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Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Basics For Enjoying Whitewater Kayak Sports

By Dustin Faulkner


Going on a whitewater kayak adventure can be fun, exciting, and exhilarating; however there are a few basics which you should acknowledge yourself with before even considering going on this sort of outing. First of all, the whitewater kayak sport is very gear intensive.

To whitewater kayak, it's not necessary for you to be in excellent physical shape but you should have adequate shoulder and upper arm strength in order for you to properly use the paddles and oars and you also need enough strength to take care of yourself in the rapids in the event of an emergency.

You should also be able to hold your breath for a relatively substantial amount of time, in case your whitewater kayak were to tip, and you also may want to simply tone up a bit so that your muscles are that much more ready for such a physical activity.

Gear Up and Go Whitewater Kayaking

The basic equipment that you will need for your whitewater kayak trip is as follows: boat, paddle, sprayskirt, helmet, and lifejacket. Of course, there are other accessories which you can include but these are what you can consider as the essentials. You can actually have fun on the trip if you sign up and attend a few lessons before you go on your whitewater kayaking trip and this is a good idea since you will at least know what you are doing.

Things such as rolling, bracing, and most important, wet exiting, are some of the things that you will learn through training. There are also some techniques that you will learn and these include ferrying, surfing, peel outs, and eddy turns.

Purchasing a Kayak

Although you can rent a kayak at most outfitters, or the kayak use itself may even come included with your kayaking trip package, if you are planning on purchasing your own kayak, there a few important things to know. Recreational kayaks, whitewater kayaks, touring kayaks, and downriver kayaks are the several different types of kayaks.

Recreational kayaks are those which are all-around boats that are designed for mild river trips. The ones which are designed for extended wilderness trips are the touring kayaks and they are very stable and have good carrying capacity.

In order to be able to properly negotiate rapids, whitewater kayaks are designed with exceptional maneuverability in mind. They are also shorter and often, their bottoms are more rounded.

Last but not least, there are the downriver kayaks that are difficult to turn but these specialty boats are designed to travel quickly through the water and are usually very long and narrow while they have straight keel which allows them to track efficiently.




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