BEST OF 2014 – What a spectacular Instagram contest, thanks to all of you!

With nearly 1,400 photos competing in the “TAG Heuer Cruise GDV 2014” contest (you can find them all here in the largest online gallery ever!) you flooded Instagram this summer. Forcing the editorial staff to work overtime. And you also did your part in helping us choose the winner by giving us your preferences in the online voting on our website. And what work is behind the winning photo…. It took about 30 trials before the perfect shot!

IN ONE PICTURE TWO PASSIONS: BOAT AND… FAMILY.

The winner is @emanuel.fischer, who managed to capture two of his life’s great passions in a single image: his daughter Isabel in the foreground and, in the background, Cathur One, the family’s Oceanis 323. “In winter we keep it moored in Cesenatico, but now several years with my wife, also a passionate sailor, children and friends we spend at least 40-50 days on the boat, dividing our time between Croatia and Greece,” Emanuel told us. “The photo was taken in Sapunara, Milijet, Croatia, toward the end of this wonderful August, at least in the south. One of the most beautiful things about boating is that you can go where you find the most sunshine!” A shot that struck us as original and, by the way, also somewhat reminiscent of fashion photographs (excuse the pun). “I take all photos with an old iPhone 4, which is ideal in a boat. For two years now, the contest has also been a great incentive for me to take better and better photos, and for the past 2 years a way for me to share our adventures with our Terraquean friends.” So it is @emanuel.fischer who wins the TAG Heuer Aquaracer 500M Calibre 5 Automatic, first prize in our contest.

WHEN THE SEA IS GREAT PASSION
In order to be able to arrive at the final choices, we first narrowed it down to eighty-four photos then the shortlist came down to fifteen images. Having finished these first two phases of the work, we sat down in the meeting room and put the last remaining candidates to a vote. In second place is @asterixeobelix_5, nickname behind which is Mattia Bernardinetti: twenty-six years old, he is a doctor waiting for the anesthesia residency competition. “Right now I’m staying at the Umberto primo polyclinic in Rome, where I graduated, but tomorrow I’d like to ditch the peaks for somewhere far away-what! I don’t know, but I want to think about it. The idea of too much stability kills me. In my university days I alternated between exams and parachute jumps, now thankfully the exams are over. Sailing is a passion born for fun with some friends, and then it became a mental status, an incurable addiction, the expression of freedom that every man seeks within himself.” In third place, however, here is Riccardo Fracchia (@clovis1983 his nickname), who has made sailing his life, commanding (“although I will be a real commander when I have a white beard,” Riccardo tells us) a 24-meter aluminum ketch and having his girlfriend as his hostess on board. His greatest dream? “Putting a small nest egg aside to prepare my boat (which is also a bit of a mom to me) for a non-stop, but unhurried world tour with the people I love most.”

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WHO THE THREE WINNERS ARE
Robert Emanuel Fischer (@emanuelfischer for the Instagram community), lives in Cesena and is half German and half Italian. “I don’t know where my passion for sailing came from. My parents are very ‘land-based,’ but I do know that I am lucky enough to live only twenty minutes from the sea and to have a family that shares my passion. In fact, perhaps my wife Annalisa (pictured with him, together they have two children, Isabel and Bryan) is even more passionate than I am!” Emanuel, an architect, manages to spend about fifty to sixty days a year at sea. “I installed wifi on our boat, an Oceanis 323, so we can also work from aboard and finally manage time differently than we used to.” To win the contest, in which he had already participated last year, he had to … sweat! “To be able to get this picture, I had to take at least 30 of them!“.

Mattia Bernardinetti, (@asterixeobelix_5) for was born in Rieti twenty-six years ago. “I’m a doctor waiting for the anesthesia residency competition Right now I’m at Umberto I in Rome, where I graduated, but tomorrow I’d like to give up the peaks for somewhere far away-which one?! I don’t know, but I want to think about it. The idea of too much stability kills me.” A free spirit, Mattia’s. “In the university period I used to alternate between exams and parachute jumps (by the way, the portrait of mattia you see above was taken in the midst of postjump adrenaline!, ed.), now fortunately the exams are over.” Mattia is not one for half measures, and his relationship with sailing is also definitely strong. “Sailing is a passion that began as a game with some friends, and then became a mental status, an incurable addiction, the expression of freedom that every man seeks within himself.”

The third runner-up in our contest, he has a beautiful story… ahead of him, too!Because Riccardo Fracchia (@clovis1983) is 25 years old and has always had sailing in his heart. “Since 1997 my father has lived on a 26-meter aluminum boat named Clovis, a 1983 ketch kept by us in perfect condition. When I was a child, I looked forward to every holiday so that I could join my father and follow him at sea and in all the shipboard work. Now I work as a captain (although a real captain I will be when I have a white beard) with my hostess girlfriend, on a 24-meter private motor yacht. Although my biggest dream would be to be able to put a little nest egg aside to prepare my boat (which is also a bit of a mom to me) for a non-stop, but unhurried world tour with the people I love most.”

TAG HEUER AWARDS

Thanks to our partner TAG Heuer, Emanuel Fischer was awarded the TAG Heuer Aquaracer 500M Calibre 5 Automatic. Waterproof to 500 meters, it is equipped with helium decompression valves. Mattia and Riccarso, second and third runners-up, won the vintage TAG Heuer canvas duffel bag, inspired by 1970s boat bags.

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THE OTHER 12 PHOTOS VYING FOR THE PODIUM.