“I broke my board in Carcavelos and ordered a new one. I was so excited with my new board, a yellow retro fish, that I started to explain Afonso an idea that I had some time ago: the wax would get the board all dirty and would hide the whole design, and how cool it would be to have an alternative to that…
Afonso said that he had a material that was able to turn into a grip and that it was transparent. At that point, we started to try the material on my board, just as a personal solution to solve my problem. With the enthusiasm of friends with my board and our solution led us to think that this could be a product. So we started to look at the product from a different side, collecting more professional feedback and making adjustments.
One year later Van der Waal was born.
First production day
Watch the video of our first production day , Afonso and I in a basement full of cockroaches.
“it’ll be interesting to see how the grip lasts over time, but if it continues to perform well, then Van der Waal may have cracked the market for those looking for an alternative to waxing up.”
