Mateusz Kusznierewicz – born in 1975 in Warsaw, Polish sports sailor, two-time Olympic medallist (gold in Atlanta in 1996, bronze in Athens in 2004), two-time individual world champion in the Finn class (1998, 2000) and world champion in the Star class (2012), multiple individual European and Polish champion.
The winner of podium places in the most prestigious regions of the world, including the Star Sailors League, Queen Sofia Cup and Palm Vel. Last year, in a duo with the Brazilian Bruno Prada off the coast of Sardinia, he once again reached for the title of World Champion in the Star class.
Apart from numerous sporting successes, Mateusz Kusznierewicz is also involved in social and business activities. As he said himself: “Although sailing has been and is my greatest passion, in the long run being just an athlete is not enough for me. I have always been curious about the world and I wanted to try myself in more and more initiatives. As soon as I came back from the London Games, I entered the world of business and new technologies.”
As a sailor, he is also the General Director of the SSL Gold Cup Sailing World Cup and the originator of the Gdańsk Marine Education Programme, as well as the organiser of many conferences, trainings and sports events. Our ambassador advises boards of directors and supervisory boards of companies and also participates in mergers and cooperates with many companies. He is a Warsaw citizen by birth, a Gdańsk citizen by choice. In July 2009, he was appointed by the Mayor of Gdańsk as Ambassador for Maritime Affairs.
Sailing is not only a sport, but also an interesting way to spend free time. Sailing lifestyle is mainly holiday, cruises, charters, regattas or even world championships or Olympic Games, as in my case. What I associate with sailing are the positive values it has, such as: cooperation, supporting others, friendship, positive thinking, safety, ecology, as well as a certain lifestyle, i.e. harmony of colours and the possibility of spending a weekend in the open air, close to nature.
What does a seasoned sailor need for happiness? As much time as possible that he could spend on the water! That’s why I like the concept of Sol Marina so much and it only takes 20 minutes to get out to the open sea. There was no such thing in Poland yet.
A seasoned sailor also likes to challenge himself. Selecting the next target in a long voyage or race in a regatta gives enormous satisfaction. When we have a goal set, then we prepare ourselves, our yacht and the crew. It’s an equally enjoyable process, but the very fact that we can sail make us happy.
I am sailing abroad most of the time. So I have a great view of what the sailing infrastructure looks like in Poland and abroad. It’s good that we are constantly developing and new marinas are being built.
They are increasingly interesting and have innovative solutions. One of the biggest I have seen is the Spanish marina on the island of Mallorca, in the very centre of the city. It is really huge. There are several thousand yachts there. However, my favourite marina in terms of aesthetics and compactness of technical solutions is the marina in Miami, USA. The yachts are pulled out of the water with special hoists, permanently fixed in the marina. That’s why they’re clean and don’t grow algae. In both of these marinas there are beautiful piers, made of beautiful and solid concrete, with wooden planks on the floor. It looks great. There is a box in front of each yacht. A shiny box in which each owner can hide their belongings. The yachts can also be quickly connected to the power supply, they also have their own hose and water.
In my opinion, we have not yet caught up with the West in terms of the development of the sailing infrastructure. On a scale from 1 to 10, I rate it at 5, so we are halfway there. Fortunately, the infrastructure is still developing rapidly. The best proof of this is Sol Marina – the first such private marina on the Polish coast.
Personally, I am a fan of not very big marinas. Therefore, if I had to build my own marina one day I would be similar to it. First of all, I would not want it to be a big marina. Preferably for several dozen yachts. It would be good if such a marina had everything that users need to keep the yacht clean, but also have space for themselves. It would be nice if there was a place close to the marina where people can relax, eat something, even stay. This will also be the case with the new Dekpol investment.
There is no doubt that the world has changed beyond recognition after the COVID-19 pandemic. The biggest revolution in the long term was remote working. At first, the home office seemed difficult to enforce for many, but today it opens up completely new possibilities.
Suddenly we are no longer tied to the corporate desk, but to the space of our home or flat. We can finally work remotely from almost any place on earth, and certainly from any place in Poland. What’s more, due to the lack of commuting to work, we can recover even a month of life. 30 days? This is more than we are entitled to statutory holiday. This lack of time and space restrictions has a positive impact on our work-life balance. And since we can finally really live and work wherever we want to, perhaps it is worth thinking about a second home? At last we can live, work and pursue our passions in the place where we really want to.
There is also a difference between the prospect of working in a cramped flat in the city and, for example, a summer house in the countryside or a seaside flat in which we can actually use the time we have recovered after work to pursue our own passions.
For some it will be idyllic painting locations, for others it will be a dream come true for their own yacht and for developing a sailing hobby. The idea of second home in this sense, similar to WLB, is based on the concept of time optimization, assuming that such a second home will allow us to be physically closer to what we really want to do in life. The apartment by the Bay of Gdańsk located in a modern marina, from which it takes only 20 minutes to go out to the open sea? Does this prospect not motivate someone who loves wind, water and sun to buy a dream property in Sol Marina investment and manage their own time to make this dream come true?
