Bondi Mum Launches World-First EirWaves Heated Recovery Slide

You know that moment when you get out of the water in winter and your feet are so cold you’re seriously reconsidering every life choice that led you there?

For Bondi mum Sarah Dawes, that very familiar post-surf problem sparked something much bigger.

After discovering surfing at 43, Sarah fell hard for the ocean, but the freezing feet afterwards? Not so much.

So she decided to do something about it.

Several years, countless prototypes and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, Sarah is launching EirWaves… a Bondi-born brand behind what it says is the world’s first Heated Recovery Slide.

A very Bondi problem — and a very clever solution

Created with Sydney industrial design studio Vert Design, the EirWaves slide has a reusable heat pack positioned directly above the toes, delivering warmth on demand without batteries, cables or charging.

Basically: get out of the water, warm your feet and stay at the beach a little longer.

And while the end result looks deceptively simple, getting it there was anything but.

“I’d get out of the ocean in winter absolutely frozen and think, surely there has to be a better way to get warm quickly without having to race straight home to a hot shower.”

Sarah has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars developing EirWaves, taking the product through industrial design, thermal research, prototyping, testing, tooling and manufacturing.

Vert Design explored a number of ways to create portable warmth — including electronic and hot-water concepts — before arriving at something deliberately simpler.

So how does it actually work?

The clever part is where the warmth sits.

Rather than heating underneath the sole, EirWaves positions the reusable hot pack above the toes in a purpose-built pocket integrated into the upper of the slide.

Flex a small metal disc inside the saline-based pack and a crystallisation reaction creates warmth within seconds.

According to EirWaves, the pack reaches around 54°C at peak activation and delivers around 40 to 60 minutes of warmth.

Once cooled, it can be reset by boiling it in water and then used again.

For surfers, ocean swimmers, outdoor training sessions — or anyone who’s spent a freezing winter morning on the sports sideline — it’s not hard to see the appeal.

Sarah only discovered surfing at 43

That part of the EirWaves story might be just as interesting as the product itself.

After a career spanning corporate sales, relationship management and the not-for-profit sector, Sarah discovered surfing at 43 during a major period of change in her life.

The ocean became somewhere to move, reset and reconnect.

“I didn’t set out thinking, ‘I’m going to start a footwear company.’ I fell in love with what being in the ocean did for me, mentally and physically.”

That experience ultimately planted the seed for EirWaves — a brand built around the idea that movement, nature and connection can have a profound effect on how we feel.

Then came the reality of actually making it

This isn’t one of those overnight-startup-success stories.

Manufacturing and inventory delays forced Sarah to deliberately slow the broader Australian rollout rather than create demand for product she couldn’t supply.

Even so, EirWaves attracted several hundred early customers through its initial presale, along with hundreds more warm leads and waitlist members.

Now the business is entering its next commercial chapter, with plans to expand its Australian presence while developing a strategy for the Northern Hemisphere.

Colder climates, strong surf communities and a product designed around warmth make markets across the UK, Europe and North America an obvious next frontier.

Retail partnerships across surf, recovery and lifestyle are also on the horizon.

The ocean connection goes deeper

EirWaves partners with Waves of Wellness Foundation and says it will donate 10 per cent of profits to surf-therapy programs supporting mental health and connection through the ocean.

For a brand inspired by Sarah’s own experience of finding something transformative in the water, it’s a partnership that feels genuinely connected to where EirWaves began.

The EirWaves Heated Recovery Slide is available now for $89, including the first set of reusable hot packs.