Monday, May 12, 2008

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Kayaking: WhiteWater


Whitewater Kayaking is the sport of paddling a kayak on a moving body of water - typically a river. Whitewater Kayaking can range from a fun, carefree float trip, to a challenging, adrenaline filled sport.

The kayak used in Whitewater Kayaking is different to those used in Whitewater Racing or Sea Kayaking. Traditionally, kayaks were made of animal skins stretched over wooden frames. Early whitewater boats were fibreglass or kevlar. Today, boats are typically made of a tough plastic that is slightly flexible and very durable. Boats can range in size; from barely long enough to hold the paddler (around 6 ft/1.8 m long) to 12 ft (3.6 m) or even longer.

There are four 'sub-categories' in Whitewater Kayaking: river-running, creeking, slalom, and playboating.

River Running can be thought of as a tour down a river - to enjoy the scenery as well as experiencing challenging whitewater. River running includes short day trips as well as longer multi-day trips. Whitewater Racing is the competitive aspect of this sub-category - racing canoes or kayaks down a river as fast as possible.

Creeking is perhaps best thought of as a subcategory of River Running, involving very technical and difficult rapids typically in the class IV to VI range. Creeking generally involves higher gradients (approaching or in excess of 100 feet per mile), and is likely to include running ledges, slides, and waterfalls on relatively small and tight rivers; though some will allow for very large and big volume rivers in their definition. Kayaks used for creeking usually have a higher volume (more gallons of displacement) and more rounded bow and stern, as these features provide an extra margin of safety against the likelihood of pinning, and will resurface more quickly and more controlled when coming off larger drops. Extreme racing is a competitive form of this aspect of Whitewater Kayaking.

Slalom is another technical form of Kayaking. Racers attempt to make their way from the top to the bottom of a designated section of river as fast as possible, while correctly negotiating gates (a series of poles suspended vertically over the river). There are usually 20-25 gates in a race which must be navigated in sequence. Green gates must be negotiated in a downstream direction, and red gates in an upstream direction. This is typically done on class II to class IV water, but the placement of the gates, and precision necessary to paddle them fast and "clean" (without touching a pole), makes the moves much harder than the water's difficulty suggests.

Playboating or Freestyle is perhaps more a gymnastic and artistic form of Kayaking. While the other varieties of Kayaking generally involve going from Point A to Point B, playboaters often stay in one spot in the river (usually in a hole or on a wave) - where they work with and against the dynamic forces of the river to perform a variety of moves. Kayaks used for Playboating generally have relatively low volume in the bow and stern, allowing the paddler to submerge the ends of the kayak with relative ease. Competitions for Playboating or freestyle are called whitewater rodeo.

The UK has some of the best Whitewater Kayaking locations in the world. Use Quick Search to find the nearest club to you and check out the following websites.

Featured worldwide Kayaking web sites
Cool kayak videos - from the freewheelers website
Playak - Kayak & Canoe News - Online paddling community with kayak headlines from around the world
Boater Talk - An international whitewater paddling forum.
Kayak design
Kayak & Canoe News: Playak - International kayak news and information portal.
KayakDude.com - Kayaking portal with news, articles and links to kayak related sites.
The Kayaking Journal
KayakInstruction.org - A non-profit organization providing whitewater kayak training
NSW Sea Kayak Club (New South Wales, Australia) - Top-resource on all things sea kayaking
Paddling.net - A site dedicated to all paddle related sports including kayaking.
purepaddling.com - An online community of surf ski paddlers, sea kayakers and other paddlers
Qajaq USA - A non-profit committed to promoting Greenland style kayaking
ThamesWeirProject - Community and information for Thames Paddlers in the UK>
WaterTribe - A non-commercial site devoted to small, human powered boats and expedition racing