Tents

Vaude Space Seamless 2-3 Person Tent | Review

Lightweight, yet reliable dome tent suited towards multi day backpacking trips

Why We Chose The Vaude Space Seamless 2-3P: Great ventilation, useful features, quality build

After 46 years of designing and developing tents, you could forgive a brand for sticking with their tried and tested tent designs and materials. But this is exactly the opposite of what German based tent manufacturer Vaude have done with their all new Space Seamless 2-3P – a tent with an innovative flysheet design that helps to keep the weight down to an impressive figure.

Who Is The Space Seamless 2-3P For?

The Space Seamless 2-3P is, as the name suggests, a two to three person tent that’s ideally suited towards backpacking, bikepacking, lower level mountaineering and any other activity where the weight of your pack needs to be as low as possible.

Features

Once pitched, the tent offers enough space for three people, with a bathtub groundsheet that reaches up high enough to provide enough protection from even the most driving rain that could be sneaking under the fly.

A tub groundsheet reaches up high for additional protection. Photo: Mike Brindley

There are two storage pockets either side of the inner and another two stretchy pockets are found at the roof, giving ample stash points. If you need to air out any smelly walking socks or worn out base layers then there’s a bit of cord stretching the length of the tent that’ll let you do so.

Once in the tent, ventilation has been addressed by extensive use of thin mesh for the entire midsection of the inner walls. A slightly heavier weight mesh has been used around the roof and lower walls (before you reach the raised groundsheet), giving decent airflow throughout the tent. Two rainproof vents have been built into the top of both entrances of the fly to further enable airflow.

Additional height and ventilation is achieved through a third pole stretching across the top of the tent. Photo: Mike Brindley

Lightweight pegs are included. Photo: Mike Brindley

The fly clips to the inner with ease. Photo: Mike Brindley

All of this packs down into a 46 x 19 cm sack that has a roll top, allowing air to be squeezed out to reduce the pack size further. You’ve also got the option to separate the tent into fly, inner and pegs and poles if required.

Perhaps what is most impressive with this tent is the extremely low weight – we’re more used to seeing two person tents in the low 2000g weight category. If you are in a group of three, then you’ll be able to split the tent three ways – inner, outer, and poles and pegs – making for an average weight of 733g per person. That’s pretty impressive – as light as, say, a Montbell sleeping bag.

Build

The focus of weight saving seems to have been put into the flysheet. This features ‘Vaude Only’ seam sealing, a unique design that gets rid of the need for traditional stitched seams. By layering the sections of fabric together and then bonding them with a super strong glue, a fair bit of weight is saved but without any compromise on strength.

The Vaude Space Seamless packs down to a 46 x 19 cm stuff sack. Photo: Mike Brindley

This bonding also supposedly improves the waterproofing of the tent, as it removes any small holes created by stitching and also the need for seam taping.

The fly itself is made from an extremely lightweight, and slightly stretchy fabric that’s silicone coated to provide a 3,000mm hydrostatic head. This coating, Vaude claim, lengthens the lifespan of the fabric by 20% due to improved UV protection.

Of course, being a Vaude product, the tent comes with their ‘Green Shape’ label, which is Vaude’s way of promising that their products have been created using sustainable materials, manufactured in fair working conditions along the entire supply chain. A nice touch, if you ask us.

Tester’s Verdict

Jordan Tiernan, Outdoors Magic Staff Writer

We found the high sided walls picked up the wind easily. Photo: Jordan Tiernan

“I’ve just reached the end of a five day wild camping trip in the Lakes, walking and trail running the hills between Keswick and Ambleside. We’ve had a real mix of weather; nights where it’s been lashing over 10 mm of rain, to warm mornings that have been baking the tent from the outside in. In short, I’ve been left impressed with the performance of this tent, it simply hasn’t let me down – there have been a few niggles though.

“First up, I like the relative ease of pitching. We found it straightforward to pitch in the right conditions. If it’s windy, then you might find the extremely lightweight fly fiddly to attach to the inner. Other than that, the tent is simple to pitch; the inner goes up first by threading two crossing poles through one way pole sleeves, you can then peg the inner down before grabbing the fly and clipping it to the inner. To finish things off, a short pole is added under the fly to increase headroom – quite similar to the Big Agnes Copper Spur.

The tent shrugged off many heavy downpours in the Lake District. Photo: Jordan Tiernan

The Space Seamless impressed the Outdoors Magic team during testing. Photo: Jordan Tiernan

We found the Space Seamless to be a roomy two person tent, at an impressively low weight. Photo: Jordan Tiernan

“I was extremely thankful for Vaude’s liberal use of mesh when designing the inner. This mesh really aided the airflow within the tent, meaning that I never really needed to worry about a build up of condensation. If you’re camping out in windy conditions, then you may at times be able to feel it cutting through the mesh, but I was happy with this, given the lack of condensation.

“Care has to be taken when pitching the tent in strong winds, due to the steep walls rising up. These walls feel like they are waiting to catch even the slightest of gusts, effectively turning the tent into a box kite. Pegging the inner down before you reach for the fly does help to keep things slightly under control, but there was one instance in particular for me where this combination of high-sided walls and gusty winds were preventing us from pitching the tent, resulting in a swift scamper down the valley until we discovered a sheltered location behind the safety of a drystone wall.

“I could see things getting very interesting if you were to try to pitch the Space Seamless alone in strong winds, but then again, I’m not sure you really need to take a three person tent on a solo trip (however much the 2.2kg weight might like to trick you into believing you should).

The innovative fly design keeps the weight low. Photo: Jordan Tiernan

“Perhaps the tent’s most impressive moment for us was when we were camped up at Stickle Tarn. The Lake District was seemingly throwing every drop of rain at us and the tent, but it performed admirably. Even with water pooling on the ground underneath us and the groundsheet, we didn’t have a drop of water make it inside the tent for the entire night (we did have a very cold groundsheet though). It was one of those make or break moments for a product and this tent certainly passed the test.”