Whitewater Kayak 100

Course Syllabus

Whitewater Kayaking 100 is a two-day course design as an introduction to whitewater kayaking. It introduces prospective paddlers to key concepts and execution of river running, in a safe and supportive environment. Subject to availability, there is a pool session before we head out to the chilly river. The course begins by introducing core paddle strokes on flat water, and then progresses into grade 1+ moving water where the interaction of the boat, paddle, and paddler with currents is introduced. From there we progress, based on comfort, additional skills and work to refine the core whitewater paddling skills of the eddy turn and ferry.

On day two the grade increases to 2- and we add additional complexity, pushing students to link skills together. A stress is made on paddling more efficiently, making the river currents work for you instead of fighting against them.

Individuals who are pro-active in their learning and become, "students of the sport," tend to find more success than those who absorb knowledge more passively. We encourage you here to look at the resources we provide as means of further learning. If you have limited time try to watch one skill video per category. The gear knowledge you can absorb at a later date as the club provides rental gear to students.

Learning Tasks

Core Concepts

The Golden Rules of Kayaking are as follows:

  1. Torso Rotation: bring the boat to the paddle, not the other way around.
  2. Active Paddle: put your paddle in the water, like you mean it. No air paddling, no hesitation.
  3. Upper/Lower Body Separation: just like skiing, your legs and hips need to be oriented and angled in a different direction than your upper body, which you typically want to keep centered over the boat.
  4. Look where you want to go: don't look at the scary rapid, look at your line and follow it.

If you remember anything from this syllabus, remember the above four items. They will be referred to throughout the course.

Day 1 Skills

For Whitewater Kayak 100, on the first day, you will learn a large number of skills. The more you can prepare, both by theoretical learning, and flatwater practice and instruction. In terms of learning, visual videos are often the best. Here we provide a list of online videos for each skill from a range of good instructional sources such as Aquabatics, Eric Jackson, Michele Ramazza, and others. Bold indicates the recommended video when multiple options are provided. Keeners can watch them all:

  • Portaging the boat: The #2 injury suffered by whitewater kayakers is a sprained ankle.
  • Wet exit: Here we will show you how to exit your boat safely if you capsize.
  • Sweep stroke: Before we teach you where the gas pedal is, we want to teach you first how to brake and turn the boat. The key aspect of the sweep is to wind-up your torso in the direction you want to turn, put the paddle in the water, and then unwind the torso. Pulling with the arms is a sign of bad form. The boat is held flat so it spins easily without the edges catching.
  • Forward stroke: Paddle goes in at the knees, out at the hips. The shaft is near vertical, and the blade strikes the water at a 90° angle. Paddling with our arms is bad, they are weak limp noodles compared to our backs and core muscles. Therefore the key point in the forward stroke is torso rotation, same as the sweep. Note that the forward stroke and sweep stroke are a continuum. The more vertical your stroke, the more forward momentum you generate. The more horizontal, the more spin momentum. For both strokes you employ the same torso rotation.
  • Eddy turns (with sweeps): Eddies are created by points of drag in the river (rocks, etc.) where the current reverses upstream. They form places of safety on the river where one can stop to catch one's breath and evaluate the situation. However, the river guards its eddies jealously with eddy lines. Here the paddler will rapidly transition from the current flowing downstream to upstream. The goal is to cross the eddy line quickly and as high as possible to
  • Boat tilt: There are levels of tilt. The first level you put your weight into one bum cheek. The third level the recessed edges (chines) on your boat are level with the water. We always tilt into a turn, the same as a bicycle or skiing.
  • Ferrying:

Day 2

Gear

We will briefly cover boat hulls, boat outfitting, paddles, and apparel during the course. The goal here is to introduce you to basic concepts and hopefully provide you with enough information to avoid poor purchase choices if you are buying used gear. Furthermore outfitting boats to the correct degree of snugness so your hip and knees can transfer power effectively is a bit of an art and well worth learning if your body type is not that of Mr. Joe Average Kayak Designer. Ideally this briefing is done after a pool session to save time on the river.

If you have your own gear and plan to bring it, please consult with us first. Typically boats newer than 2010 vintage are of far superior design to older boats, and similarly we hope you don't show up with a 90° feather paddle. You can consider renting from SIW as an opportunity to try more modern gear.

Boats

There are a number of features to assess when examining a boat,

  1. Displacement (or Volume): Typically around 72 gallons for a small, 80 gal for a medium, and 88 gal for a large river runner or creekboat. Playboats are typically about 20 gallons smaller.
  2. Length: the longer the boat, the faster it it is.
  3. Width: the wider the boat, the more stable it is. However, very wide boats can be hard to keep on edge which makes fine adjustments to turning difficult.
  4. Rocker: When the hull is on the pavement, rocker is the distance from the tip of the bow (or stern) to the ground. More rocker results in a boat that wants to push up and over top of river features like holes.
  5. Bottom shape: the bottom of the hull can be displacement (rounded) or planing (flat), or some progressive blending of the two. Displacement hulls react in a predictable way

Two boats that look similar to the eye of a beginner may in fact paddle very differently in the hands of an advanced paddler.

There are broadly two basic categories of boats, downriver boats and play boats. Downriver boats are generally intended to convey the kayaker safely down the river, whereas play boats aim to do tricks on waves, holes, eddy lines, and other hydrotopographical features.

  • River Runner (Downriver): the classic whitewater kayak. A relatively high volume boat that is relatively symmetrical in volume between the bow and stern, has defined edges on the bottom and a planing (flat) bottom.
  • Creeker (Downriver): have a lot of volume, a lot of rocker, and often do not have edges in the hull, which make them less suitable for learning edge control as a beginner. Intended for waterfalls and similar steep class IV and onward features. There are some creekboats that dip their toes into the River Runner category, in that they still have edges and perhaps a semi-planing hull.
    • Racing creekers: such as the Pyranha 9R which are long and narrow for maximum speed on timed creek races such as the Green Race, or just juicing up the experience on your local creek that you've run twenty times. Not beginner friendly.
  • Half-slice (Both): advanced WW kayakers tend to prefer more playful options than the River Runner (although the stern is typically much longer and hence more voluminous than a traditional slice playboat and has more rocker).
  • Freestyle (Play): designed for doing big freestyle moves (flips, cartwheels, etc.) on standing waves and holes. Sometimes called 'spud' boats because their boxy construction looks like a potato. The island has one good freestyle feature, "Tarp-and-Play" on the Puntledge, and the occasional high water Nanaimo run. Otherwise these tend to be limited to the pool.
  • Slice (Play): usually in the form of a half-slice, which has a creeker bow and a narrow, slicey stern. Provides the means to surf with the tail but flotation in the bow for dealing with vertical drops. The Jackson Mix-master is one such example. Generally they require deeper water than what we have available on the island but the Cowichan canyon is a notable exception.
    • A subclass is the 3/4-slice like the Pyranha Ozone which has enough volume in the bow to negotiate class 3 but still provides plenty of play. It is somewhat comparable to going one size down in a half-slice.
  • River-play (Both): a hybrid between freestyle (playboats) and river runners. This style has largely gone out of fashion with the introduction of half-slices but used boats such as the Jackson Fun and Wavesport Fuse are often available on the secondary market. They are nearly as forgiving as river runners and can provide access to introduction river play such as surfing.

Generally as a beginner you want a boat known as a river runner or if you are more adventurous, a river-play boat.

Out fleet of kayaks are mostly Wavesport Diesels or Liquid Logic Remixes, or similar boats.

Paddles

[TODO] The offset angle between the two blades is typically Also beware of the rarely seen left-twist paddle if you are right-handed.

Helmet

A helmet is what protects your noggin from river rocks if you flip. It's generally the first item you should buy when you start investing in kayaking gear, as a proper fit is important. A helmet should come down to the brow and not be easily dislodged to expose the forehead. The most popular whitewater helmet among enthusiasts is without doubt the Sweet Rocker. WRSI provides a more budget conscious option. Full-face options are available; they provide face and nose protection at the expense of clearing water after rolling and making both speaking and listening to conversation much more difficult.

Spray Deck

There are many good brands of spray decks available such as Seals, Immersion Research, Snap Dragon, etc. The important thing to remember is there are two sizes to every spray deck: the tube (which you size to your waist), and the deck, which you size to your kayak. Having too small a deck means putting on your deck is a herculean effort, often requiring the help of another kayaker. Too big and it will pop off in a rapid when water pushes on it. Immersion Research sponsors a handy tool, Skirt Fit where you can find the appropriate circumference of the deck for your boat.

Decks can hold onto the kayak's cockpit coaming with either a bungee or an elastomeric rand. Rands are more resistant to implosion but more difficult to put on and off and they typically leak more unless they are very precisely sized. Since as a beginner you're probably not dropping 25' waterfalls, implosion is not a concern, so go with the bungee. Your abdominals will thank you later.

Personal Flotation Device

Paddlesports PFDs are typically low-cut with the flotation placed down around the abdomen so that movement of the shoulder girdle is not impeded. A whitewater PFD needs to be adjustable so that it snug and does not float up around the chin when swimming (Also: a drysuit adds additional flotation in addition to warmth.) Your PFD must have a whistle on it.

Drysuit

Considered a luxury in most of the whitewater world, where seasons are typically May-August. However in the Pacific Northwest, our season runs in the winter months, October-May, so we have the virtue of a long but very chilly paddling season. A drysuit adds significant safety, in terms of hypothermia and the extra flotation offered by the trapped air.

The club has a wide range of drysuits from Kokatat available for rent. Drysuits are required on club trips November-March, inclusive.

Footwear

...For creeking more aggressive...

Also be aware often in December and January the put-in and take-outs will have icy snow!