Making PFDs has been a personal dream for our co-founder Stig Larsson for a long time. It has been a dream to not only make PFDs but to have the full offering of paddling apparel products that our customers need.

Long story short, you have been asking for it for a long time, and it's about dang time we did it for you. 

All that being said, for the 2027 season we are proud to announce a full PFD range, top to bottom. Whitewater, sea kayak, touring, rec, with real women's fits on every model, not a shrink-and-pink afterthought. It's the biggest design bet in Level Six history, built with the same sustainability focus we use in all product design. For this line we have designed our own PVC-free FREEFLOW foam that is far kinder on the environment during production and has a premium soft feel. In addition to this we have used recycled fabrics, and zero PFAS in this line. These are PFDs that complete your kit with the quality and fit that you deserve.

These will be available at a dealer near you next spring. If you are wondering if your local dealer will be carrying them, drop them a line and ask.

Meet the Thompson and Mattawa: the first harmonized Level 50 PFDs approved on both sides of the border. These bring comfort to another level, designed to make wearing a PFD as unobtrusive as possible. They pull it off by staying extremely low profile while delivering 50 Newtons of flotation, safe and comfortable all at once. Because the safest jacket is the one people actually wear and not leave under their seat. This is an exciting whole new category of PFD, perfect for any type of paddling where you would rather have a PFD that feels like it does not exist on your body and one that has been tested and certified for use in Canada, Europe, and the US.

Ask your local store about them to see if you can see them firsthand next year. Read more about these PFDs in the amazing article by Paddling Mag below.

The design ethos for this line was simple: make PFDs that enhance the paddling experience rather than hinder it. From our premium 70 Newton Touring and Whitewater builds all the way down to our 50 Newton builds, every PFD in this line was designed so that paddlers barely notice they are wearing it. Everything else, from the features to the looks, came only after a PFD could hit that baseline.

Part of hitting that baseline meant a purpose built fits, and no unisex PFDs. While this may seem like a basic concept, it is something the outdoor industry has struggled with for a long time. Over the past couple of years we have talked a lot about "Shrink It and Pink It," the act of taking a men's product, making it smaller, and giving it "girly" colours. This has been an especially true practice when it comes to PFDs, and not without reason. PFDs are, to put it bluntly, expensive to develop. Extensive safety and certification programs (that exist for good reason) must be passed before a PFD can be sold in any given market. In the US alone, these tests can run between $48,000 and $75,000 USD per PFD package, on top of all the internal design, R&D, and testing a company does. The result is that companies often cut corners on women's sizing.

We are proud to say that with our new Halo Fit System, we are coming out of the gate with uniquely designed sizes for both men and women. We put the investment in upfront so that your customers get products that enhance their life on the water instead of taking away from it. We approached this thinking "why would anyone not do this?!" and over the past few years have come to understand why. Getting it right, and absorbing the cost of mistakes, has been difficult to say the least. There is a very good reason why not many companies make PFDs. But every setback made us better and, more importantly, made the end product better.

We have put a lot into marketing Exhaust Pro and billing it as the largest R&D project in Level Six history, which it was. The fact of the matter is that it does not even come close to the effort our entire team has put into these PFDs. Between late nights, failed prototypes, last minute revisions, weekend meetings, and double and triple checking every detail, this has been the hardest project in company history.

We cannot wait for your experience these first hand in the spring of 2027 at your local dealer.