Kayak

Man wearing helmet sitting in a fiberglass boat, paddling through frothy water — Whitewater kayaker at Great Falls, Virginia, United States

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 (IPA: [qajɑq]). 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.

Interior 360 degree photosphere of a kayak at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. *Click for an immersive 360 degree view*.

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 (which essentially modifies it into a sailboat), or even a completely independent gasoline outboard engine (which converts it into a de facto motorboat).

The kayak was first used by the indigenous Aleut, Inuit, Yupik and possibly Ainu people^[1] hunters in subarctic regions of the world.

^ There is scant evidence of Ainu peoples using the classic kayak design in prehistoric times. The following indicates that they did use skin-covered vessels, however: "Like the yara chisei, bark houses, ... yara chip, bark boats, were probably substitutes for the skin-covered boat, elsewhere surviving in the coracle and kayak. Skin-covered boats ... are referred to in old [Ainu] traditions. -Ainu material culture from the notes of N. G. Munro: in the archive of the Royal Anthropological Institute, British Museum, Department of Ethnography, 1994, p. 33

[1] There is scant evidence of Ainu peoples using the classic kayak design in prehistoric times. The following indicates that they did use skin-covered vessels, however: "Like the yara chisei, bark houses, ... yara chip, bark boats, were probably substitutes for the skin-covered boat, elsewhere surviving in the coracle and kayak. Skin-covered boats ... are referred to in old [Ainu] traditions. -Ainu material culture from the notes of N. G. Munro: in the archive of the Royal Anthropological Institute, British Museum, Department of Ethnography, 1994, p. 33

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