Design
The canoe (or just 'boat') used in casual whitewater canoeing is different from those used in whitewater racing. Traditionally, canoes were made of tree bark, sewn with tree roots and sealed with resin. Early whitewater boats were made of wood followed by aluminum and later fiberglass or kevlar, followed by more exotic composite materials including spectra, vectran and carbon fiber. The various composite materials are still preferred for racing due to the light weight, but most modern recreational whitewater boats are typically rotomoulded from a tough plastic or molded from a plastic laminate called Royalex which is an ABS plastic that is slightly flexible and very durable, if easily scratched but repairable using either plastic welding or a variety of patch bonding techniques. Boats can range in size from barely long enough to hold the paddler (around 6 ft (1.8 m) long), up to 12 ft (3.7 m) or longer for solo boats and typically 14-16ft for tandem boats.
Read more about this topic: Whitewater Canoeing
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