Griffin Colapinto (left) and Lexus.

Lexus unveils “ultimate coastal lifestyle” SUV ahead of Pipe Pro!

Feat. storage drawers, a surfboard rack, a "waxing table," a changing mat and a cooler.

Close your eyes, for a moment, and try to conjure up a picture of the perfect surf vehicle. A car, truck or SUV as functional as it is stylish. An automobile that whispers “I surf” but also “I’m sexy.” A buggy so ready to shreddy that even being in its presence bumps your skill level up by degrees. Like, you can land an air reverse after riding shotgun or successfully barrel.

Now open them.

Boom.

Lexus and the World Surf League have teamed up ahead of the Pipe Pro in order to make your dreams come true. The LX Surf concept SUV is being billed as a one-of-a-kind masterpiece “seamlessly combining innovation and performance for the ultimate coastal lifestyle.”

The matte blue body and white roof scream “wave and whitewater.” The black accents growl “Da Hui.” The illuminated ladder providing easy access to a roof rack says, “I’m a Bailey man.”

Or, “I’m a Bailey woman.”

Inside, tan leather seats give way to a cargo area in the back, designed with the surfer in mind. There are storage drawers, a surfboard rack, a “waxing table,” a changing mat and a cooler.

Lexus marketing guru Lisa McQueen shared, “Lexus and the WSL are united by a shared drive for innovation, excellence, and performance. This expanded partnership will allow us to elevate the fan experience to new heights, creating amazing moments for the surf community.”

The elevated fan experience starts at $106,850 and comes standard with a twin-turbo 3.4-liter V6 that produces 409 hp (301 kW / 415 PS) and 479 lb-ft (649 Nm) of torque. It’s connected to a ten-speed automatic transmission and a full-time four-wheel drive system.

Now close your eyes, again.

Open.

Close.

Open.

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Filipe Toledo ten point ride
Filipe Toledo's exceptionalism at baby Backdoor.

Surf fans explode after WSL missteps with Filipe Toledo post at “baby Backdoor”

"Even on a scale of 1-100, that still isn’t a 10."

In attempt, you’d presume, to shore up Filipe Toledo’s Pipeline bona fides almost one year to the day since he pulled out of the same event with a mysterious illness after posting a 1.77 heat total at epic six-to-eight-foot Pipe, the WSL has posted a clip of the two-time champ scoring a ten-point ride.

The diminutive two-time world champ Filipe Toledo who is returning to competition after a one-year sabbatical, and looking back on his career it’s surprising he wasn’t hospitalised from nervous exhaustion and overwork, scored the generous ten-points almost a decade ago, back in 2016 when it was called the Billabong Pipeline Masters and which was won by Tahitian Michel Bourez.

Hell hath no fury like a surf fan taken for a fool, however. The comments almost uniformly pushed against the notion that a four-foot wave could be scored ten points, no matter how well surfed by surf expert Filipe Toledo.

Is that when he surfed in the woman’s division??

lol always handing out extra points for lame claims

Manini 2 footer Wouldn’t even be one 10 for da womans these days

Even on a scale of 1-100, that still isn’t a 10.

Should lose points for that shit claim.

Baby back door.

And, pointedly,

Largest wave he ever surfed on tour

Prediction: Filipe Toledo will podium at this year’s Pipe Pro, held in three-to-four-foot runners at baby Backdoor.

 

 

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A post shared by World Surf League (@wsl)

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Italo Ferreira signs with Nike.
"This is a very special moment in my professional career! Joining this team gives me the strength and courage to keep facing obstacles and walk the way to the top."

Nike climbs back into surf with signing of Olympic gold medalist Italo Ferreira and women’s rookie Sierra Kerr

“Making one more dream come true: to have one of the most coveted brands in the world on my board."

The noted shoe and apparel brand Nike, which first entered the surf game in 2006 with the confusingly named Nike 6.0, shovelling millions of dollars at Kolohe Andino, Julian Wilson and Carissa Moore, only to exit six years later, has returned to surfing with the signing of Olympic gold medallist Italo Ferreira and women’s tour rookie Sierra Kerr, whose daddy you know.

“Making one more dream come true: to have one of the most coveted brands in the world on my board,” wrote Italo Ferreira. “This is more than a personal achievement; it’s about connection to the history of great sports heroes and a powerful family. This is a very special moment in my professional career! Joining this team gives me the strength and courage to keep facing obstacles and walk the way to the top. In advance, I thank my team @if15sports for their work and performance in the past months.

“We did it”

 

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A post shared by Italo Ferreira (@italoferreira)

 

Nike’s engagement with surfing has been marked  by initial missteps, a strategic retreat, and now a cautious re-entry with a focus, as they say in marketing meets, on authenticity and key athlete partnerships.

The approach this time is about integrating surfing into Nike’s wider sports portfolio, ie getting surfers to buy Nike instead of the usual surf-themed gear, rather than creating a separate identity for it within the company’s branding structure.

 

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Sally Fitzgibbons (pictured) loved by all.
Sally Fitzgibbons (pictured) loved by all.

Sally Fitzgibbons shares key to extraordinarily long surfing life

It's not what you think.

There is no Pipeline today nor was there any Pipeline yesterday but when the waves turn-ish on for the World Surf League’s first stop of the 2025 championship tour season, Australia’s Sally Fitzgibbons will be there in singlet, ready to battle Tatiana Weston-Webb and Luana Silva in heat one.

An extraordinarily long surfing life.

The 34-year-old New South Welshwoman burst onto the competitive professional surfing scene two decades ago with as Association of Surfing Professionals Pro Junior Open win. She jumped onto the dream tour in 2009, finishing 5th, and has been there ever since, minus a snag, battling with the best of the best.

But how, in this day and age of mental health years off and adventure sabbaticals, how does Fitzgibbons maintain her passion for this sport of queens? She has just revealed the secret.

Surfing is my life. I want to talk about it, I want to do it, I want to represent it. All these things drive me to keep a spot on the world tour,” the effervescent brunette told Fox Sports Australia. “It is the curiosity that keeps me going. I’ve really admired athletes both male and female that have pushed the age limits. For me it’s the drive, the love, and most importantly in surfing – the creativity. After 20 years if I displayed the same things to these judges, it would be getting a little bit drab, and I wouldn’t get the scores.”

But also, “I’ve also fallen in love with the process, or what they call ‘the grind’ as an athlete. That training and repetition can be for some people the thing that makes them depart the sport, you hear it all the time ‘I’m not really ready to do that work anymore to get to the top’ but I’ve always loved the work. Whether I was competing or not, I’d still find a challenge in my life, or an outlet for that. We’re never a perfect product, and when you stop seeking that perfection, you find the fun in remodelling it all.”

So, in a word, masochism.

Do you think the ageless Kelly Slater is also a masochist or does he possess a different psychological dynamic? The 11-time world champion will be taking on Italo Ferreira and Sammy Pupo in heat five when the Banzai cranks to life. Filipe Toledo will be against Barron Mamiya and Alejo Muniz in heat eleven.

And please don’t forget “people need to know that we’re humans, not machines.”

The end.

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Nick Carroll and Hannah Anderson, RIP.
Nick Carroll, seated, and Hannah Anderson, RIP etc.

Surf world in mourning after legacy journalist Nick Carroll disappeared in Surfline’s “Night of the Long Knives”

RIP the king.

The world’s most enduring legacy surf journalist Nick Carroll, brother of the two-time world champ Tom Carroll and author of the book TC, about his brother Tom, has been disappeared in a shock cull by wave forecasting website Surfline. 

Carroll, who is sixty-five, was named as Surfline’s Australian editor, a position that opened up after the surf forecasting giant bought Coastalwatch for one million dollars in 2019. 

Until he shifted to Surfline, Nick Carroll was a regular in BeachGrit’s comment section, his lightly hectoring older brother tone, often uncharacteristically candid, producing some of his best work. 

Carroll’s long-form stories for BeachGrit were an enjoyable change of pace for readers tired of the surf news network’s shallow click-baitery and obsessions with Kelly Slater and Great White sharks.

Carroll’s purist approach to a sport he’d been immersed in for fifty years were clear in,

Nick Carroll: “Tom is generous with me, yet I’m rarely generous in return.”

Long read: Nick Carroll on the “crazy fucking ultra-marathon” Molokai-to-Oahu paddle race!

Nick Carroll: I’d surfed there a thousand times, yet today it felt like nowhere I’d her been. It felt like a place you could die!” 

The reason for the disappearing of Carroll, along with his talented photography sidekick Hannah Anderson, were evident when Surfline started burying their work beneath layers of cams and weather reports.

Surfline, y’see, ain’t in the news biz, it’s in the cam and forecast biz so why not chip 150k or whatever off the wages bill?

I spoke to Carroll and Hannah, briefly, after the event and both are upbeat about the future.

No word on the status of the multi-decade blood feud between Nick Carroll and former BeachGrit writer Steve Shearer, however.

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