Whitewater kayaking is an outdoor adventure sport where paddlers navigate a river in a specially designed kayak. Whitewater kayaking includes several styles: river running, creeking, slalom, playboating, and squirt boating.1 Each style offers a different way to experience the river environments. Various techniques help paddlers navigate rivers, such as paddle strokes (such as ready position, forward stroke, back stroke, low brace, high brace, forward sweep, back sweep, and duffek/bow rudder), rolling, and boofing. Whitewater kayaking requires much essential equipment to make a “kayaking kit,” such as a whitewater-specific kayak, spray skirt, paddle, helmet, and PFD (personal flotation device).
Paddling on rivers, lakes, and oceans dates back to the Stone Age, with rafts, catamarans, canoes, and kayaks evolving based on the needs of indigenous peoples. After his North American travels, John MacGregor popularized kayaking in Europe in the 19th century, leading to increased leisure paddling during the Industrial Revolution. Innovations by figures like Tom Johnson and Bill Masters further advanced the sport, leading to today's diverse and safety-conscious whitewater kayaking community.
History
Paddling on rivers, lakes and oceans is as old as the Stone Age. The raft, the catamaran, the canoe and the kayak evolved depending on the needs and environment of the indigenous peoples in different parts of the world. The modern day kayak most likely originated about 8,000 years ago along the Siberian coast line by the Yupik and then transformed from the open canoe, via the Aleut and Inuit, into an enclosed kayak. The first boats made were hard to sink because they contained inflated seal bladders, which made them ideal for navigating whitewater.
The Greek, Herodotus, 484-425 BC, wrote in his travel diaries about boats with which merchandise was brought from Armenia to Babylon. The boats were made of a wooden framework that was covered with animal skins. Mules hauled the precious skins back to Armenia.
The Russian, Grigori Ivanovitch Langsdorff, reported from his trip around the world (1803–07) on the ease and elegance of paddling Eskimo (Inuit) kayaks/canoes. The Scot, John MacGregor, came back from his North American trip full of excitement about the kayak/canoe and in 1860 started building six boats that closely resembled Inuit canoes/kayaks, weighing approximately . In 1866 he published the book A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe. With the Industrial Revolution leading to more leisure time in the middle of the 19th century, people in Europe started to enjoy floating down rivers in various contraptions taking in nature previously only available to a selected few.
1905, Alfred Heurich, an architectural student from Leipzig, Germany, invented the "Faltboot", a folding kayak called Folboat in the US. Heurich went on to paddle over on rivers and lakes.
1907, Alfred Klepper, a master seamster from Rosenheim, bought the patent, improved the rigidity with a lever system and started production. Born was the Western culture's invention of a paddle craft that for the first time in human history that allowed hardy enthusiasts to see wild river sections and canyons never before seen by the human eye. The design not only made it suitable for whitewater (WW); it was also easy to travel with and was affordable. World War I stopped any progress.
1920s, boating on WW with Folboats developed. Boaters flocked to rivers and lakes by train or bus. During that time, the Austrian, Edi Hans Pawlata reinvented the Eskimo roll.
1927, Franz von Alber, and then Klaus and Arndt von Rautenfeld, claimed to have independently developed a roll with their sea kayaks.
In the early 1930s, Walter Frentz, Herbert Rittlinger and a handful of others became pioneers and advocates of WW kayaking with documentaries and books.
1933, Adolf Hitler started to dissolve kayak clubs. They did not serve his plan and the impact on the sport was devastating. World War II brought the paddle sport to a total halt.
1946–48, In some regions, the Allies gradually lifted the ban on river travel in Germany. Paddle clubs were again allowed to form.
1952, Walter Frentz, published an inspiring book titled In den Schluchten Europas (In the Canyons of Europe) that gained popularity. The book was based on his river trips prior to World War II. Publications in those days told detailed stories with pictures of first descents but with little information regarding river conditions. The tough times of the post-war era had come to an end and people started travelling abroad looking for adventures with Folboats and canoes.
1955, Herbert Baschin in Stuttgart built the first polyester/fiber kayak. Despite the much improved manoeuvrability and material, Baschin's hard shell was received with skepticism by paddle sport enthusiasts who were in love with their folboats and depended on public transportation. The ice broke when owning an automobile became affordable. The hard shell kayak was easily hauled to rivers and remote put-ins that were not accessible before. In the late 60s the WW sport started to spread from Europe around the world and transformed from adventure trips into a hardcore sport. With it came safety consciousness and protective gear.
1973, Tom Johnson, a racer and trainer from Kernville, California designs and markets the Hollowform: the first roto-moulded polyethylene boat. It was mass-produced by a garbage can manufacturing company. These virtually indestructible boats revolutionized the sport and quickly took off in California. Paddlers no longer had to constantly repair their boats during and after trips. They began to be able to use rocks as part of the strategy of negotiating difficult rapids. Hard runs became more accessible to less-skilled paddlers.
In 1978, Bill Masters, a kayaker and inventor in Liberty, South Carolina further perfected rotational moulding for kayaks with his company Perception Kayaks. Bill advanced the sport of whitewater kayaking beyond any of his predecessors through consistent innovations in manufacturing and design. His patented processes are still used to this day.
In 1980 the manufacturer Prijon in Rosenheim introduced polyethylene to Europe which made WW boating virtually maintenance and repair free in giant contrast to the Faltboot which had started it all.
1980 Holger Machatschek, together with ESKIMO kayak company in Landsberg, Germany, developed the first playboat called Topolino. The shorter, more maneuverable boat helped expand kayaking into new the new style that became known as playboating.
Types There are five "sub-categories" in whitewater kayaking, each typically utilizes a unique kayak design:
River running Riverrunning (practitioners use one word) is the essential form of kayaking. Whereas its derivative forms (described below under the headings of Creeking, Slalom, Playboating and Squirt boating) have evolved in response to the challenges posed by riverrunning, such as pushing the levels of difficulty and/or competing, riverrunning, of its own right, is more about combining one's paddling abilities and navigational skills with the movements and environments of rivers themselves. Important to a riverrunner is the experience and expression of the river in its continuity rather than a penchant for its punctuated "vertical" features (e.g. standing waves, play-holes and waterfalls). As for kayak design, a "pure" riverrunning boat can be said to have "driving ability" - a blend of qualities that enables the paddler to make the most of the differential forces in the river's currents. For example, instead of spinning or pivoting the boat to change its direction, a riverrunner will drive the boat in such a way as to make use of the river's surface features (e.g. waves, holes and eddylines) thus conserving the boat's speed and momentum (this is in particular contrast to slalom racing, where, in the attempt to negotiate certain kinds of slalom gates, the boater will pivot the boat to change its direction, and by so doing, diminish the boat's speed and momentum.) A principal design characteristic of riverrunning kayaks (as well as for their closest cousin the slalom boat) is their comparatively longer length and narrower breadth (generally minimum 285 cm in length and maximum 63 cm in breadth). The longer length at the waterline not only helps to carry speed but the longer arcs thus created between stem and stern allow the boater to more efficiently and gracefully carve into, through and out of eddies and other currents.
Creeking
Creeking is perhaps best thought of as a subcategory of river running, involving very technical and difficult rapids, typically in the Grade/Class IV to VI range. While people will differ on the definition, creeking generally involves higher gradient (approaching or in excess of 100 ft per mi (19 m per km)), 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 higher volume (more gallons or litres of displacement) and more rounded bow and stern, as these features provide an extra margin of safety against the likelihood of pinning (getting a kayak wedged in such a way that it cannot be removed without a mechanical advantage system, such as between rocks and/or underwater), and will resurface more quickly and controllably when coming off larger drops. Creek boats usually have increased "rocker," or rise, fore and aft of the cockpit for manoeuvrability. Extreme racing is a competitive form of this aspect of whitewater kayaking, in which kayakers race down steep sections and/or generally dangerous sections of whitewater.
Slalom
Slalom is a technical competitive form of kayaking, and one of the whitewater events to appear in the Olympic Games. 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 double-poles suspended vertically over the river). There are usually 18–25 gates in a race which must be navigated in sequential order. Green gates must be negotiated in a downstream direction, red gates in an upstream direction. The events are typically conducted on Grade/Class II to Grade/Class IV water, but the placement of the gates, and precision necessary to paddle them fast and "clean" (without touching a pole and adding 2 seconds to the total time), makes the moves much harder than the water's difficulty suggests. Pro level slalom competitions have specific length ( for kayaks – new rules), width, and weight requirements for the boats, which will be made out of kevlar/fibreglass/carbon fiber composites to be lightweight and have faster hull speed. Plastic whitewater kayaks can be used in citizen-level races.
Playboating
Playboating, also known as Freestyle or Rodeo, is a more gymnastic and artistic kind 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, pourover or on a wave) where they work with and against the dynamic forces of the river to perform a variety of manoeuvres. These can include surfing, spinning, and various vertical moves (cartwheels, loops, blunts, pistol and donkey flips, and many others), spinning the boat on all possible axes of rotation. More recently, aerial moves have become accessible, where paddlers perform tricks having gained air from using the speed and bounce of the wave. 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 sometimes called whitewater rodeo in the US, but more frequently just referred to as freestyle events in UK and Europe.
Squirt boating