Talk:Canoe (disambiguation)

North American bias
I made an edit to the article that attempted to address what I see as the common ambiguity.

I also noted that the article was very "North America uses this definition and everyone else is wrong" overtone to the article and so attempted to remove the bias. I made an assumption that the split is, as usual, between USA & Canada, and the other English speaking countries - a split that is probably likely due to the English (as in England's) usage being spread through, what was, the British Empire (Canada being a likely exception due to its proximity to the USA).

I also tried to address the inconsistent capitalisation of names of canoe. I saw the capitalisation as unnecessary and so de-capitalised them, but that might have been the wrong choice.

I since note that the real difference between the two types of canoe(BrE) are not in whether or not they have an open or closed top, but in the number of blades on the paddle used to power them. Note that, today, in competition, both types can be either closed or open top - it more depends on whether you want/need to keep water out than the type of vehicle. In flat-water racing, for example, the need to keep the water out is not a high as for white-water racing, and so some opt not to use a cover. See in article on Canoeing the image labelled "Flat-water K4 racing".

As to which is 'correct', I attemped to see what the IOC and ICF use. I looked this up several years ago on the IOC web site, and I recall it used the BrE usage, but looking it up now shows the AmE usage. However, it is worth noting that the 'International Canoe Federation' covers both types of vehicle, yet its name would seem to favour the BrE definition, and yet the contents of its web site seem to refer to use 'canoe' to refer the the 'Canadian canoe', favouring the AmE definition. Nicely mixed, I guess.

Davidmaxwaterman (talk) 03:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge with canoe

 * Pirogue, like a canoe but flat-bottomed and can be paddled or punted
 * Outrigger canoe, a seagoing boat with one or more outriggers
 * Waka (canoe), a type of Māori watercraft

should somehow be merged into canoe as these are just type of canoes and not a matter of disambiguation.

And kayak needs to be expanded, possibly like this:


 * Kayak, referred to as canoe in the early 1900s and still in the United Kingdom (and as a concept in other European countries such as Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands).

Kanoniem (talk) 08:06, 12 May 2018 (UTC)