Whitewater canoeing

Early whitewater boats were made of wood followed by aluminium and later fiberglass or kevlar, followed by more exotic composite materials including spectra, vectran and carbon fiber.

The raft, the catamaran, the canoe and the kayak evolved depending on the needs and environment of the indigenous peoples in different parts of the world.

The Greek, Herodotus, 484-425 BC, wrote in his travel diaries about boats with which merchandise was brought from Armenia to Babylon.

With the Industrial Revolution leading to more leisure time in the middle of the 19th century, people in Europe started to enjoy floating down rivers in all kinds of contraptions taking in nature previously only available to a selected few.

Creeking is perhaps best thought of as a subcategory of river running, involving very technical and difficult rapids, typically in the Grade/Class IV to VI range.

While people will differ on the definition, creeking generally involves higher gradient, approaching or in excess of 100 ft per mi (19 m per km), and is likely to include running ledges, slides, and waterfalls on relatively small and tight rivers, though some will allow for very large and big volume rivers in their definition.

Canoes used for creeking usually have higher volume (more gallons or liters of displacement) and more rounded bow and stern, as these features provide an extra margin of safety' against the likelihood of pinning, and will resurface more quickly and controllably when coming off larger drops.

Pro level slalom competitions have specific length (350 cm (140 in) for kayaks - new rules), width, and weight requirements for the boats, which will be made out of kevlar/fiberglass/carbon fiber composites to be lightweight and have faster hull speed.

More recently, aerial moves have become accessible, where paddlers perform tricks having gained air from using the speed and bounce of the wave.

This technique is used to avoid submerging the bow of the canoe by ensuring it lands flat when it hits the base of the waterfall.

The term is an onomatopoeia which mimics the sound that is usually created when the hull of the canoe makes contact with water at the base of the waterfall.