Job Verpoorte

Spoken in English. Their words, as they said them.

To answer your question, no. I don't think you ever get tired of surfing. Nothing.

Yeah. It's nice.

The wooden boards are the are the boards that were those are the original of the sports. Right? People in Polynesia, people in Hawaii, they built their first boards of wood.

And it has definitely a certain beauty. I mean, these grains and these colors and I think we, in our minds, connect easier, to nature as well.

The thing is it serves different as well. I mean, most boards are built with foam inside which is an oil based product and it's a Amorph so it has no real internal focus of direction.

So it doesn't have a lot of, if you wanna call it like that, soul.

And in principle, they're all different shapes, all custom shapes because every person that comes to me is is a different person. And if they don't serve in a different place, then they're they have a different build or a different strength or a different skill. So every board is gonna be a difference. But I sometimes build like a small series of boards, so that means that I build two two sort of the same boards. And I start with the same design, but then as you progress, and you're working with wood, and sometimes the wood just reacts differently, and then the boards turn out a little bit different. Just slightly different, shape or rocker or curvature or rails because you just cut it slightly different, and the wood reacts differently. So yeah, even if I try to build two exactly the same boards it's like I'm not more they're gone.

Which is fine, yeah, because everybody gets his own board and then it makes it sort of exclusive. While I don't I don't necessarily want to make an exclusive product, but I think I do because it's it's a unique product.

You get free marks from people who see it and they say, well, this is a piece of art and how can you serve this? Because it's really special, which is nice to hear. I I like the fact that people think it's special and that it's it's a piece of art. I also like to think that. And of course if somebody wants to have a board and put it on the wall then please put it on the wall. But, yeah, I I wouldn't be very happy with it because a surfboard that is not in the sea is not really a surfboard. Right? It's just a I don't know what it is, but it's not a surfboard.

I I just did an interview with a girl from Switzerland. And when I asked her, what is your future in surfing? She said, I want to grow old in surfing. And she told about these, girls in Hawaii oh, sorry, in California. Seventy, eighty year old women, who dress up and go out into the wave with their longboards and they have special gloves with extra, like the swimming gloves so you can pedal pedal stronger or at least faster. And these girls of 70, 80 years old, they're still going out on a good day and they're still surfing. And I think that's very beautiful. And she said, that's how I want to be. That's how I wanna grow old.