Tkb Review: 2019 CABRINHA Cutlass

CABRINHA Cutlass
Sizes Available: 5’2” x 18.75” x 2.04”, 21.45L, 5’5” x 19.6” x 2.08”,24.09L
Sizes Tested: 5’2” x 18.75” x 2.04”, 21.45L

Cabrinha Says:

The all-new Cutlass is specifically designed for riders who like to mix rail to rail surfing with aerial trickery.

There are days when you just wish your board was turbo charged. For these days you need the Cutlass. A short and moderately wide outline, a fast rocker line, and a quad fin set up. All the elements needed for sharp turns and quick acceleration.

The Cutlass is the ideal board for small to mid sized waves or no waves at all. It’s perfect for mixing strapless freestyle and sufing in any type of wind conditions. Due to its fast rocker line, the Cutlass will be your go-to board when the winds are less than perfect.

Visit for more info: www.cabrinhakites.com/collections/surfboards/products/cutlass

Our Testers Say:

“Remarkably fun board. I was skeptical of the bamboo construction but it is light and tracks upwind really well, even in chop. Liked the deck, felt great underfoot. Lots of performance in a very small package, well balanced for strapless airs, quick turns and tracks well. Rounded rail wants to bite and carve upwind when more rail line is engaged.” // Dray Murray

“Medium weight, good turning, solid edge control with good chop handling and decent upwind ability. Can feel a little big and bouncy.” // Kiter Mike

“Seemed like a good beginner strapless board, but it was too floaty for my size. Excellent upwind ability, overall light weight but hard to steer. Wide deck was stable for switching feet, but I would want a front pad.” // Kristin Vincenzo

Meet Our Testers

Tkb Says:

The Cutlass is one of the few boards in the test to come with a zero concave flat bottom, featuring a wider, fuller template for playful all-around performance in small to fun-sized surf. With the quad fin box configuration on the swallow tail, the Cutlass is gently suggestive of a fish-style shape and feels really efficient even in underpowered situations. With its extra width and the flat bottom, the Cutlass feels really fast through the water and just wants to fly upwind with a solid fairly locked in feel for controlled edging through the chop. The Cutlass finds an excellent balance between reactive playfulness and reliable user-friendly tracking which makes it quite predictable. Many of the boards have a fair amount of dome built into the deck, but the Cutlass features a fairly flat deck that brought back memories of riding skimboards. The deck ends in a step rail which keeps a bit more volume under foot until you get to the rail where it steps down into a tighter rail, the tighter rail possibly helping this board feel so controlled when cutting upwind. The combination of volume and tight rails seems to work quite well in the Cutlass and when it comes to strapless freestyle this board becomes super fun and playful. The quad tail doesn’t feel super locked in, which makes it fairly loose and friendly for front rotations to blind or pop shuvits. From our experience in the chop, the Cutlass could be an excellent choice for hacking apart small to medium surf, shoving the tail into a pocket and breaking loose, little floaters and the like. That flat deck and wider playful template kept bringing back memories of skimboards with an ultra efficient and skatey feel, yet the Cutlass is stable enough for those just progressing into strapless surfing. The Cutlass is a little bit different than everything else that’s out there, something that is more playful with a ton of range, yet easy to use and efficient for lighter sessions or long slogs back to the top of the reef. The Cutlass has a wide-ranging fun factor that works for small and medium surf with decent strapless freestyle chops that will keep all levels of riders entertained in a variety of conditions.

The Cutlass comes with an extra long deck pad for the back foot and features three forward/aft inserts down the center line of the board to dial in the perfect strap position.