VIP island in the sporty Gaas­tra Women St. Barth Polo Shirts Valen­cia and in the Gaas­tra Men St. Barth Polo Shirts Vincey. Set sail to the new Gaas­tra nau­ti­cal fash­ion arrivals fastly: The Lim­ited Gaas­tra Saint Barth Edi­tion Col­lec­tion 2012 is for now avail­able in highly diverse colours and sizes! Dis­cover as well wind– and water­proof Saint Barth jack­ets, vests and soft­shell jack­ets. Shop from now on the style 2012 of the Caribbean VIP-island Saint Barth in the Offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop with world­wide and fast delivery!

Heineken Regatta Cura­cao, Caribbean Sail­ing Event, photobucket.com, Naomi Reisel album

Sun­shine the whole year, an aver­age yearly tem­per­a­ture of 28° C and steadily refresh­ing trade winds: Wel­come to the Nether­lands! (the carib-bean island belongs to the Dutch King­dom since last year). One can count him­self lucky being at Cura­cao next week­end. Because between 11 to 13 novem­ber 2011, the fourth edi­tion of the Heineken Regatta Cura­cao will take place in Willem­stad. Open for the rac­ing class on three days and on two days for the rac­ing cruis­ing class, the cruis­ing class, open fun class and the mul­ti­hull class, the Car­ribean sail­ing hotspot will be right in the city cen­ter — at the largest nat­ural har­bour of the Car­ribean, the St. Annabaai Har­bour. Sail­ing races will take place on the waters south of hol­i­day par­adise Cura­cao. En pas­sant, the inter­na­tional sail­ing teams and vis­i­tors will respire the his­tor­i­cal air of Willem­stad – for the cap­i­tal of Cura­cao belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage.

You can fol­low the Cura­cao Sail­ing Fes­ti­val on Dutch radio­sta­tion Par­adise FM with news, live reports from the regatta vil­lage on the Kleine Werft and inter­views — and nat­u­rally on the offi­cial Heineken Regatta Home­page. There you get in addi­tion all infor­ma­tions about the par­al­lelly hap­pen­ing Heineken Regatta Fes­ti­val 2011 and its per­form­ing artists like reg­gae leg­end Maxi Priest and Puerto Rican-American Grammy Win­ner Elvis Cre­spo. And one who is still look­ing for the per­fect match­ing mar­itime fash­ion look: Visit the Offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Store with world­wide deliv­ery ser­vice and with the biggest assort­ment of pre­mium Gaas­tra Sail­ing Fash­ion and this years pop­u­lar and only lim­it­edly avail­able Gaas­tra Les Voiles de St. Barth Col­lec­tion 2011 for the caribbean Gaas­tra spon­sored sail­ing venue, that will take place anew 2012 from 2–7 april!

Heineken Regatta Cura­cao 2009 (2), photobucket.com, Naomi Reisel album

Heineken Regatta Cura­cao 2009 (3), photobucket.com, Naomi Reisel album

Heineken Regatta Cura­cao 2009 (4), photobucket.com, Naomi Reisel album

Heineken Regatta Cura­cao 2009 (5), photobucket.com, Naomi Reisel album

Volvo Ocean Race 2011–2012 Route Map, Gaas­tra Blog wishes Godspeed

All hands on deck for the pend­ing 39,000 nau­ti­cal miles: Today the Volvo Ocean Race 2011–2012, one of the world’s most chal­leng­ing sail­ing events, starts! The con­ti­nen­tal route of the 11th edi­tion will lead from port of Ali­cante via Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Sanya, Auck­land, around Cape Horn to Ita­jaí, Miami, Lis­bon, Lori­ent and the final des­ti­na­tion Gal­way Ire­land in july 2012. The unique and extremely chal­leng­ing Volvo Ocean Race, will demand high endurance as well as per­fect fore­sighted skills on the inter­na­tional sail­ing teams — each one con­sist­ing of a crew with eleven professionals.

This edi­tion par­tic­i­pate the Abu Dhabi Ocean Rac­ing Team, Team Tele­fon­ica, Groupama Sail­ing Team, Puma Ocean Rac­ing Team, Camper with Emi­rates Team and Team Sanya. ‘The level of com­pe­ti­tion has never been higher’, said Volvo Ocean Race Chief Exec­u­tive Knut Frostad. The teams will race day and night, depend­ing on the dis­tance they will be more than twenty days on the run, expe­ri­enc­ing tem­per­a­tures from –5 to +40 degress Cel­sius. Bless­edly, the teams can bank on cutting-edge sail­ing tech­nolo­gies and the Volvo Open 70s fastest rac­ing yacht in the world, which cov­ered 596 nau­ti­cal miles in 24 hours at the edi­tion 2008-09. Get on ocean deck for the next nine months and keep in mind the Rac­ing Sched­ule and lis­ten to Pod­casts or fol­low the brand-new Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 Livestream ser­vice in real-time. Gaas­tra Blog and the Offi­cial Gaas­tra Shop with world­wide deliv­ery ser­vice wish God­speed to all teams!  

Audi TP52 World Cham­pi­onship © Ste­fano Gattini_Studio Bor­lenghi­Audi MedCup

Quan­tum Rac­ing, defender of last years Audi TP52 World Champion-ship title hold in Valen­cia, home­like Audi Azzura Sail­ing Team dressed in Gaas­tra Pro Sail­ing Gear and many more inter­na­tional high-level sail­ing teams will chal­lenge this week run­ning from octo­ber 4–8 on the waters of Ital­ian Porto Cervo. It was in 2007, when the last TP52 world regatta edi­tion was held in this pop­u­lar sail­ing riv­iera, won by Sweden’s Tor­b­jorn Tornqvist’s Artemis. This is what Ed Reynolds (USA), project man­ager of Quan­tum Rac­ing says: ‘It is going to be a unique worlds since really any boat could get on a hot streak and go out and win. In this one regatta for­mat it will be the most com­pet­i­tive worlds we have known to this point. In the past there have been one or two boats to focus on, this time it could be any one.’

Per­haps it will be the Audi Azzura Sail­ing Team with Alberto Roem­mers’ crew skip­pered by Guillermo Parada (ARG), sail­ing on home waves under the flag of the host Yacht Club Costa Sme-ralda? Or Britain’s Glad­i­a­tor by Tony Lan­g­ley (GBR) return­ing this year for chal­leng­ing for the world title again with tac­ti­cian Chris Lar­son? Or Spain’s ESP 7552 skip­pered and steered by Gon­zalo Araujo with his team equipped as well like Audi Azzura in Gaas­tra Pro Pro­fes­sional Sail­ing Gear? As Reynold said, every­thing is pos­si­ble this year! The Audi TP52 World Cham­pi­onship 2011 will com­prise five days of windward-leeward rac­ing includ­ing one coastal race on thurs­day. Gaas­tra Blog and Gaas­tra Pro Sail­ing Gear wish all teams fan­tas­tic and chal­leng­ing days!

Audi Melges 20 Sail­ing Series Scarlino©2011 Luca Butto for Carlo Bor­lenghi B-Plan

Venice will get in touch these days with pure joy of sail­ing: Going from the 29th of sep­tem­ber to octo­ber 5th 2011, the Audi Melges 20 class Euro­pean Cham­pi­onship will be held in Venice waters this week. After last years sail­ing series in Lerici, Scar­lino and Riva dela Garda, the Audi Melges 20 Cham­pi­onship 2011 are hosted by the Com­pag­nia della Vela di Venezia this time, wel­com­ing the Melges Europe teams at this fast Venice sail­ing venue. Renowned for its cutting-edge mate­ri­als and con­cepts, the Audi Melges 20 class will prove their high stan­dards in easy-to-sail sport­boats with a sim­plic­ity exceed­ing expec­ta­tions by new. With a lenght of 6.096 m and weight of 520 kg, the Melges 20 sail­boat class is the eas­i­est sport­boat to sail on the mar­ket today and has become the bench­mark for small keel­boats nowa­days. Gaas­tra Sports­wear wishes all par­tic­i­pants chal­leng­ing days!

Audi Med­cup Cas­cais sail­ing regatta, Gaas­tra Sportswear

Today starts the final fifth sail­ing venue within the Audi Med­Cup Cir­cuit 2011 in Barcelona: After this season’s Med­Cup regat­tas in Cas­cais, Mar­seille, Cagliari and Carta­gena, the big Med­Cup Barcelona Tro­phy 2011 final from sep­tem­ber 12 to 17, will attract anew inter­na­tional sail­ing teams, design­ers and tech­ni­cians to the cata­lan metrop­o­lis. Eight teams left will chal­lenge for the final rank­ings in the TP-52 class includ­ing the Ger­man ‘Con­tainer’ of Udo Schütz and Skip­per Markus Wieser, the Span­ish ‘Bribón’ with Gon­zalo Araújo, Ital­ian Audi Azzurra Sail­ing Team of skip­per Guillermo Parada and the ‘Quan­tum Rac­ing’ with Ed Baird (USA) with prob­a­bly the best chances for the Barcelona Tro­phy 2011. This years new fea­ture of the world’s lead­ing regatta cir­cuit Audi Med­Cup, is the intro­duc­tion of the Soto 40 Class, a new one-design 40 footer which is grow­ing rapidly world­wide. Six teams will chal­lenge this week this class as well.

Today start the offi­cial train­ings for the 52Series and from tues­day onwards, the daily start­ing sig­nals for the short races will sound till sat­ur­day! If you’d like to be in the spot of this weeks Audi Med­Cup Cir­cuit 2011 Grande Finale in Barcelona, we refresh­ingly rec­om­mend you the Audi Med­Cup Live Broad­cast­ing 2011 with this years new vir­tual eye 3 D ani­ma­tions. Gaas­tra Blog wishes all teams and vis­i­tors a suc­ces­ful and enter­tain­ing week!

Gaas­tra rec­om­mends the Delta Lloyd Open Dutch Cham­pi­onships, www.gaastraproshop.com

Seven days left and one of the biggest Dutch sail­ing events will take place off the Inter­na­tional Sail­ing Cen­ter Medem­b­lik: The Delta Lloyd Open Dutch Champion-ships 2011 includ­ing the Olympic and Par­a­lympic Classes, will make Medem­b­lik Europes’ sail­ing spot next week­end this year as well!

Orga­nized by the ‘Ned­er­landse Water­sportver­bond (KNWV)’ and the orga­niz­ing author­ity ‘Royal Nether­lands Yacht­ing Union’ in con­junc­tion with the ‘RYC Hol­lan­dia’ and ‘Tre­f­punt Sports and Enter­tain­ment’, this main Dutch sail­ing event is open this year for the J22 and Dart 18 classes, the Laser Stan­dard Laser Radial (Men and Women), 470 (Men and Women), Finn, 49er, 29er XX, RS:X (Men and Women), Star, Sonar(open) and 2.4mR (open).

The weather fore­casts look good for upcom­ing Delta Lloyd Open Dutch Cham­pi­onships and first warn­ing sig­nals will be on fri­day, the 16th sep­tem­ber 2011 at 10 am. You can fol­low the lat­est news and sail­ing videos on the Topzeilen TV of the Water­sportver­bond and the lat­est Gaas­tra Pro Sail­ing Wear as well!

Gaas­tra Jacket Men, Mar­itime Sail­ing Fash­ion in the Offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop

Maxi ele­gance and maxi sail­ing adren­a­line fills up this weeks’ Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 2011 at Ital­ian Costa Smer­alda: From 5th to 10th sep­tem­ber, the 22nd edi­tion will take place this year at Porto Cervo in col­lab­o­ra­tion with part­ner Rolex and with about 46 of the most com­pet­i­tive maxi rac­ing yachts with an aver­age lenght of approx­i­mately 30 meters (going up to 45 as the max­i­mum) challenging. 

Since 1980, the pres­tigous Yacht Club Costa Smer­alda (YCCS) orga­nizes the annu­ally in sep­tem­ber sched­uled ital­ian sail­ing event for the largest sail­ing ves­sels in exis­tence. Today on the first day of the sail­ing week at Costa Smer­alda, the yachts will be divided into var­i­ous divi­sions accord­ing to their size and tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics – first races will start tomor­row. Cov­er­ing an enor­mous spec­trum of designs, mod­els, tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions and new launches like the pro­to­type for the new F-Class one-design Fire­fly, the Comet 100 Shadow and the clas­sic Bermu­dian sloop Annagine and stretch­ing to vet­eran com­peti­tors such as the 38-metre ketch Het­airos (win­ner of the Super­maxi divi­sion in 2010), the Porto Cervo sail­ing event rep­re­sents the who’s-who of inter­na­tional maxi yacht­ing. Within this tra­di­tional Costa Smer­alda sail­ing week, the Mini Maxi Rolex World Cham­pi­onship 2011 will be held syn­chron­i­cally as well — with six­teen yachts com­pet­ing rang­ing from 18.29 to 24.08 meters, and rep­re­sent­ing strong Niklas Zennström’s Rán 2 (win­ner of the last year’s Mini Maxi title) by new. We wish all par­tic­i­pants a suc­ces­ful start to the Maxi rac­ing week! Fol­low the Live­cam of the Yacht Club Costa Smer­alda these days if you’d like to be on the spot!

Dragon Gold Cup Gaas­tra Poloshirt 2011 Col­lec­tion, www.gaastraproshop.com

Do you hear the start­ing sig­nals? The Der­bigum Dragon Gold Cup 2011 with Gaas­tra as the Offi­cial Cloth­ing Sup­plier, starts its inter­na­tional Dragon Class Regatta today. Going from the 2nd to 9th sep­tem­ber 2011, the high stan­dard sail­ing race at Ostend Bel­gium organ­ised by the Royal North Sea Yacht Club (RNSYC) and the Bel­gian Dragon Asso­ci­a­tion, will wel­come 77 reg­is­tered Dragon Class yacht-teams from all over the world at the city by the sea. Well-known for sta­ble winds and chal­leng­ing cur­rents, we all expect a thrilling sail­ing event at Ostend’s North Sea with top sailors from the Nether­lands, Ger­many, Rus­sia, Den­mark, Swe­den, Fin­land, Great Britain, Ukraine, Japan, USA, Hong-Kong and Bel­gium of course. The Dragon Gold Cup 2011 marks the clos­ing of Ostends sum­mer event high­lights with that nau­ti­cal top event on and off water.

Gaas­tra presents you the per­fect match­ing Sportswear-Look for that spe­cial late sum­mer sail­ing event: We cre­ated an own fash­ion­able and sporty Gaas­tra Dragon Gold Cup Poloshirt Edi­tion 2011 equipped with many high-quality details. A Dragon Gold Cup crest at chest, mar­itime logos and an elab­o­rate nau­ti­cal design at back will grace your looks the spe­cial way. Set course for the Offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop and choose your favourite colour and size the easy way as long as the stock of our Lim­ited Dragon Gold Cup Col­lec­tion 2011 lasts!