{"id":16836,"date":"2026-03-27T17:38:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T16:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepaddlesportshow.com\/?p=16836"},"modified":"2026-03-27T17:38:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T16:38:41","slug":"level-six-exhaust-pro-fabric-2026-product-of-the-year-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepaddlesportshow.com\/de\/level-six-exhaust-pro-fabric-2026-product-of-the-year-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"LEVEL SIX: Exhaust Pro fabric\u00a0 \u2013 2026 Product of the Year (Innovation)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cAfter 6 years of development, Exhaust Pro is the world\u2019s first fabric designed from the ground up for paddlesports: PFAS-free, recycled, and outperforming everything we\u2019ve ever made.\u201d \u2014 Stig Larsson, CEO & Co-Founder, Level Six<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the highlights of last year\u2019s Paddle Sports Show was the 2026 Product of the Year Awards<\/a>, organized in partnership with KS Publishing and the Paddler\u2019s Guide. Each year, the contest spotlights the best new paddlesports gear for the upcoming season. This year, Level Six<\/a> won the Innovation Award with the Exhaust Pro, the new waterproof and breathable fabric they designed from the ground up specifically for paddlesports. We asked the team a few questions about their award-winning technology to understand how it works and its performance in paddlesports.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hey Team! Congrats on winning 2026 Innovation of the Year for the Exhaust Pro Fabric at the Paddle Sports Show. Can you introduce your technology in simple terms?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n“The real star of the show is the hydrophilic membrane featuring proprietary additions”<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Exhaust Pro is a 3.0-ply waterproof, breathable fabric designed from the ground up specifically for paddlesports. It\u2019s the world\u2019s first fabric built intentionally for the demands of paddling environments and not adapted from hiking or skiing textiles. It achieves a 33,000 mm water column and 6,000 g\/m\u00b2\/24h breathability while being completely PFAS-free and made from 100% recycled materials. It also features a hydrophilic membrane and a slight two-way stretch, which together give it real-world performance that has consistently exceeded our lab results. The real star of the show is the hydrophilic membrane featuring proprietary additions, which actively wick moisture away and disperse it in the membrane, making it easier for your body to heat up and push out of the fabric. This gives the suit higher breathability performance in the real world when you are active and generating body heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What a description! How much time and effort went into bringing this to life?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over six years of intensive R&D and real-world testing. When PFAS regulations started evolving, most brands modified their existing fabrics to reduce PFAS content. We had already done that; we were actually the first paddlesports company to release a PFAS-free drysuit, but we also made the decision to simultaneously start from zero and develop something entirely new. That meant years of invisible work: sourcing new materials, testing and failing, testing and failing again, all while continuing to run the business and serve our dealers. There were long stretches where the team was pouring effort into something that no customer could see or appreciate yet. It was one of the hardest things we\u2019ve done as a company, but also one of the most important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Does it build on ideas or designs from previous products you have created?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our previous Exhaust fabric was the foundation that taught us what paddlers actually need from a technical fabric. Our key learning was that existing high-performance textiles fall short in wet, dynamic environments. But Exhaust Pro isn\u2019t an evolution of past fabrics; it\u2019s a complete rebuild. We took everything we\u2019d learned over 29 years of making paddlesports gear and used it to define what a purpose-built paddling fabric should be, then engineered it from scratch. The philosophy carried forward, but the fabric itself is entirely new. It is a new membrane technology, new face fabric, and new construction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Was there a moment during development when you realized this tech was special?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lab numbers were impressive on paper: 33,000 mm water column, 6,000 g\/m\u00b2 breathability, but the real moment came when our testers started reporting back from the field. Every single person said the real-world performance exceeded what the lab results suggested. That\u2019s unusual. Most fabrics test well in a lab and then underperform in actual conditions. With Exhaust Pro, the hydrophilic membrane technology actually performs better when you\u2019re active and generating body heat, which is exactly what happens when you\u2019re paddling. That was the moment we knew we had something that wasn\u2019t just competitive, it was special.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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