WELCOME TO THE GAASTRA E-STORE BLOG

The his­tory of Gaas­tra begins in 1897, where the 22-year-old Douwe Gaas­tra sets up his sail­mak­ing com­pany in Sneek/The Nether­lands with the ambi­tion of mak­ing sail­ing faster as well as more com­pet­i­tive and eff­i­cent. In a short space of time, Gaas­tra then becomes a house­hold name in the global world of sailing.

The­ses days we cel­e­brate the Sneek­Week as the biggest sail­ing event held in Euro­pean inland waters. The focus of the event is on sail­ing and its pas­sion­ate par­tic­i­pants, right from its spec­tac­u­lar start — the tra­di­tional naval pageant with hun­dreds of boats and a bril­liant dis­play of fire­works — up to the very last day of the competition.

Sneek­Week is orga­nized by the Royal Water Sports Asso­ci­a­tion of Sneek (KWS) and draws thou­sands of vis­i­tors and par­tic­i­pants each year. This years Gaas­tras lim­ited col­lec­tion of the Sneek­Week is now avail­able online. Check out the shirts for Men, Women and Juniors and visit the shop.

We are look­ing for­ward to the biggest sail­ing com­pe­ti­tion in Spain: the Copa del Rey. It’s held in the waters of the bay of Palma de Mal­lorca. With over 100 sail­ing yachts from 16 dif­fer­ent coun­tries in three dif­fer­ent fleets: TP52, IMS and Cruiser, it has become a top-level fix­ture on the inter­na­tional cal­en­dar. From the 1^st to the 8^th of August, a great many par­tic­i­pants will yet again com­pete for the first place — includ­ing the King and Prince of Spain, the King of Nor­way and a great many yachts­men from the America’s Cup com­pe­ti­tion, Volvo and Olympic com­pe­ti­tions such as Rus­sel Coutts, Ian Barker, Paul Cayard and Iker Mar­tinez.
The very first edi­tion was held in 1982 with only 50 boats tak­ing part. As you can see – over the years (29^th edi­tion this year) and with the sup­port of the royal fam­ily of Spain the Copa del Rey has become one of the major cruiser class regat­tas in the Mediter­ranean Sea.
The new Copa del Rey Polos for Men and Women are avail­able in our shop – enjoy!