White water canoe
Whitewater canoes are special canoes that are used for whitewater paddling . Depending on the paddling technique, a distinction is made between white water kayaking and white water Canadian . There are also closed and open white water canoes.
description
Compared to sea kayaks , white water canoes are generally characterized by increased maneuverability, for which reduced speed and reduced ability to maintain course (difficulty in simply going straight ahead) are accepted. They are usually characterized by a more robust design, which is why there is no tax attached to the outside and thick plastic is often used as a building material. With some whitewater kayaks, a fin can optionally be attached for navigating larger bodies of water or for surfing in larger waves .
To ensure that as little water as possible gets into the interior of the boat in whitewater, which can act under great pressure on a kayak, the number of points at which the hull is breached is kept low: hatches to bulkheads are usually completely avoided, some manufacturers (especially Jackson Kayaks ) even do without screws that break through the hull. So that the boat does not sink if water does get into the boat, floats - mostly similar to inflatable plastic tubes - are used instead of the bulkheads . Also important is the exact (An) fit the canoe for paddlers, as they are particularly important for whitewater canoeists Boof- (jump) and maneuverability - upright or at an Eskimo roll - improved.
Different shapes of whitewater canoes
Open one and two-man whitewater canoes are often longer boats with a wide range of whitewater uses. Special inflatable kayaks (so-called packrafts ) are occasionally used as open white water kayaks .
Closed whitewater canoes often differ greatly in their appearance depending on their purpose, but are mostly used by both Canadians and kayakers. They only differ in the interior equipment (seat) and the paddling technique (kneeling or sitting, with one or two-sided paddle), but not in the (external) hull .
For many different purposes, different closed boat shapes have developed, which are usually referred to by ever new English names, including:
- Riverrunner (from English to run a river : to drive on a river): Boat for light to medium-heavy whitewater - a cross between a creeker and a rodeo boat, which tries to cover a wide range of uses as best as possible, but does a little worse than the respective specialists
- Creeker: Boat for difficult white water such as driving on steep and often narrow rivers, usually with lots of rocks and technically difficult water (English creeking from creek : narrow brook / river), or higher waterfalls - the boat offers a correspondingly high buoyancy (volume), is sturdily built and relatively manoeuvrable, but also reasonably fast (length compromise, which is usually achieved by curved boat ends).
- Rodeo boat / play boat / play boat: boat for play boat rides , where the handling of waves and water rollers play an important role, but also rock contact occurs . The boat is short, flat and sturdy. This makes it manoeuvrable and comparatively light. It does without speed and offers reduced buoyancy thanks to the volume centered in the middle of the boat.
- White water racing boat: Boat for white water racing - the boat is correspondingly fast (long and narrow), but also has a lot of buoyancy (volume) and is sufficiently agile for the white water conditions to be navigated. In contrast to other whitewater canoes, competition boats are made of fiber-reinforced plastics.
- Slalom boat: boat for canoe slalom - the boat is accordingly very agile and moderately fast, but not very stable (pointed ends and e.g. often fiberglass and no plastic as material)
- Squirtboot (from English squirt : spray; when raising the bow from underwater to the "candle" on the stern): Boat for squirtboating , in which figures are performed on and under the water - the boat therefore has only little buoyancy ( little volume, often no hard plastic shell)
- Freerider (fun cruiser)
The possible use of a kayak also depends on the scale of whitewater difficulty and the ability of the canoeist. Body weight and luggage require adequate buoyancy on the boat.
Web links
- White water kayaks categorized by the Moers water sports club on wsv-moers.de