S - Ep 135 Jorrit Buurma

The “lesser-known Buurma brother,” Jorrit Buurma finally sits down with Liam and Freddie (two years in the making) at the Appletree factory in Portugal, having eaten his way through the local garlic bread first. Where Wieger Buurma is the brand’s front-of-camera voice, Jorrit is the technical designer / R&D / production side — recently handing day-to-day production management to a new hire, “Mark,” which has freed him up for R&D and, apparently, podcasts.

In brief

A wide-ranging factory-floor chat covering how Appletree ended up in Portugal, Jorrit’s current big personal project (hollow-construction boards), the trench/“Zeppel” board line and its production headaches, an early-stage adjustable mast-connection project called Radix, Jorrit’s own riding (mostly Foil Drive and proning), sustainability moves (Eco-board cert, a new VOC-free “C25” finish), and closing questions on car-brand identity and what he’d bin from foiling.

Key topics & claims

• Roles and split with Wieger: Jorrit (guest) describes himself as “technical designer, designer, R&D, production manager” — though he recently handed the production-manager title to “Mark.” He and Wieger Buurma started Appletree together as a hobby; Wieger stayed in Holland when production moved, and the roles diverged from there. Jorrit says he deliberately avoids the business/branding conversations and prefers talking to riders and OEM partners.
• Why Portugal (Jorrit): the choice was Portugal vs. Eastern Europe, driven by cheaper and available labour; Portugal won partly because both brothers surf and already spent time there, and because an early contact (“Polino,” name uncertain) offered to help them get set up as one of the first employees. Jorrit calls it one of the best decisions personally and for the business; he’s married with a family there now and is still working on his Portuguese.
• Team and management: the factory now runs ~33 people; Jorrit says they recently trimmed the team slightly to focus on efficiency and in-house skill training rather than new hires. He says he genuinely enjoys team-based work over working solo, and that stepping back from daily production (since “Mark” joined just over a year ago) has freed mental space for R&D.
• Hollow boards (Jorrit’s current big project): motivated by weight — Appletree avoids EPS foam for durability reasons, which leaves them heavier than competitors’ EPS-cored boards (“Shidi EPS,” name/brand uncertain) in the 80–90L+ range. Hollow construction lets them put stiffness and layup exactly where it matters (the deck-to-foil-box connection) while cutting swing weight, since most of the remaining mass sits centred at that bridge. Reported downsides so far: noisy leash slap on the shell (solved with a soft-tip leash), and an early prototype leaked water. Jorrit says smaller boards (up to ~70–80L) will likely stay standard construction, with hollow used above that “crossing point” if the price works out; he’s currently building smaller hollow boards (~77–80L) and hasn’t tried a big downwind hollow board yet.
• Trench/“Zeppel” boards: Appletree’s foil-drive battery-trench design (referred to as “Zeppel”/“Zappolis,” likely “Zeppelin,” transcription uncertain) reportedly takes up “more than half” the board’s length. The performance version, “Zeppel S,” pushes the trench thinner so there’s almost no foam between the box and deck. Sanding the trench was the hardest production problem (special smaller sanders were built) before they found better coating workarounds. Wider trenches (to remove Foil Drive battery clips) are made on request but Jorrit says he personally dislikes the feel on touchdown.
• Radix (early-stage mast project): Jorrit describes the goals as “total slideable, less drag, easy to mount.” It began with an intern, “Bart,” who drove down from Holland and stayed roughly four months; the two of them worked through several concepts before partnering with “Jan” (brand name transcribed “Gore,” uncertain — possibly CODE Foils). Appletree unveiled Radix at a trade show as a concept, deliberately before it was fully tested, largely to gauge interest — and says feedback was strong (with a couple of people claiming similar adjustable-track ideas existed ~20 years ago). Jorrit contrasts Radix with Ken Adgate’s home-converted adjustable Tuttle mast (uses spacers) and a couple of commercial adjustable-Tuttle systems, both of which need hardware through the top of the board. Appletree is also now working with Cedrus (contact “Gal”) on an aluminium tapered mast, and hopes to eventually offer a welded-mount version for affordability and backward compatibility with existing foils.
• Liam’s own gear chat: Liam (host) has been on loan Slingshot foils and reports the touchdown feel is his one nitpick versus his F-One 14mm HM mast/flat-plate setup — he suspects he can feel the extra hardware in Slingshot’s plate connection. He references Ken Adgate as “the ultimate fan of the Tuttle system,” known for chopping the tops off carbon masts from multiple brands to convert them to Tuttle for testing. Liam also admits he’s come round on connection simplicity generally, citing Slingshot’s ONELOCK as genuinely convenient day-to-day even though he was previously sceptical it mattered.
• Foil Drive (Jorrit’s own riding): Jorrit estimates more than half his own foiling sessions are on Foil Drive, using it to quickly reach a reef break a few minutes from the factory; he uses both the Max and Slim batteries, not the Fusion (too heavy for how he rides). His wishlist for Foil Drive: a square battery box for a flush fit, and a new “sports battery” with more capacity at the same weight. He’s positive but non-committal on the newer Axis Foil Drive board concept.
• Own riding time: off Foil Drive, Jorrit says he mostly proned/wing-foils and prefers proning, especially given the surf conditions locally; less winging currently. He estimates Wieger does more power/Foil Drive riding and isn’t sure how much Wieger still prones.
• Sustainability and finishing: Appletree has held an Eco-board Level One certification “almost from the start” (no gold label, partly because US requirements around foam-separated recycling and cardboard packaging). A newer finish, called “C25,” is VOC-free (no solvents), can be applied more thinly and lighter (Jorrit cites roughly a 5–10% weight saving depending on the board), and came from a vendor Jorrit met at a trade show who agreed to make the product in a transparent/lightly milky finish for them.
• 3D printing and diversification: Appletree uses 3D printers in-house for tooling, jigs (e.g. sander holders) and finishing plugs, and is actively exploring non-board products that use their foam-and-carbon competency (the foam being waterproof and UV-stable).
• Board-to-board consistency (surfboard comparison): prompted by a story about the “Stab in the Dark” surf show and a comment from surfer John Pysale on how much two nominally identical surfboards can differ, Jorrit says he doesn’t think a pro foiler could reliably tell two Appleslice boards apart, because the board isn’t “engaging” the water in the same continuous way a surfboard does. He notes some foil brands scan finished boards/foils to catch manufacturing imperfections.
• Aesthetic: Appletree’s signature clear-coat/exposed-carbon “tail-dip” look wasn’t a deliberate branding move at first (Jorrit: “it came from” the production process, garbled in transcript) but has become synonymous with the brand, comparable to Mr Rich of Kite Violin’s kite tail-dip.
• Closing questions: asked what car brand Appletree would be, Jorrit says Toyota or Tesla — manufacturing-process-focused brands that keep iterating rather than racing to the bottom on price. For Room 101, he’d get rid of “treks” (trenches/tracks) — notable self-deprecating dig given Appletree’s own trench-board line.

Gear / brands mentioned

Appletree (Appleslice, “Zeppel”/“Zeppel S” trench boards, Radix mast project, C25 finish), Foil Drive (Max, Slim, Fusion batteries), Slingshot (ONELOCK, Bobby Johnston’s 20cm foil anecdote), F-One (14mm HM mast), Ken Adgate (converted Tuttle masts), Cedrus (aluminium tapered mast, contact “Gal”), Axis (new Foil Drive board), Ozone (Ken Adgate’s dinner crowd), Blue Fox (adjustable Tuttle system, no existing page).

Notable quotes or takes

• Jorrit on letting go of production responsibility: he can hand things off easily once he “fully trusts the person,” and quickly stops thinking about it once he has (paraphrased).
• On the hollow board’s appeal for foiling specifically: because the board barely touches the water except on take-off, stiffness only really matters at the deck-to-foil-box connection — which a hollow layup lets him reinforce precisely (paraphrased).
• On why Radix was shown before it was finished: compared to “a concept car on a car trade show” — shown to signal direction and invite other brands in, since the connector standard only works if more than one company adopts it (paraphrased).
• Room 101 pick: “treks” — i.e. trench/track systems, a wry dig at Appletree’s own product line.

Mentioned

Jorrit Buurma · Wieger Buurma · Appletree · Liam · Freddie · Foil Drive · Slingshot · F-One · Ken Adgate · Kyle Touhey · Cedrus · AXIS Foils · Ozone · CODE Foils · Boards · Masts · Prone Foiling · Wing Foiling · Downwind

Auto-transcribed (faster-whisper, unreviewed) with no speaker labels — attribution above is inferred from context and phrasing, and should be treated as best-effort. Several names are garbled or uncertain: “Silviere” (likely Silveira, Portugal), “Polino” (early employee/contact), “Shidi EPS” (a competitor’s EPS foam supplier, name unclear), “Jan from Gore” (brand possibly CODE Foils or another maker — unclear), and stretches where Wieger Buurma’s name is transcribed as “Vegas”/“Vichy”/“Vifar”/“Viga” (context makes clear these all refer to Wieger). “Zeppel”/“Zappolis” for the trench board line is also an approximation. Treat all of these as flagged uncertainties, not confirmed facts.