Kayak
A kayak is a small, narrow human-powered watercraft typically propelled by means of a long, double-bladed paddle. The word kayak originates from the Inuktitut word qajaq. In British English, the kayak is also considered to be a kind of canoe.
There are countless different types of kayaks due to the craft being easily adaptable for different environments and purposes. The traditional kayak has an enclosed deck and one or more cockpits, each seating one occupant or kayaker, differentiating the craft from an open-deck canoe. The cockpit is sometimes covered by a spray deck that prevents unwanted entry of water from waves or splashes. Even within these confines, kayaks vary vastly in respect to materials, length, and width, with some kayaks such as the sprint kayak designed to be fast and light, and others such as the whitewater kayak designed to be sturdy and maneuverable.
Some modern paddlecrafts, which still claim the title "kayak", remove integral parts of the traditional design; for instance, by eliminating the cockpit and seating the paddler on top of a canoe-like open deck, commonly known as a sit-on-top kayak. Other designs include inflated air chambers surrounding the craft; replacing the single hull with twin hulls; and replacing handheld paddles with other human-powered propulsion methods such as pedal-driven propeller and "flippers". Some kayaks are also fitted with external sources of propulsion, such as a battery-powered electric motor to drive a propeller or flippers, a sail, or even a completely independent gasoline outboard engine.
The kayak was first used by the indigenous Aleut, Inuit, Yupik and possibly Ainu hunters in subarctic regions of the world.
History
Original Aleutian kayaks, Yup'ik: qayaq were originally developed by the Inuit, Yup'ik, and Aleut. They used the boats to hunt on inland lakes, rivers and coastal waters of the Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic, Bering Sea and North Pacific oceans. These first kayaks were constructed from stitched seal or other animal skins stretched over a wood or whalebone-skeleton frame. Kayaks are believed to be at least 4,000 years old. The oldest kayaks remaining are exhibited in the North America department of the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich, with the oldest dating from 1577.Subarctic people made many types of boats for different purposes. The Aleut baidarka was made in double or triple cockpit designs, for hunting and transporting passengers or goods. An umiak is a large open-sea canoe, ranging from, made with seal skins and wood, originally paddled with single-bladed paddles and typically had more than one paddler.
Subarctic builders designed and built their boats based on their own experience and that of the generations before them passed on through oral tradition. The word "kayak" means "man's boat" or "hunter's boat", and subarctic kayaks were a personal craft, each built by the man who used it and closely fitting his size for maximum maneuverability. For this reason, kayaks were often designed ergonomically using one's own body proportions as units of measure. The paddler wore a tuilik, a garment that was stretched over the rim of the kayak coaming and sealed with drawstrings at the coaming, wrists, and hood edges. This enabled the "eskimo roll" and rescue to become the preferred methods of recovery after capsizing, especially as few Inuit could swim; their waters are too cold for a swimmer to survive for long.
Instead of a tuilik, most traditional kayakers today use a spray deck made of waterproof synthetic material stretchy enough to fit tightly around the cockpit rim and body of the kayaker, and which can be released rapidly from the cockpit to permit easy exit.
Inuit kayak builders had specific measurements for their boats. The length was typically three times the span of his outstretched arms. The width at the cockpit was the width of the builder's hips plus two fists. The typical depth was his fist plus the outstretched thumb. Thus typical dimensions were about long by wide by deep.
Traditional kayaks encompass three types: Baidarkas, from the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, the oldest design, whose rounded shape and numerous chines give them an almost blimp-like appearance; West Greenland kayaks, with fewer chines and a more angular shape, with gunwales rising to a point at the bow and stern; and East Greenland kayaks that appear similar to the West Greenland style, but often fit more snugly to the paddler and possess a steeper angle between gunwale and stem, which lends maneuverability.
Most of the Aleut people in the Aleutian Islands eastward to Greenland Inuit relied on the kayak for hunting a variety of prey—primarily seals, though whales and caribou were important in some areas. Skin-on-frame kayaks are still being used for hunting by Inuit in Greenland, because the smooth and flexible skin glides silently through the waves.
20th century & contemporary kayaks
Contemporary traditional-style kayaks trace their origins primarily to the native boats of Alaska, northern Canada, and Southwest Greenland. The use of fabric kayaks on wooden frames called a foldboat or folding kayak became widely popular in Europe beginning in 1907 when they were mass-produced by Johannes Klepper and others. This type of kayak was introduced to England and Europe by John MacGregor in 1860, but Klepper was the first person to mass-produce these boats made of collapsible wooden frames covered by waterproof rubberized canvas. By 1929, Klepper and Company were making 90 foldboats a day. Joined by other European manufacturers, by the mid-1930s there were an estimated half-million foldboat kayaks in use throughout Europe. First Nation masters of the roll taught this technique to Europeans during this time period.These boats were tough and intrepid individuals were soon doing amazing things in them. In June 1928, a 29-year-old German kayaker named Franz Romer rigged his foldboat with a sail and departed from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands carrying of tinned food and of fresh water, reaching Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands after and 58 days, becoming the first recorded person to traverse the Atlantic Ocean on a sea kayak. Romer continued west to Puerto Rico after resting for six weeks, planning to eventually arrive at New York City, but unfortunately perished at sea after leaving Port of San Juan on September 11 and running into the devastating Okeechobee hurricane some two days later at the southwestern edge of the Bermuda Triangle during his journey towards Florida. Four years later in May 1932, another German named Oskar Speck left Ulm and paddled his foldboat kayak southeast down the Danube, eventually reaching the Torres Strait Islands on the Australian north coast seven years later in September 1939, after having traveled roughly along the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Java Sea and Coral Sea.
These watercraft were brought to the United States and used competitively in 1940 at the first National Whitewater Championship held in America near Middledam, Maine, on the Rapid River. One "winner," Royal Little, crossed the finish line clinging to his overturned foldboat. Upstream, the river was "strewn with many badly buffeted and some wrecked boats." Two women were in the competition, Amy Lang and Marjory Hurd. With her partner Ken Hutchinson, Hurd won the double canoe race. Lang won the doubles foldboat event with her partner, Alexander "Zee" Grant.
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Alexander "Zee" Grant was most likely America's best foldboat pilot. Grant kayaked the Gates of Lodore on the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument in 1939 and the Middle Fork Salmon River in 1940. In 1941, Grant paddled a foldboat through Grand Canyon National Park. He outfitted his foldboat, named Escalante, with a sponson on each side of his boat and filled the boat with beach balls. As with nearly all American foldboat enthusiasts of the day, he did not know how to roll his boat.
Fiberglass mixed with resin composites, invented in the 1930s and 1940s, were soon used to make kayaks and this type of watercraft saw increased use during the 1950s, including in the US. Kayak Slalom World Champion Walter Kirschbaum built a fiberglass kayak and paddled it through Grand Canyon in June 1960. He knew how to roll and only swam once, in Hance Rapid. Like Grant's foldboat, Kirschbaum's fiberglass kayak had no seat and no thigh braces. In June 1987, Ed Gillet, using a stock off the shelf traditional design 20 foot long by 31 inch wide fiberglass tandem kayak paddled over 2,000 miles non-stop from Monterey, California to Hawaii, landing his vessel there on August 27, 1987, after 64 days of paddling. Gillet had navigated his kayak by using a traditional sextant and compass, along with approximately 600 pounds of food and water, including a device to convert sea water to fresh water. Within six days of reaching Hawaii, both he and his yellow kayak were featured on The Tonight Show, hosted by Johnny Carson.
Inflatable rubberized fabric boats were first introduced in Europe and rotomolded plastic kayaks first appeared in 1973. Most kayaks today are made from roto-molded polyethylene resins. The development of plastic and rubberized inflatable kayaks arguably initiated the development of freestyle kayaking as we see it today since these boats could be made smaller, stronger, and more resilient than fiberglass boats.
Design principles
Typically, kayak design is largely a matter of trade-offs: directional stability vs maneuverability; stability vs speed; and primary vs secondary stability. Multihull kayaks face a different set of trade-offs. The paddler's body shape and size is an integral part of the structure, and will also affect the trade-offs made.Attempting to lift and carry a kayak by oneself or improperly is a significant cause of kayaking injuries. Good lifting technique, sharing loads, and not using needlessly large and heavy kayaks prevent injuries.