CANOEING Chapter I Prepared by: Xabier Sanjuan A [Home:http://www.oocities.org/xabier_sanjuan_a]

Since Remote times human beings have been using different types of crafts for navigating trough the rivers, lakes and seas. Looking for in the history, the oldest testimony that we find represents a canoe and a paddle, of silver, with more than six thousand years of antiquity, discovered by the English archaeologist Sir Leonard Wooley, in the tomb of the Sumerian King, "en Ur", at the banks of the Eufrates river. With this craft the king could carry out his last trip on the after life river. This motive will repeat along the humankind history, in other civilizations.

On ancient Egyptian drawings appears crafts moved with paddles. Egyptians, in the pyramids age, navigated the Nile waters aboard narrow boats built with bunches of rush, tied with ropes and leather straps. At the peninsula of Yucatan (Central America), in Chichen Itzá, another representation of canoes appears in a thousand hundred fifty year-old BC mural, and at the ruins of Tikal, in the heart of Guatemala, there are bones of 700 BC with engravings that represent canoes.

In the Caribbean coasts, when Christopher Columbus arrived to the American Continent, the Indigenous approached to the three Colon's ships, with boats made from a single piece. A big trunk of tree was hollowed with fire, and the tips were sharpened for a better water cutting. These canoes were continued building and using until the present time. In the literary field Christopher Columbus is the one who, through his writings, introduces the word "canoe"(Indian canoe) in Europe, and Garcilaso de La Vega was the one that defined the concept like a craft without cover. On the other hand the English adopted the word canoe for defining this type of crafts in general.

The natives of the costs and rivers of Africa used from remote times the same technique of canoes building used by the American Indigenous.

The real origin of the canoe was in the eastern coast of Canada, for this reason is now generally called as "Canadian Canoe". Used by the primitive people of Canada to travel large distances with their goods, or to carry the mail, taking advantage in some cases for the kindness of the waters and on the other hand, overcoming the aggressiveness of rapids and currents. The 'Red Indians' of North America used the canoes as their medium of life, for the transport, hunting, fishing and the war.

 

In their origins this type of crafts were built with hollow trunks of trees or skins of animals, previously treated. Later were made with wood and bones framework, covered with birch-bark skins and animals leathers.  The colonists, leather's hunters and gold searchers, soon acquired this transport medium for the rivers and lakes of Canada.

 

In Britain, primitive crafts were developed in slightly different way, and called "Coracles". These were made almost round, with a skin covering over a wattle framework. In Ireland, the "Curraghs" were the forerunners of much modern canoe building methods, although the shape is practically the same of some of the primitive canoes. The British also took the idea of canoes in America, and started to build some canoes with varnished wood ribbons, covered with waterproof canvas, for recreational and touring use.

The current kayak, descend from the "boat of men" (Ka-i-ak) from the Eskimos. Built with bones and skins of animals, practically covered in its entirety and whose maximum sophistication is reached in Greenland. Fundamentally used to hunt and to fish. The firsts to know of the Esquimo kayak were the British, who introduced it to Europe at the end of the IXX century (1890).

In the 1840's decade, the kayaking started to function as a sport. The birth of kayaking as we know today, is usually assumed to date from the kayak originated in 1865 by the Scottish John MacGregor, a barrister resident in London. He is the most well known universal traveler in the world of the canoeing. During 1865, MacGregor was dedicated to travel over the British rivers. For the next years he undertook numerous trips by lakes and rivers of the Nordic countries and of Central Europe (France, Germany and Switzerland); with his Rob Roy's kayak also arrived to the Red Sea, navigated in the Jordan, in the Suez channel and in the Nile river. He named it "Rob-Roy", in honor to the famous "Rob-Roy" of the Scottish clan MacGregor.

He conceived the idea of light boat, just big enough to carry himself, decked over except for a small hole at the middle of the boat, in which he sat, and propelled, by a double-bladed paddle or a small sail. The kayak "Rob-Roy" has a length of 4 m, a width of 75 cm and its weight is of about 30 Kg. It was built in the traditional way, from a wood framework, covered with waterproof canvas. John MacGregor, reached such a prestige that he was invited to visit Paris in 1867 by Napoleon III, so that he organized a regatta in the Sena river with reason of the Universal Exhibition. His book, A Thousand of Miles in the canoe Rob Roy, relates this singular navigator's adventures.

At the European continent, the first kayaks appeared in 1890, diffusing in Switzerland and Germany. Used at the beginning for excursionist purposes, and later for competition too. The first kayaks built in Europe were made in the same way and with the same materials used by the Eskimos. During long time, the "Rob-Roy" was the standard kayak model.

Due to the main purposes were touring and comfort, the kayaks were built with detachable frameworks, that allowed them to be comfortable transported inside a knapsack, and quickly assembled at the desired place. Later on, the kayaks were built with more width in the stern than in the remainder craft, until one day when a German called Heyman, had the occurrence to say: "Nature is our model", and then, he started to build kayaks with a fish shape: wide in the bow, and narrow in the stern. Inclusive they were the fastest of the moment.

A typical detachable kayak was originated in Germany during the IXX century, and named "Faltboote" (Foldboat). It was built with a wood framework, and covered with a waterproof canvas.

On January 19th, 1924, was founded the I.C.F (International Canoe Federation) in the face of the necessity for regrouping the numerous Canoeing Associations that existed at world level, most dedicated to the Nautical Touring, although some competitions were performed at local level. In that moment the International Canoe Federation is recognized with the name of Internacionale Repräsentantschaft für Kanusport, and was constituted by Austria, Denmark, Germany and Sweden.

But previously, toward 1880, a high number of Canadian canoes had begun the popularity of this sport. In Europe the Association that was founded in Wroclaw, in 1876, is the one known as the most veteran. For the first time, at the Olympic games of Paris in 1924, took place some Kayak exhibitions with 11 canoeists, but it is not until 1936, at the Olympic games of Berlin, when for the first time this sport acquires the Olympic category. At the exhibitions of 1924, the Germans with their "fish-kayaks" competed and were overcome by the new tetrahedral kayaks designed and paddled by the Swedes. On 1936, for the Olympiad of Berlin, was created the regulations that established the official kayak dimensions that currently rules.  Another great innovations were made by the Austrians, who introduced in these Olympic Games the kayaks built from "bark", with smooth surfaces and uniform finish of considerable advantages, because the smooth surface reduces to a minimum the water resistance, and makes easy the advance of the kayak. Someday near the end of the 1930's decade, William Fronde, a British naval designer, discovered that the kayaks were faster if they were longer. Then, everybody began to build kayaks more and more long, because at that time, the competition kayaks were of free measures and shapes.  Little by little, these crafts were changing up to the nowadays- sophisticated competition kayaks and canoes.

Currently, according to the competition regulations of the I.C.F, it can be used any kind of material for the kayak building, but the total weight, shape and water contact-surface of the kayak must be the specified by the rules. The possibility to use any building material has been exploited to a maximum by the kayak builders, using treated woods, metals, plastics and fibers, that makes the kayaks more light with improved resistance and long-standing. Currently, the noblest wood, worked meetly, has taken to the construction of canoes and kayaks extremely slight and, more recently, the carbon and kevlar fibers, have added a superior resistance and less weight to these crafts.

After the Second World War, kayaking has become extremely popular; at first possible because it provided a cheap way of getting afloat and navigate, when supplies were short. The general boating boom of the 1950's benefited it. The popularity of "Slalom" as a spectacle did much to show kayaking to the public, and to educate them on this technique, largely through the television media at the first instance.

The canoe is a craft of transport, open, and the canoeist is impelled with a paddle of a single leaf, sits down or leans on one or the two knees, and doesn't have another form of governing the craft that the own paddle, by means of a technique that is denominated re-paddling. This craft can be manned in canoes of Touring by so much quantity of canoeists it is wanted, limited of course, by the size of the canoe. For competition canoes, at the present time, only those of one, two or four places are authorized, what gives origin to what technically is known in the world of the competition as C-1, C2 and C-4.

The other great modality of canoe is the kayaking where the canoeist goes sat down, advancing with a paddle of double leaf and controls the direction of the craft with the paddle or with a helm that is managed with the feet. The crew number can be of one, two or four, (K-1, k-2 and K-4) so much for the Touring models as for the competition ones.

For competitions, canoes were used after the kayaks.
 

The paddle, in any type of canoeing craft, constitute the only drive element authorized for the competition canoes, with no limitation at the moment for it weight and measures. Nevertheless, it has been contemplating a continuous evolution in it design during the last years, that impacts in a bigger navigating speed.

There is an observation that we should not forget when speaking of Canoeing: its difference with the Rowing. Both are sports that, although in their day they were contained in a single Federation, it was only by virtue of a common denominator: the advance on the water without more propulsion than the one that the canoeist can give to his craft. But there are two aspects that differentiate them: in the canoe or kayak the canoeist navigates frontly to the advance direction, while in the Rowing the athlete advances turned. This is because goes sat down in the opposite direction of the craft advance.

The other great difference is the way to impel the craft: the canoeist doesn't support the paddle in the canoe or kayak, while in the Rowing there is a support point on the craft.

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