A CLEAR ALTERNATIVE TO SURF WAX
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.
Since day one, our goal has been to develop a transparent surf wax alternative that allows our surfboard's design to shine while providing high levels of grip. Since our first sale on September 3rd, 2016, we have valued every single customer's feedback (whom we call Waalers) to continuously improve our product.
We have always strived to find the right balance between grip performance and skin comfort.
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.
For each hexagon:
Weight: 3gr (0.10 oz)
Dimensions: 111.7 x 97.9 mm (4.3 inches x 3.8 inches)
Thickness: <1 mm (0.039 inch)
Material: Transparent anti-slip texture
Van der Waal idea is as simple as it’s grippy, less time maintaining your surf gear, more time to surf. We have all been there: your friends in the water with waves firing and you still scratching old brown wax, end your surf session with a surfboard full of sand and hairs and debris, or that time that you go for a beer after a surf session to find later wax running all over car seats.
Van der Waal surf grip started as a personal solution for my issue - I didn’t want to cover my surfboard design with wax, but thanks to many people our surf grip improved over time and became a product. And despite being a company now, I still run it from my house, doing experiments in my kitchen and taking care of almost every aspect of it. That’s why sometimes I forget to answer some emails, or if waves hit Lisbon coast probably your order will only be shipped in the afternoon as I will be surfing for the morning.
I truly hope that you find joy surfing, with or without Van der Waal, but I keep a big smile imagining someone surfing the wave of their dreams with Van der Waal under their feet.
Stay salty,
Martim
Transparent wax-free traction pads for shortboards — clean, long-lasting grip that sticks on without melting or staining.
Inside and out Van der Waal
Take a look behind the scenes of our company.
