Two friends and a dream
Founded by Martim and his best friend Afonso, Van der Waal started as a personal project. It was initially intended as a solution for Martim's new surfboard, rather than a brand or product. Over time, as interest grew among friends and fellow surfers, we started to see it as a potential alternative to surf wax.
“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.
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Nothing makes us prouder than a board with Van der Waal. In this simple map you can find places where we know that have at least one surf board with our surf grip.
From success to errors and issues, we have been learning since day one. Challenging the surf industry standards, we have developed three different versions of our surf grip so far, with a significant failure in between.
This is our journey
2015
We started with some experiments with shapes and materials for my new surfboard
2016
First sale:
Our first version was launched performance series 1.0
2017
In the press:
In 2017, we were surprised with articles on The Inertia, Surfing Sections, and Surfbunker.
2018
New version Performance Series 2.0 launch
2019
Driven by our aim to improve, we have launched r.Evolution series.
The failure
2022
More than 1/4 million hexagons sold
2023
Same product, but a completely makeover to our brand
2024
This year stands out as our best in sales since the pandemic, marking a significant milestone for our company.
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