Spade Full House
Price range: $2,199.00 through $2,249.00
ON TOP OF THE GAME
A stable platform, pronounced rocker, plenty of volume, and a sufficiently long waterline: The Full House is our answer to the question of what a modern creeker should look like. Do you want your kayak to be fast, maneuverable, dynamic on the edge, yet also predictable, stable, easy to boof, and surf well? If you’re looking for a whitewater kayak you can rely on when pushing your limits, or one that will make getting there easier, the Full House is the perfect choice.
Rocker & Waterline
If you look at modern whitewater kayaks, one thing stands out above all: an increasingly extreme rocker. We, too, wanted to develop a boat that would literally keep you on top of the water, instead of having to laboriously fight your way through features. The problem: the greater the rocker, the slower and more unstable the kayak. The equation “length matters” doesn’t refer to the overall size of the kayak, but rather to its waterline. And that gets shorter when the keel drop starts early. To achieve a good balance between speed, maneuverability, and rocker, we stretched the Full-House to a length of 284 cm. It sounds like a lot, but it corresponds to the waterline of a much shorter boat with less rocker. The result is a kayak that lets you effortlessly ride curls and rollers, reaching astonishing speeds in whitewater.
Platform
The Full House is a boat for difficult whitewater and has plenty of reserves, even in the hardest white water. This requires a stable platform, meaning a certain area of the lower hull that sits more or less flat in the water. Paired with the 70 cm width allows us to tuck the edges of the Full House so that it’s less susceptible to cross currants or tripping up in shallow water and allows the boat to be easily edged. This way, you’ll maintain the upper hand even in complex rapids with many consecutive moves. Pronounced edges in the lower hull ensure the response you expect from the boat when you drive on the rail.
Volume
With its 360-liter volume, the full house floats on top even in the largest features, even with a large payload, providing a great deal of security in whitewater. Despite its generous dimensions, it doesn’t feel oversized or sluggish. The secret lies in the distribution of the volume. The aforementioned overall length of the Full House gave us the necessary flexibility to design the stern in a modern way without compromise. Of course, it’s not “sliced,” but narrow enough to place a slight weight on the edge, thus lifting the bow even more effortlessly. The balanced tail rocker gives the Full House high skipability – after drops and rolls, the tail doesn’t get stuck, but pushes out and away from the drop or feature. There’s no question that the Full House is a big boat. In typical Spade style, the cockpit and knee area are designed to stay out of the way of even smaller riders when paddling. Because we’ve long known that whitewater ambitions aren’t a question of size and wish to give all the correct tools to accomplish their dreams.
Conclusion
Whether it’s a multi-day expedition at the limit or a controlled ascent to the next whitewater level: the Full House is your ace up your sleeve!
Weight: 44lbs
Length: 284cm
Width: 70cm
Volume: 360L
Spade Outfitting
We know better than most that outfitting is perhaps the most important aspect of a kayak. This interface between you and the hull is integral to your control and feedback while on the water and cannot be underestimated. Our ergonomically focused outfitting has been specially designed for long days on the water without adding excess weight to the kayak.Key to this is the integrated seat-rail-tower combination that gives you optimal control over your setup. The thigh braces, hip pads, backrest, and seat pad have all been tried and tested to make sure they are ready for tireless days on the water. The central pillar supports the cockpit in high-pressure situations such as pins or over drops. It can also be used as a step-out pillar for safe exits in whitewater.
| Colour | Aquamarine, Lime Green, Blue, Yellow, Red, Purple, Yellow-Purple, Aquamarine-Purple |
|---|
1 review for Spade Full House
Add a review
Related products
Brent –
We need the star system to have .5’s or go to 10 ;-).
This is a preliminary review of the Full House, since I don’t have a lot of seat time, and given I prefer half-slices, I probably won’t clock anywhere near the time in this one that I will in the Slick.
The obvious stuff – fit, function, esthetics…all top marks. The outfitting is solid – the seat track and positioning system are solid, stiff, and easy to use. They make the plastic hull feel almost like a blow-mold on the water, transmit great feel, and help with engagement. The knee hooks are solid and easy to grip without restricting safe exit if needed – the angled step-out pillar helps with this as well, protecting the structural integrity of the hull while offering more leg room inside the boat. The weight is acceptable for a full-size creek boat – lighter than many of the usual suspects in the segment. Look is subjective – I think the styling of the top deck is very attractive, and the hull and edges look great.
My first thoughts getting into the current – interesting! When peeling out into a stouter current and swinging down stream, I usually get the initial hit of stern load and bow lift. Perhaps due tot he slightly longer hull, the Full House doesn’t do this – it actually stays very level and shoots forward. It was a totally unexpected and different feel. Sitting in the boat, you’re almost convinced you’re in a narrower boat like the Scorch, but the bow has a high rocker and a wide, flat surface at the bow with small wave deflectors, so that visuals belies what is among the highest initial and secondary stabilities I’ve felt in any creeker up to this point.
This boat is what I’d consider functionally fast. It’s very quick to adjust and react in the current, and its stability gives the paddler a great sense of confidence. It skips away from boofs with a similar feeling to how it shoots forward in current, with some very cool bouncing effect as the pitch levels from stern to center. This lends to it slowing down and being very controllable moving away from features…it would be the same out of drops, in theory, but I haven’t tried drops in it yet. It also carves extremely well at my weight (210lbs). It’s not a hard a carver as other boats in the segment – Indra, ReactR, Scorch. Its edge work feels like a sharpened Prijon Beast. This gives it a nice combination of performance and predictability. It’s a boat that you’d come to enjoy the more you paddle it…much like my experience with the Beast.
Where it surprised me was surfing. It surfs and carves surprisingly well for its size and design. It has a loose hull for a long creeker, and paddles like a much lighter boat.
The plastic is also resilient. We put a pretty good dent in the hull – I left it upside down in the sun when I went to work yesterday and it was pretty much gone when I got back. The plastic feels comparable to Dagger plastic – solid with some elasticity. I see it rashing easily, but looks like it will handle impacts well.
I’m very comfortable giving the Full House a 4.5 on 5 at this point.