"De Slag om Domburg" 2025: Henri Kolberg wins wild storm contest on the Dutch coast

German photographer Romina Spiess, who lives in Zeeland, followed the entire stormy day through her lens: "The 40 participants got exactly what they came for. The coastline was whipped by gusts of up to 46 knots, while currents and high waves took the battle with the elements to a new level. The standby nature of the contest - which only starts in real storm conditions - makes the event both unique and feared. For the surfers it meant hard work, for the spectators it was a true spectacle: boards catapulted through the air, jumps through whitecaps and battles for control at the limit of what was possible. The equipment was not spared either - from torn sails to broken masts. The Battle of Domburg lived up to its name. After a day full of heroic heats and breathtaking runs, four absolute heavyweights made it to the final. In the end, it was Henri Kolberg who knew best how to tame the chaos. With nerves of steel, perfect timing and impressive control, he took the win and wrote his name in the history books of the Battle of Domburg, an extreme standby contest that once again showed what it stands for in 2025: pure power, raw nature and windsurfing in its most untamed form. Man against nature, storm against helmsmanship."

Henri Kolberg made the journey from northern Germany and won

"The contest is organised very cool, the people are all really passionate windsurfers and were happy that there were also Germans there. The spot in Domburg is tricky to ride if you've never been there before. There's a lot of current there, especially with so much wind. In the warm-up, I went out with a sail that was too small because I underestimated the current and went for a ten-minute swim. But then I got into it quite quickly and found my rhythm with big stalled forwards and back loops. The wave rides are always a bit of a weak point for me, especially at an unknown spot. But in these extreme conditions it was all about safety and I think I still managed to put some pretty good turns into the waves.
At some point my head started to calculate and I realised from the heat scores that I had a chance of winning if I kept going like this. But in the end you just have to ride it to the end... The tide came back in the final, there were really huge waves, strong currents and the wind kicked it up a notch. The final lasted 20 minutes and in the first 17 minutes I only had one backloop on the scoresheet, which I only just managed to get through. I couldn't do anything else, I actually had problems going straight - it was just a bit too much to have any control at all. But somehow I managed to catch a few waves at the end and do a high stalled forward without even having a big wave on the take-off. A very, very nice end to a really cool day!"

Results of "De Slag om Domburg" 2025

1. Henri Kolberg
2. Pim van der Borgt
3. Remko de Zeeuw
4th Jordy van de Panne