Kayak
Kayak
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Kayak

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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 (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.

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 hunters in subarctic regions of the world.

Kayaks (Inuktitut: qajaq (ᖃᔭᖅ Inuktitut pronunciation: [qaˈjaq]), Yup'ik: qayaq (from qai- "surface; top"), Aleut: Iqyax) 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.[citation needed] These first kayaks were constructed from stitched seal or other animal skins stretched over a wood or whalebone-skeleton frame. (Western Alaskan Natives used wood whereas the eastern Inuit used whalebone due to the treeless landscape.)[citation needed] 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 5.2 to 9.1 m (17 to 30 ft), 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 (in particular in a wet exit after a capsizing).

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