While our team paddlers enjoy the whitewater in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nepal, India, and on the Zambezi, I've tended to stay home in recent years. In the past, I always felt an urgent need to travel to escape the autumn and winter blues. Many times to Costa Rica, and I also traveled in Nepal and Ecuador. Now I prefer things more relaxed, skiing, both privately and as a ski instructor, comfortably reading a book – that certainly has a lot to do with my age!
I paddled less in 2025 than ever before; that has to change in 2026! The ferry to Greece for Easter is already booked! I'm looking forward to great paddling days with good friends, campfires, and delicious Greek food!
But now, let's get to the main topic of this blog post. What does the Spade Kayaks team do during the winter months?
Jan, our designer, created the CAD data for our new kayak, the Shakti, in autumn and up until Christmas. He's currently getting to grips with a new Nvidia program to finalize the renderings of the new boat for our homepage and marketing in the coming days. Next, he wants to work on 3D animations of our boats; I'm curious to see how we'll integrate that into our homepage.
Matze and Jan have been fine-tuning our new Shakti. The Shakti will likely cause a dip in sales for our long-standing bestseller, the Black Jack. Many canoe schools still want to use the Black Jack, as it has simply proven its worth. Matze is also organizing the labels for the new PFAS-free clothing line, consisting of a drysuit, dry jacket, and semi-dry jacket, which will be released at the end of April/beginning of May. Among other things, he's working flat out on a new product that I'm very excited about: shorts made of nylon overpants and neoprene inner pants. That's going to be a really cool piece!
Naina, our new Marketing Manager, is handling the many team applications that come in daily. She's also working on the marketing plan for the new Shakti. The logo is now finalized. With Hailey Thompson from Watercolorwoods, she's finalizing 2 T-shirt designs, just in time for the launch of our Shakti. She also founded her NGO, Pravahini Foundation, with and for the Ganga Girls. There will also be a separate blog post from Naina about this.
Yes, and a lot has been happening on my end too. Besides the daily work of processing pre-orders, creating price lists, answering emails, writing invoices, packing and shipping boats, and building a new website with Emanuel from Epic Designs, there was also a lot to do with the second issue of Paddle Power. Thanks to the professionalism and patience of layout designer Werner Bauer, a fantastic 100-page magazine full of whitewater content has been created and will go to print in the next few days!
And of course, event planning is already underway, including Salza Rodeo, XXL Paddelfestival, Boss of Val Sesia, Take it Isel, and several other test events!
It's never boring!
On a river!
Hans
