Mark Raaphorst Wing Foil interview- Blue Planet Show episode #10

Mark Raaphorst knows how to make boards that are both light and strong. After building SIC into an internationally known brand, he simplified his life and now runs a one man operation building high quality foil boards under his Flying Dutchman label.
www.oneflyingdutchman.com
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Aloha!
Aloha friends, it's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show, which I produce right here in my home office, in the garage. This is my little recording studio right here. And today's guest is none other than Mark Raaphorst. On this show, I interview wing foil athletes, designers, and thought leaders and ask them in-depth questions about wing foil equipment and technique.
I'm also trying to get to know my guests a little bit better. Find out about their background, how they got into the sport and what inspires them and how they live their best life. I realize these interviews are really long and not everybody has time to watch these long videos. I personally like the visuals, I'm a visual learner, so that's why I add the video. But if you don't want to sit there and watch video for an hour and a half, you can also listen to these shows as a podcast, just search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast app. And you can listen to it while you're driving or on the go. Today's guest is none other than Mark Raaphorst, the founder of SIC- Sandwich lslands Construction, and now Flying Dutchman foil boards.
So some really cool insight into his background, how he grew up in Holland and moved to Maui when he was only 16 years old and then got into the business of building boards and how he loves tinkering and experimenting. And 80% of his experiments fail, but 20% are the ones that make all our lives a little bit better.
So thank you, Mark, for doing all that research and experimentation, that benefits all of us. He gives us some really good insights into Wingfoiling and downwind foiling, foils in general, board design, and so on. So I really appreciate mark sharing his time and also for sharing details about his personal life and living life to the fullest, and basically following your dream and finding a balance between working hard, doing what you love, but also enjoying life and kind of having some free time and not having all the stress of running a business, which I can totally relate to Mark.
So thanks again for your time. And without further ado here is mark. Okay. Mark Raaphorst. Welcome to the blue planet show. How are you doing today? All good. Thank you for having me. Yeah, fantastic. I really appreciate you coming on. I talked to previously, I talked to Alan Cadiz and Kane De Wilde on their interviews and they both mentioned you as someone I should talk to probably, and that they're, they're both you used your board showing foiling and really liked them and so on.
And I think you're probably one of the most knowledgeable guys in, in the industry, but when it comes to board building and design, so I'm really impressed by what you've done over the years. But can you talk a little bit about your background? Like where are you from and how you got into watersports and how you ended up on Maui?
I grew up sailing with my dad and the Netherlands and that soon turned into windsurfing. We're talking 1984. And I learned how to build custom boards in the Netherlands and saving it. I want to pursue that career more so not just by sanding and glassing with more shaping left the Netherlands when I was a little grommet, maybe seven, I think I was 17 got here.
And ultimately it was given the opportunity to learn how to shape for a company by the name of, and Google Hawaii became a production shape or for 10 plus years. And went on my own started the repair shop first gov thinkings, and then branched out into building Outrigger canoes, which is really a hollow object.
It's not really a custom styrofoam shaped For a built from the inside out, but more from the outside in and that morphed into sup boards first hollow, and then later on styrofoam court that morphed into hydrofoil boards and wing foil boards.