My name is Brenson Sekas, and I'm going to explain what led me to create Sportboat Shirts.
I started drawing around 10 years old. My subject matter primarily being fighter jets and Dragon Ball Z characters. During this time, my family lived on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach. My dad would get my brother Christian and I on the Freelance and Thunderbird sport boats. Money was tight so we would scrub the decks on the way in, and help out any way we could in order to fish for free.
Life happened, and I became disconnected with the fishing scene for years. Christian dove head first into all things fishing around 2014 and I eventually got on board as well. Fishing reemerged as our favorite hobby, and opportunities began to present themselves. Christian worked on the Limitless with Tom Patierno for 2-3 seasons. As a newly licensed captain, he transitioned into running a boat for Bongos Sportfishing out of Newport. This left an open slot for me on the Limitless. I worked on the boat during the summer, and during the winter I delivered pizzas and studied illustration. After 3-4 years with Patierno, another opportunity opened up to work on yacht that had a more stable stream of income. I spent 1.5 years on the yacht, but continued to pursue creating paintings and graphics that were inspired by the things I saw on the water.
During this time, I wanted to switch to making a living from my art. Nick Arant was a childhood friend and designer. I reached out to him asking for help and direction on how to thrive as a creative. He owns Lateral Vision and we started collaborating on seasonal t-shirt graphics. He opened my eyes to the differences between fine art and t-shirt illustrations.
Around 2021 Sekas Design was launched. Over the last 3 years I have had the pleasure to work with the biggest brands and boats in the industry. Eventually, I perceived a logistical problem. Boat owners and captains are not worried about selling t-shirts. Keeping stock of merchandise on the boat, selling shirts, and reordering when stock disappears becomes a peripheral task. It becomes a line item on the to-do list, and seldom gets handled until the beginning of the following season. We are here to change that.