#002 - Full slices - All of them!

Within the wonderful world of kayaking there are loads of categories of boats to choose from, big water creek boats, surf kayaks, squirt boats, playboats, river runners and many more. Probably my favourite category of whitewater boats is the full slice. These boats have one key focus - maximum fun and play opportunities at all times, striking a balance between playboats and more typical river runners, able to play in the flat or on your favourite whitewater runs.

The first full slice ever made was the Riot Glide made in 1997, after this a slew of other designs came out from other manufacturers up until around 2004/2006. At this point most companies moved onto new things (mainly modern playboats). Fortunately a few are starting to make new designs like Liquidlogic with the Hot whip and Dagger with the Nova line.

The oldest full slice - The Riot Glide 1997

The newest full slice - The Dagger SuperNova 2022

Unfortunately for most of these boats trying to figure out what is worth getting is hard. A lot of these boats are going to be very old with somewhat hit or miss plastic quality, specifications (especially recommended paddler weights!) can be hard to find - with the exception of Wavesport who have fantastic documentation.

The Wavesport XXX - source

Over the last month or two I have been working on making a document (Nicknamed the full slice bible) to gather a full list of every full slice ever made with all of the specifications I can find for each design. I also attempted to add a brief note for each design about the boat's history/most well known features.

A snapshot of the spreadsheet!

For the purpose of this document  being somewhat concise I set out a few rules for what classifies as a full slice, specifically 

• All boats are well over 6ft (shortest boat included is the Pyrhana seven-O at 6'7")
• All boats have a low volume at both the bow and stern end creating the classic full slice banana shape (with some being more severe than others)
• All these boats should be able to be flatwater cartwheeled with enough skill provided you are in the correct weight range.

My plan is to improve this document gradually with better information and better guidance for those looking for a boat that suits what they want from it. I am publishing a google form alongside the document to allow paddlers to submit the boats that they have paddled and rate how well the boat performs on flatwater, downriver, on a wave and in a hole.

There will be a prize draw for this for a £10 amazon voucher for 1 lucky contributor to thank people for their time spent filling it out! If you are interested in helping improve the spreadsheet please follow the link below - it takes around 5-10 mins depending on how many boats you have paddled!

Google form

Here's the spreadsheet! (check back over time and I will either update the link or repost the document if enough change has been made to require a version 2).

The full slice bible

Instructions for using the spreadsheet.

1. Click the link and when prompted select make a copy - this may require you to login as it is a google sheet currently however I don't receive any information from this - use the document how you like
2. Upon loading the document does not have full functionality - its just a big ole table - so if you are on a PC highlight the full table (Cells A5 to R93)
3. Along the header bar for the google sheets page select format then convert to table.
4. This will allow you to sort by any header you are interested in.
5. To look at boat recommendations based on weight you can enter your weight in the top left mini-table this then will allow you to sort the 'Am I the ideal weight' from smallest to largest (green to red). The ideal weight is set at the 2/3 mark of the actual weight range. Yellow typically signifies that you can probably make it work and red is a no-go range - just wait for something else it'll come!
6. On a phone I recommend switching to the desktop site and following the same steps (3 dots in the corner should allow you to select this). Hopefully I can at some stage figure out how to get the document to function on the google sheets app but currently I can't get it working sorry folks!

Included in this document is specifications for a large number of full slices (see below). Aswell as this I have included the weight recommendation feature, personal recommendations of if I would buy the boat (assuming I was at the ideal weight) as well as the maximum I would be willing to pay for that boat second hand in the UK. All these prices assume that the boat is in decent condition - missing outfitting, particularly deep gauges, splits etc all obviously would lower how much I would pay for that boat (except a Wavesport XXX, please re-release the XXX wavesport). Hopefully soon I will be able to add ratings to most if not all boats that are a bit more subjective than my personal opinions!

Where did I find this information?

Some brands (Wavesport, Dagger and Perception) have documentation that is fairly easy to find but most companies either didn't make catalogue's or no one has scanned them - there are a few around but not enough, most of the rest of the specs come from online forums like the ukriversguidebook forum, reddit and playak. 

I also eventually discovered https://www.whitewaterkayaks.info/ which is probably the best website I have ever come across for raw boat specifications - with specs on as far as I can tell every whitewater boat ever made I cross referenced values from their document against every other source I could find and went with the most commonly occuring values I could find.

Included in this document are the specifications/specs for the following boats

• Wavesport X
• Wavesport Z
• Wavesport Foreplay
• Wavesport XXX
• Wavesport EZ
• Wavesport Big EZ
• Wavesport EVO
• Wavesport Score
• Wavesport Siren
• Wavesport Ace 4.7
• Wavesport Ace 5.1
• Wavesport Super EZ
• Dagger Vertigo
• Dagger Medieval
• Dagger Vengeance
• Dagger Ultrafuge
• Dagger Centrifuge
• Dagger Ego
• Dagger Super ego
• Dagger Id 6.8
• Dagger Id 6.9
• Dagger Id 7.0
• Dagger Nova
• Dagger Supernova
• Liquidlogic Session
• Liquidlogic Session plus
• Liquidlogic Homeslice
• Perception Mr Clean
• Perception Shock
• Perception Amp
• Perception Ultra Clean
• Perception Jib
• Jackson Mixmaster 7.0
• Jackson Mixmaster 7.5
• Prijon Luv
• Prijon Machine
• Prijon Delirious
• Prijon Delirious XL
• Prijon Delirium
• Prijon Fever
• Riot Glide
• Riot Slice
• Riot Grind
• Riot Trickster
• Riot Prankster
• Riot Dominatrix 41
• Riot Dominatrix 44
• Riot Dominatrix 47
• Riot Booster 50
• Riot Booster 55
• Riot Booster 60
• Riot Tekno 49
• Pyranha Inazone 220
• Pyranha Inazone 230
• Pyranha Inazone 240
• Pyranha Prozone 225
• Pyranha Prozone 230
• Pyranha Prozone 235
• Pyranha S7-1
• Pyranha S7-2
• Pyranha S8 225
• Pyranha S8 235
• Pyranha Seven-O S/M
• Pyranha Seven-O M/L
• Pyranha Loki S
• Pyranha Loki M
• Pyranha Loki L
• Necky Zip
• Necky Switch
• Necky Witch
• Necky Mission
• Soul Waterman Dominatrix 52
• Soul Waterman Glide
• Bliss-stick Blitz
• Bliss-stick Blitz special
• Bliss-stick Freestyler
• Eskimo Quadro
• Eskimo Nano
• Eskimo Nano mk.2?
• Rainbow Voodoo
• Rainbow Sayan
• Rainbow Funky
• Exo Kayak Joker
• Verus Kayaks Hellbender
• Zelezny Wigo
• Atlantis Kayaks Funky
• Massive MadDog