Lourenço Katzenstein is a Portuguese/German local Ericeira surfer, a place of huge surf culture and were there can be found some of the best waves in Portugal. He grew up in a family were his dad was a surfer. He started surfing when he was four years old and since then he’s been in love with the sport.
In opposite to most of the surfers of his generation, who are more into performance and competition surfing, Lourenço always showed signs of having a free surfer spirit, always looking for perfect barrels and waves.
At the same time the need to surf in more defiant and bigger wave conditions grew in him. It was after watching a surf movie of an epic session in Teahupoo that his mind focused on big waves and his dream of surfing the biggest waves in the world. Since that moment he’s been working hard in order to overcome his limits every year and surf bigger waves.
For this reason in the past few years he specialized on driving jet skis as a support and rescue on the big wave surfing and finished the best course in Portuguese for this.
He’s been surfing Nazaré already for the last four seasons towing-in or paddling-in. Because of the unique characteristics of this place together with his attitude he showed a great evolution on his big wave surfing skills, also becoming one of the best rescue drivers for surf.
In 2018 he was distinguished with the EDP “Mar sem Fim” in the “Rookie of the Year” category because of his excellent attitude and performance along the 2017/2018 season in Nazaré.
Currently his goal is to be nominated to the World Surf League XXL Awards and enter the World Big Wave Championship in Nazaré in order to qualify and compete at full time in the Big Wave World Tour.