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Bel­gian Boat Show, Flan­ders Expo Ghent, Gaas­tra Blog recommendation

The Bel­gian Boat Show 2012 sets course to its 24^th edi­tion: Run­ning from 11–13 & from 17–19 feb­ru­ary, the Bel­gian Boat Trade Fair at Flan­ders Expo Gent will present a range of nov­el­ties and pre­mieres from the world of water sports. Yachts, boats, boat engines, rigid inflat­able boats (RIB’s) as the aqua­VITE 888 by Tech­no­hull, inno­v­a­tive elec­tric boats as by Green­line Hybrid (dec­o­rated with the Euro­pean Power­boat Title in 2010), water sports trends like wake­board­ing and stand-up pad­dling (SUP) as well as water sports tourism and the sunny host coun­try of the year, Cape Verde, will be rep­re­sented on the boat show deck. In addi­tion, the Dutch full-service yacht har­bour Atlantica will present its marina ser­vices and Bert Bossyns will fire the start­ing pis­tol for his new Transat 6,50 project in 2013 (solo transat­lantic yacht race). Due to its good trans­port con­nec­tions to France, the Nether­lands and Ger­many, the Bel­gian Boat Show is an inter­na­tional meet­ing spot for the water sport busi­ness. For all those, who are still cast­ing about the per­fectly match­ing, nau­ti­cal Gaas­tra Sail­ing Fash­ion, will nat­u­rally make many finds in the Gaas­tra Online Shop!

Boot Hol­land 2012: Dutch Boat Show feb­ru­ary 10–15

On 40.000 m², the Dutch Boat Hol­land 2012 Boat Show will wel­come about 47.000 expected vis­tors at the WTC Expo Leeuwar­den: About 350 exhibitors will present their boat nov­el­ties dur­ing alto­gether six trade fair days run­ning from 10 to 15 feb­ru­ary 2012.

Sail­ing– and par­tic­u­larly motor boat world pre­mieres, sloops to inflat­a­bles, acces­soires, engines, elec­tric boats as well as water sport ser­vices and clubs as the Dutch water sport asso­ci­a­tion ‘Konin­klijke Ned­er­landse Water­sportver­bond (KNWV)’, with whom Gaas­tra has a strong spon­sor­ship for a long time, will be on deck of the Boat Hol­land 2012. The Dutch boat fair is above all well-known for its steel boats: This year as well, a range of renowned Dutch steel boat builders as ABIM-watersport, Aqua­naut Yacht­ing, Brandsma Jachten, Jet­ten Yacht­ing, Pol­lard Jacht­bau and Vri-Jon will anchor at the WTC Expo exhi­bi­tion cen­tre – pre­sent­ing steel boats rang­ing from 9 to 17 metres. Boot Hol­land 2012 Online Tick­ets are avail­able for 12,50 € and the per­fectly match­ing nau­ti­cal Gaas­tra Sports­wear Fash­ion com­fort­ably in the offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop!

Sail­ing book, ‘Auf See’ (At Sea), Gilles Martin-Raget, Delius Klas­ing, pub­lish­ing date jan­u­ary 2012

The fas­ci­na­tion of sail­ing cap­tured on 184 pages: The new illus­trated sail­ing book ‘Auf See, Impres­sio­nen vom Segeln’ (At Sea, impres­sions of sail­ing) from the renowned french sail­ing pho­tog­ra­pher and jour­nal­ist Gilles Martin-Raget invites from the 16^th of jan­u­ary 2012 on (pub­lish­ing date), on an excit­ing sail­ing jour­ney. This spe­cial sail­ing trip leads on col­lec­tively 164 inten­sive sail­ing pho­tographs in the inter­na­tional world of the regatta scene as the America’s Cup, the single-handed transat­lantic regatta Route du Rhum (ini­ti­ated by Michel Etevenon in 1978), the shim­mer­ing Voiles de Saint Tropez sail­ing regatta or the Spi Ouest-France regatta series.

Whether action sail­ing pic­tures, idyl­lic anchor­ing places or glam­orous lux­ury yacht pho­tographs, that came to fame world­wide already: Gilles Martin-Raget cap­tures the beauty of sail­ing on all oceans. The sail­ing pho­tographs are cou­pled with sport­ful texts (only in ger­man in this title) by Martin-Raget, who’s report­ing for diverse sport mag­a­zines as the french ‘l’equipe’ as well. ‘Auf See, Impres­sio­nen vom Segeln’ will be released in soft cover and can be pre-ordered at the ger­man pub­lish­ing house Delius Klas­ing, well-known for high-value sail­ing lit­er­a­ture and sail­ing book titles. Take your chance as a Gaas­tra blog reader: We raf­fle one exclu­sive sam­ple in advance — sim­ply send an e-mail to denis@gaastraproshop.com by 17^th jan­u­ary 2012 mid­night at the lat­est. Gaas­tra blog wishes ‘Best of luck!’ and a refresh­ing read!

boot Dues­sel­dorf / Foto Rene Till­mann, Messe Düsseldorf

Under the motto ‘360° water­sports live’, the inter­na­tional ger­man boat show boot Düs­sel­dorf 2012 will roll out the red car­pets from the 21^st to 29^th jan­u­ary 2012 for the 43^th time: About 1.600 exhibitors from more than 50 coun­tries, amongst them also Gaas­tra, and about 250.000 expected vis­i­tors the boot Düs­sel­dorf 2012 will wel­come in alto­gether sev­en­teen exhi­bi­tion halls at the Rhine river. This year as well, the ger­man boat show weighs as the world­wide biggest inter­na­tional boat trade show, giv­ing proof at the same time of its con­sis­tent mod­ern­iza­tion includ­ing new exhi­bi­tion con­cepts and focus areas – result­ing in a new impor­tant atten­tive­ness for the water sports business.

Boats and yachts will be nat­u­rally still on the focus, 2012 with an impress­ing boat vari­ety of 1.700 types of all dimen­sions, spread­ing in eleven boat exhi­bi­tion halls. At the same time, the world of expe­ri­ences as ‘Beach World 2012′ with fun­sports like wake­board­ing, skim­board­ing and stand-up-paddle events have been extended, plus the water tourism and hol­i­day areas, as well as the div­ing world includ­ing the under­wa­ter pho­tog­ra­phy exhi­bi­tion „Under­wa­ter Pixel World 2012“ (eight times larger than last year!) and inno­v­a­tive boat equip­ment, tech­nique and inno­va­tions. Fur­ther high­lights of the ger­man boat show Düs­sel­dorf will be: In hall 4 big motor yacht brands like Bavaria, Bénéteau, Jean­neau, Galeon and Nim­bus, hall 5 with the power boat world, hall 15 with dutch ‘Hol­land Boats & Yachts’ steel yachts (the Nether­lands will count over­all to the largest exhibit­ing for­eign nations with 150 boat­yards and ser­vice com­pa­nies on the boat Düs­sel­dorf 2012), the world first of the Salano 35 from the yacht man­u­fac­ture AD-boats in hall 16, the ‘Euro­pean Yacht of the Year 2011/12′ Award and nat­u­rally Gaas­tra. Whether anglers, surfer, divers, sailors or char­terer: Expe­ri­ence 360° of water­sports live! Gaas­tra Blog rec­om­mends: Save boot Düs­sel­dorf Tick­ets 2012 com­fort­ably online – here you’ll find in addi­tion the boot Düs­sel­dorf Map 2012. Gaas­tra Blog wishes a refresh­ing water­sports week in nau­ti­cal Gaas­tra Fash­ion from the offi­cial Gaas­tra Shop!

Lon­don Boat Show 2012, Gaas­tra Blog recommendation

The new boat show sea­son 2012 starts freshly at the Thames: The 58^th edi­tion of the Lon­don Boat Show 2012 wel­comes from jan­u­ary 6–15 in the ExCel Lon­don Exhi­bi­tion Cen­tre and will host more than 1000 boats and 500 exhibitors. The Tul­lett Pre­bon Lon­don Boat Show con­sti­tutes as the first big boat trade show in 2012 the season’s start with world firsts going from power­boats to yachts: On board you’ll find big brands in the south hall like Sun­seeker, Brunswick, Ven­tura, Fair­line, Bates Wharf, Rod­man and Princess as well as acces­si­ble boat types. 

The UK boat show is renowned for this mas­ter­ful bal­anc­ing act from lux­ury– to low-budget seg­ment. Whether you’re look­ing for a new boat, plan­ning to set up your present one with the most recent tech­nol­ogy and inno­v­a­tive tools or want­ing to get your inspi­ra­tion from the var­i­ous topic areas. As Europes’s boat show pre­miere, the Lon­don Boat Show 2012 offers the per­fect con­di­tions for get­ting into con­ver­sa­tions. Tech­ni­cal lec­tures in the ‘Knowl­edge Box’, a sep­a­rate clas­sic boat show, the ‘Used Boat Marina’ mar­ket in coop­er­a­tion with YachtWorld.com and the ‘Water­sports Action Pool’ you will find as fur­ther high­lights in the north hall. You can get your Lon­don Boat Show Tick­ets 2012 com­fort­ably online start­ing from £16 and nau­ti­cal Gaas­tra Sports­wear nat­u­rally in the Offi­cial Gaas­tra Online Shop!

Sailors for the Sea, Clean Regattas

Sailors for the Sea as a nonprofit-organziation edu­cates and engages the boat­ing com­mu­nity in the world­wide pro­tec­tion of the ocean and coastal waters, which is more impor­tant than ever due to the increas­ing pres­sure of global use. David Rock­e­feller, Jr., an avid rac­ing sailor and deeply com­mit­ted to the envi­ron­ment, founded Sailors for the Sea as a direct result of his work on the Pew Oceans Com­mis­sion that iden­ti­fied pro­found and alarm­ing ocean health issues. Sailors for the Sea wants to strenghten the marine ecosys­tems by sup­port­ing sailors world­wide, sail­ing clubs and sail­ing regat­tas bring­ing them on Green Sail­ing Stan­dards with dif­fer­ent projects and pro­grams: The nation­wide ‘Clean Regatta Pro­gram’ assists and cer­ti­fies yacht clubs and regatta orga­niz­ers as pro­vid­ing clean sail­ing events that min­i­mize impacts upon our oceans. The Clean Regatta Pro­gram wants to sup­port these impor­tant efforts as an inde­pen­dent third-party and a green expert the pro­fes­sional way. You want to con­tribute to the health of your local waters and to a pos­i­tive image of sail­ing as well? Here you can reg­is­ter Online for the Clean Regatta Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Pro­gram. Fur­ther­more, Sailors for the Sea offers more core pro­grams like the Ocean Watch Essays, the Cer­ti­fied Sea friendly pro­gram, the Team 11th Hour Rac­ing Project and the Rainy Day Kits for Envi­ron­men­tal Edu­ca­tion, that have been cre­ated by lead­ers in the field of marine and envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence and edu­ca­tion. The Kit is formed as les­son plans and can be taught to young sailors in yacht clubs and sail­ing pro­grams around the world, also by sail­ing instruc­tors who may not be for­mally edu­ca­tors in ecol­ogy or biol­ogy. You can down­load the Rainy Day Kits Mate­r­ial here for free. Cast off for Green Sail­ing and clean waters!

Cocoon, Where the Oceans End — Coop­er­a­tive Music (Universal)

The new album ‘Where the Oceans End’ of French duo Cocoon takes you on a sweet mar­itime sound voy­age: After their first debu­tal­bum in 2007 which was gold-prized in France, Mor­gane Imbeaud (vocals, key­board, com­po­si­tion) and Mark Dau­mail (vocals, accoustic gui­tar, banjo, ukulele), present their sec­ond cre­ation anew with melodic, warm and agravic com­po­si­tions. Cocoons’ euphonic folk-pop songs like ‘Comet’, ‘Oh my God’, ‘Dol­phins’ or ‘Super Pow­ers’ are telling along the way the story of the whale Yum Yum in lit­tle episodes in his whoosh­ing world of oceans. The ones, who already loved the Cocoon debu­tal­bum, will surely do on this 12-track heavy album as well. It can be ordered here (UK) or here (Ger­many) for exam­ple. Enjoy!