Talk:Canoeing

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Links to olympic results broken
All 3 of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.195.232.141 (talk) 02:13, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

International and National Governing Bodies for Canoeing
If every different nation tries to define the word "Canoe" based on the type they use, we end up with a Tower of Babel.

Let's use existing well-established international standards in our definitions please.

The confusion that arises when it is not appreciated that "Canoe" is the name used internationally to refer to a generic hullshape that describes an elongated boat whose lines in plan view taper to a point at both ends. Within this Generic Shape are classified many types. For Example the North American Canoe, Canadian Canoe, Inuit Canoe (Otherwise known as a Kayak) - even (as someone has pointed out) a cutoff-motorised canoe.

The International and National Governing bodies of the sport of Canoeing are carefully named in the generic Canoe Sense.

See John MacGregor (sportsman)/ A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe/ International Canoe Federation / British Canoe Union.

The ICF slalom rules describe further specialisations on the two main types as follows: CATEGORIES Kayak Men (KM), Kayak Women (KW), Canadian Men (CM), Canadian Women (CW) 7.1.6 Kayaks are decked boats, which must be propelled by double bladed paddles and inside which the competitors sit. Canadian canoes are decked boats that must be propelled by single-bladed paddles and inside which the competitors kneel. The Flatwater rules describe different specialisations. "CATEGORIES Kayak Men, Kayak Women, Canadian Men, Canadian Women." However these rules do sometimes shorten "Canadian Canoe" to simply "Canoe". Not in all cases, though. see "rule 19.1 All kayaks and canoes shall carry a vertical plate, made of non-transparent material, marked with black numbers on a white background, indicating the lane. 19.2 The plates shall be placed on the centreline on the afterdeck (Canadian canoes foredeck)."

Further ICF Flatwater rules: "21.1 Kayaks shall be propelled solely by means of double-bladed paddles."

"21.2 Canadian canoes shall be propelled solely by means of single-bladed paddles."

"21.3 The paddles may not be fixed on the boats in any way."

Rule 21.3 clearly differentiates the type from Rowing craft.

See Also: Robert Louis Stevenson's 1876 voyage by canoe through the canals and rivers of France and Belgium, published in 1878 as An Inland Voyage, used "Rob Roy" canoes. Inuits and their specialised canoes hadn't been discovered at that point, so the word 'Kayak' doesn't come in to it.

Suggested Rule of thumb: A Kayak is an Inuit type of Canoe.

It would be extremely tiresome to have to define a new sport each time a new type of canoe was announced. Also, the Governing Bodies would have to add a new name to their title.

It's the ICF International Canoe Federation. (Not the International Canoe/Kayak Federation).

Take a parallel with Rowing. It isn't called "Rowing/ Sculling", where Rowing is carried out with a single oar and Sculling is performed with two oars per crewman.

(For Forth Canoe Club Edinburgh, Scotland. Affiliated to the Scottish Canoe Association). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.68.30.139 (talk) 22:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Accuracy
"Canoeing is the recreational or sporting activity of paddling a canoe or kayak." As far as I know, paddling a kayak is called kayaking... However, I do not know whether or not the word kayaking is used in the UK... Could anybody please clarify this? --JJF 05:07, 23 September 2005 (UTC)


 * As the third sentence of the article says, "Confusingly, canoeing is used as a generic term for both forms." As evidence...


 * From "The New Zealand Recreational Canoeing Association is the national organisation representing recreational whitewater canoeing and kayaking in New Zealand."


 * From "The Canadian Recreational Canoeing Association (CRCA) was conceived in 1971 as a result of the perceived need that recreational paddling enthusiasts from across Canada required a national body to co-ordinate the efforts of those involved in non-competitive canoeing and kayaking."


 * From "The American Canoe Association: Dedicated to helping people enjoy the outdoors using kayaks, canoes and rafts since 1880."


 * See also Canoe "Confusingly, the sport of canoeing, organised at the international level by the International Canoe Federation, uses the word canoe to cover both canoes as defined here, and kayaks..."


 * Admittedly, a more sensible generic term for canoeing and kayaking is "paddle sports". But this is the reality, as far as I can tell, so I'm going to remove the disputed tag. -- Mwanner | Talk 18:33, 23 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the clarification :) --JJF 19:03, 23 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I have changed some things around in the first paragraph to correctly indicate the difference between kayaking and canoeing. obviously there are many examples of kayaks being reffered to as canoes, but as per the oxford english dictionary and all kayaking professionals (such as myself) the correct term for kayaking is kayaking, not canoeing. Although the terms are commonly misused, I have changed it so it is correct (remember this is a NPOV encyclopedia) whilst still outlining there is much confusion. Bennyboyz3000 08:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've tried yet another version for the canoe v kayak thing. Benny, I know you and many others prefer to use the word kayaking but I dont think you can say it is exactly incorrect to say canoeing includes kayaking, given that the ICF, ACA, BCU etc all use the word canoe/canoeing in their titles to include all forms (canoe/kayak/dragon boat, etc). At worst they are alternative uses rather than one being right and one being wtong. Personally I think that if we are to be NPOV we should give preference to the official name rather than what the participants say. especially as that seems to vary from place to place. But we've been round the houses on this so many times before it is probably impossible to satisfy everyone! Jameswilson

A kayak can be seen as a special kind of canoe -- like a canoe is a boat, but a boat is not a canoe. When exactly a canoe can be called a kayak is difficult to determine, and often arbitrary. Nevertheless, I think it is the best workable way to look upon this matter, in my opinion and experience. Kanoniem 11:51, 22 July 2007 (UTC) (Dirk Barends)


 * polynesian canoes need to be bought into the mix. some of the great sea adventures involved polynesian canoes. they also involved the use of sailTundrabuggy (talk) 23:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Why the confusion? Canoe is the descriptor of a generic hull-shape meaning "pointed at both ends". Canoe is the species. The confusion occurs when the same word is used as name for a specific type i.e. North American Canoe. Solve the 'Canosion" by inventing a distinct word for the North American Traditional Canoe, and the problem will go away. We in Europe have Canoeing as a sport that includes boats of the classificaion of hullshpes that are pointed at both ends. The Americans don't like the term "Canadian" canoe that is used by the ICF to mean "Boat, classification 'C' for Canadian, paddled with single bladed paddle, kneeling".Hence we now have to have the ugly terminology "kayaking and canoeing". Even the professionals in the British Canoe Union have forgotten the meaning of the word that describes completely, their sport. The Football Association of England have the same confusion as they classify their (Soccer) sport as "Football", when in fact there are many types of 'Football' apart from 'Soccer'. (Rugby-football, Australian Rules-Football, American-Football etc). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.66.73.81 (talk) 19:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I am an European (canoe paddler), and I too don't like the designation Canadian for canoe, not only because of all those kayakers who have asked me why I don’t paddle a real canoe (a kayak they mean...), but also because the consequence doesn't sound right: canadianer, closed canadian, sea canadian, freestyle canadian, whitewater canadian, canadian canadian, Inuit canadian, Outrigger canadian, Dragon canadian, canadian instructor, canadian trainer, canadian tour, etc.Kanoniem (talk) 16:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Double Ended vs Flat Ended
the statement that canoes are "pointed at both ends" is false. there exist canoes with one end flat for purposes of small motors. In fact when selling a canoe it is recommended to advertise whether or not it is double or flat ended canoe because the audiences are different.Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Merge with Canoe?
Lots of information on the Canoe article relates to the act of Canoeing. We could try to make a distinction, and move such information to the Canoeing article here. But do we really need both as separate articles?. In the past we also accidently created dupllication with a Kayaking article distinct from Kayak article, but decided to merge 'kayaking' into 'kayak'. Should we do the same here? -- Nojer2 09:28, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * This article discusses the activity of canoeing as a sport and recreation, whereas the Canoe article discusses the boat itself. No merge is necessary, except for the portion in the intro on the different canoe types (I'll do that soon). -- P199 21:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Well that's a pretty decisive answer. I'm not so convinced. There's now a whole big section called Canoe Use of a canoe is... Canoeing isn't it? Increasingly I'm thinking it's not sensible to develope Canoe and Canoeing articles in parallel. I understand that the words mean different things, and so we can try to create distinct articles, but I think it would come together more effectively as a single article.
 * Just a thought. I dont feel very strongly about it. I'm a Kayaker after all! :-P -- Nojer2 17:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I'd like to have two separate pages for recreational canoeing and the competitive sport, ie move any sport stuff on here to Canoe racing. Jameswilson 23:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * This article is generic, meaning it covers all aspects of canoeing activities. It is therefore appropriate to make mention of the sporting aspect but the specifics of the sport are dealt with in Canoe racing. Looking at all the links, there are several articles already that deal with the various aspects of canoeing. I would suggest therefore to leave this article as is, since it links to all the other canoeing articles, making it a handy reference. -- P199 14:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Short Documentary on Canoeing
The Philadelphia Inquirer has done a short documentary video about canoeing. I have posted a link to the video under external links. It gives a very good visual guide to canoeing. Ksensenig (talk) 20:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Canoer &rarr; Canoeist
There is a proposal underway at WP:CFD to change the name of categories using the term "canoer" to "canoeist" 9which is a far more widely-used term). Please feel free to comment at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_January_3. Grutness...wha?  01:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

what's in a name
There is such a difference between the "shells" used for racing from the recreational and tripping canoes used or seen by most people that this article is mixing apples and oranges. Just because the name is the same doesn't make them the same. Combining them with kayaks is even more fun! What is the target audience? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.50.88.119 (talk) 22:05, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Large amount of changes today
A large amount of excellent material was added today. But is is so whitewater-oriented that it introduced some errors regarding the common forms of canoeing. Also introduced some form issues. Some too-detailed stuff was put into the lead, and which is not in the body of the article. We can just sort through it over time.  North8000  (talk) 17:01, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I plan to delete the "types of canoes" section
I plan to delete the "types of canoes" section. I think that this is needed 4 times over:

Sincerely,  North8000  (talk) 14:46, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) It has nowhere the sourcing needed. The only sourcing is in the heading, and it is a (for this use) a very low grade tertiary source. I say low grade because the poster invented a system of "canoe types" which is non-existent except on that page and which has little basis in reality. If the reference has anything on canoeing' I'll find a way to save it.
 * 2) The wp material invents even more stuff which is not even in that article.
 * 3) Off topic. The article subject is canoeing, not canoes.
 * 4) Duplication. There is a canoe article. And this does not summarize it, it conflicts with it.

Challenge...what should this article be about?
"Canoeing" is the act of paddling or using a canoe. And generally it would encompass various other activities that involve canoeing. (e.g. canoe camping, canoe racing). Pretty much all of these are covered by other articles. So I guess that some potential answers to the titled question are:


 * 1) It should not exist as a separate article
 * 2) Exist as an expanded definition, with lots of internal links to the other canoeing topics/ articles.
 * 3) Briefly cover the canoeing topics, with lots of links to those articles.

I think that right now the article is somewhere between #2 and #3. I tend to think it should be #3 and intend to work it more towards that. But #1 or #2 would also be fine with me.  North8000  (talk) 15:59, 21 November 2017 (UTC)