Filipe Toledo gambled with an unconventional shape and fin setup at the Raglan, New Zealand stop of the Championship Tour, and it paid off. The two-time champ rode the flat, swallow-tail shape to victory over Joao Chianca and Gabriel Medina, before narrowly falling to Griffin Colapinto in the quarterfinals.
Toledo previously said that he picked the shape, a Sharp Eye “Modern 2” with no traction pad, big side fins, and a smaller trailer fin, to maintain his speed and flow through Raglan’s flat sections. Now, in a new video posted to Instagram, he further elaborated on his selection, explaining how he had been testing the board on the Gold Coast and realized that it would perform well in a small forecast for New Zealand.
“I really liked the board,” Toledo said. “I told myself, ‘Look, if the forecast for (Raglan) pans out, there’s a real possibility I might end up using this board,’ precisely because it felt so good under my feet.”
Toledo said he had seen social media comments blaming the board’s low rocker for some errors he had made in his maneuvers, but he credits the board and the fins with helping him defeat two formidable opponents.
“If you noticed during most of my waves, I didn’t have to constantly pump to generate speed or force the turns,” he said. “The fins were providing all the drive, as well as the release I needed when hitting the lip, partly because that center fin is smaller.”
Fans dying to know what exactly he was riding got their first look at the dimensions in the video, revealing that the board was 5’6’’, 19’’ wide, and 2.42’’ thick with 28 liters of volume. Toledo noted that his typical shortboard size is 5’10’’. The video also showed that, during his last heat, Toledo creased the board, and some of the fiberglass peeled off the rail.
He’ll need a new Modern 2 if he’s to ride it again, which he said is a real possibility.
“Think I’ll use it again in El Salvador?” he teased to conclude the video.
Sharp Eye didn’t immediately respond to a request for comments on how Filipe’s Raglan performance has affected the board’s sales, but it wouldn’t be surprising if they are moving pretty well right now.
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