Mateusz Kusznierewicz – born in 1975 in Warsaw, a Polish competitive sailor, he won two Olympic medals (a gold medal in Atlanta in 1996 and a bronze medal in Athens in 2004), a two-time individual world champion in the Finn class (in 1998 and 2000) and the world champion in the Star class (2012), a multiple individual European champion and champion of Poland.
He came in the top three in the most prestigious regattas in the world, such as the Star Sailors League, Princess Sofia Trophy and Palma Vela. Last year, off the coast of Sardinia, with Bruno Prada from Brazil, Kusznierewicz once again became the World Champion in the Star class.
Apart from numerous sport successes, he is also involved in social and business activity. As he said: “Even though sailing has always been my biggest passion, being a sportsman is not enough for me in the long run. I’ve always been curious of the world and I wanted to try my hand at new initiatives. When I came back from the London Olympics, I entered the world of business and new technologies.”
As a sailor, he is also the Sporting Director of the SSL Gold Cup and the initiator of the Marine Education Programme in Gdańsk. Moreover, he organises many conferences, training courses and sporting events. Our Ambassador advises management boards and supervisory boards of companies, participates in mergers and cooperates with numerous companies. He was born in Warsaw, but chose to live in Gdańsk. In July 2009, he was appointed the Ambassador of Marine Affairs by the Mayor of Gdańsk.
Sailing is not only a sport, but also an interesting way of spending your free time. A sailing lifestyle involves mostly vacation, cruises, charters, regattas or even championships and the Olympics, as in my case. What I associate with sailing are positive values that characterise it, such as teamwork, supporting others, friendship, positive thinking, safety, care for the environment, but also a certain lifestyle, which means a harmony of colours and the possibility of spending a weekend in the open air, close to nature.
What does it take to make an experienced sailor happy? Spending as much time as possible on the water! This is why I like the idea of Sol Marina so much. It will only take 20 minutes to get to the open sea from there. There has never been anything like that in Poland.
An experienced sailor likes challenges. Choosing the next destination in a long cruise or when you participate in regattas gives you a lot of satisfaction. When the destination has been chosen, you need to prepare yourself, your boat and your crew. It is also a pleasant process, but what brings you happiness is just the fact that you can sail.
I sail abroad for most of the time. This is why I have a pretty good idea of the sailing infrastructure in Poland and abroad. It is good that we keep developing and that new marinas are opened.
They are more and more interesting and have innovative solutions. One of the biggest ones I have seen is a Spanish marina in Mallorca, in the city centre. It is really huge. It has a few thousand boats. When it comes to aesthetics and compact technical solutions, my favourite is a marina in Miami in the USA. In this marina, boats are pulled out of the water using special lifts that are permanently attached to the marina. This is why they are clean and do not get covered in seaweed. These two marinas have beautiful piers, made of nice and solid concrete, with wooden boards on the floor. It looks amazing. There is a box in front of every boat. It is a shining case in which every boat owner can keep their belongings. Boats can also be quickly connected to electricity and they have their own hose and water.
In my opinion, we have not caught up with the West yet when it comes to sailing infrastructure. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it 5. So we are halfway there. Fortunately, infrastructure is developing dynamically. The best evidence of this is Sol Marina – the fist private marina of this type on the Polish coast.
Personally, I am a fan of marinas that are not too big. So if I were to build my own marina one day, it would be similar to Sol Marina. Most importantly, I would not want it too big. Preferably for several dozen boats. It would be good for users to have everything they need to keep their boats clean near their berths and have some space for themselves, too. It would be nice to have a place to rest, eat something or even live for some time near the marina. This is also the case with the new project by Dekpol.
Without a doubt, the world has completely changed after the COVID-19 pandemic. In the long run, the biggest revolution turned out to be remote work. In the beginning, many people believed that home office would be hard to enforce, but today, it opens up new possibilities for us.
It turns out that we are no longer tied not only to an office desk, but even to our homes or apartments. After all, we can work remotely from almost any place in the world, and certainly from any place in Poland. Moreover, due to the fact that we no longer need to commute, we gain up to one month of life. 30 days? It is more than the number of days of statutory annual leave entitlement. Moreover, this lack of time and space limitations has a positive impact on our work-life balance. And since we can finally live and work wherever we want, maybe it is time to think about a second home? We can finally live, work and pursue our passions in any place we choose.
There is a difference between the perspective of working in a tiny apartment in the city and a summer cottage in the country or an apartment by the sea, where the time saved on commuting can actually be used to pursue our passions.
For some it will mean plein air painting and for others fulfilling their dreams about a boat of their own and following their sailing hobby. Similarly to WLB, the idea of a second home is based on the concept of time optimisation, assuming that a second home will enable us to get closer to what we really want to do in life. What about an apartment by the Gulf of Gdańsk, located next to a modern marina, so that it takes just 20 minutes to get to the open sea? Won’t this perspective motivate someone who loves the wind, the water and the sea to buy real estate of their dreams in Sol Marina and to manage their time in such a way as to fulfil this dream?
