If you thought it was impossible to go surfing in Poland, the photos I have for you should straighten this impression.
By the way, check out the 360° design of the Porsche Taycan by Little Planet (Peter Van den Wyngaert).
The water temperature that day was 2°C, the air temperature was 3°C, on top of that 14 knots from a westerly direction resulted in a decidedly lower perceptible temperature. Instead, we had some sunshine, which somewhat warmed our frozen feet and hands. The last thing you would think of is going into the sea. Hooded 6mm neoprene foams, good gloves and boots help meet the challenge, but 30 min seems like the maximum session. This is where hot tubs came to the rescue, where competitors could warm up before entering the Baltic or after their heats.
Porsche made all those gathered in Wladyslawowo quite happy by realizing the Cold Waves by Porsche . Here is a niche sport, which a dozen years ago practically did not exist in the consciousness of Polish ‘surfers’, thanks to a group of enthusiasts is slowly breaking through to a slightly wider audience thanks to a well-known brand of luxury cars.
The date of the competition depended on the weather forecast, so both organizers and competitors (23 men and 12 women, to be exact) got confirmation of the competition on Friday, March 3, and were already competing in their heats on Sunday morning. 24 people out of a total of 35 starters had to reach Vladislavov from other countries, often from far away. The logistical and organizational challenge is not small, yet it worked out perfectly.
The idea of organizing the competition came from the agency DDB, which has been handling Porsche since 2017, and they were so successful in presenting the idea of a winter surfing competition to the client that we had a brilliant event that was not spared. They were in charge of the creation and the so-called “creation”. the big idea behind the event. Of course, it’s not the agency that comes up with the design, it’s the people, so here applause is due to Michal Dulinski and everyone at DDB who believed in the project and decided to present it to the client.
Walk Events was responsible for the event (hello my former partners from TNS).
Hats off to the company for pulling off the iconic Airstream trailers, in which the competitors had their changing rooms, the DJ his music corner, the gastro team dispensing food and the rest their ‘administrative and office’ spaces. I didn’t know we had so many of them available for rent in our country.
The Polish Surfing Association was in charge of the sports part of the event, and it came out very cool – congratulations!
I think next year’s event is already taped, so see you next year. Let’s hope the forecast is kind and allows for even better surf action.
Results (individual heats here):
Open Men
1 Ian Fontaine 11.53 Won by 0.5
2 Gearróid Mcdaid 11.03 Needed 6.01
3 Iker Trigueros 9.97 Needed 6.34
4 Oliver Hartkopp 8.20 Needed 7.03
Open Women
1 Alys Barton 14.84 Won by 9.6
2 Karolina Marczak 5.24
3 Karolina Wolińska 4 .97
4 Dominika Hornikova 1.98
Link to page if you want to see in full screen version >> Cold Waves by Porsche <<
A list of people who I know have contributed to the event and who are worth watching as a result. Here I mean those who directly participated in the organization of the competition,as well as those who have been successfully promoting surfing in Poland for a long time.
Instagram:
Cold Waves by Porsche, Michal Dulinski DDB, DDB Warsaw, Krzysztof Jedrzejak – Baltic Surf Scapes, Tadeusz Elwart – Chałupy 6, Michal Fedusio – Surfmaniacs, Karolina Wolińska, Surf Stolica, Jan Sadowski, Wladyslawowo Municipality, Aleksander and Gustaw Lange.
The photos in the gallery below are compressed and reduced to 1920px which reduces their quality, if you want to see them in a better (not full) version please visit here .
Cold Waves by Porsche
