Best River Kayaks - Everything You Need to Know!

Ken Whiting with PaddleTV with yet another paddling tip and in this video we're talking about what are the best kayaks for river kayaking and it's something that's top of mind right now because I just finished an amazing four-day backcountry river trip and I took a type of boat that the river rarely sees. More specifically, I took an inflatable kayak down a river that usually only sees canoes. It's an iconic classic canoe tripping river and there was a time where I thought I might have made a big mistake by doing that. Now I'm not going to spoil the surprise because you can watch the full adventure on my other YouTube channel at Ken Whiting Adventures. I will leave a link to that video in the description box down below. It's top of mind right now what kayak is best for river kayaking and so let's dive right into it. Now first off the type of river that you're dealing with is going to have a profound impact on what type of kayak is appropriate. When I say what type of river there's really two things that matter. The width or the size of the river but also and probably more importantly the current that you find on this river or the section of the river that you want to paddle. It might just be mild current. It might be actual white water and real rapids or there might not be really any perceptible current on the river. But let's start by talking about a river that has no current or or just very mild current. And what's mild current? Well mild current is current that isn't going to create waves of any significance and isn't going to impede your ability to paddle upstream. It might slow you down a little but it's not going to prevent you from paddling upstream. And on a river like that very simply almost any kayak is going to do the trick. In particular when a river is narrow where you can never travel further from shore than you can comfortably swim if you were to capsize unexpectedly. Now some rivers can be extremely wide and any kayak will still do on an ultra wide river as long as you stay close enough to shore so that if you were to capsize unexpectedly you could just swim yourself and your boat to shore. But if you're on a wide river and you want to travel further from shore then you can comfortably swim. You need to have a boat that has well two things you need a boat that has flotation so that if you were to capsize unexpectedly out in the middle of the river the boat's going to float nice and high in the water so that you're able to do a re-entry. You're able to get back into that kayak on the water because that's really your only option. If you can't swim to shore swim the boat shore you have to be able to get back into the boat on the water so you can get to shore. And that means not only having a boat that has flotation but you having the skills to be able to re-enter a kayak from the water and that's something that you have to practice. You may or may not need to take training for it doesn't matter you just need to have confidence that you can get back into your into your boat from the water if you ended up in swimming for some reason. If you start dealing with rivers that have a little bit more current maybe even some class 1 class 2 whitewater and when I talk about class 1 class 2 whitewater really what I'm talking about is fast moving water that is creating some waves maybe some features but whitewater or rapids don't require a lot of maneuvering. Now if you're dealing with a river with stronger current the boat you choose makes a bigger difference for a couple of reasons. For one thing the stronger current is more likely to capsize you and you need a kayak that's easier to deal with if you do capsize in strong current. Inflatable kayaks and sit on top kayaks are great options in particular for beginner and novice paddlers and for a few reasons. For one thing they're inherently very stable and so they'll reduce the chances of you capsizing to begin with but if you do end up capsizing both inflatables and sit on top kayaks are filled with air so they're not going to swamp. They may not even flip and if they do flip you just roll them upright and then you can get back onto them and when it comes to getting back onto them they are easier to re-enter or get back onto than sit inside kayaks. Still not easy something you have to practice if you're going to paddle in strong current but they're definitely easier to get back into. Now sit inside kayaks can also be good kayaks for paddling in strong current but they're definitely not as forgiving as inflatables or sit on top kayaks. For one thing well recreational sit inside kayaks can be as stable as inflatables and sit on top kayaks but touring kayaks or sea kayaks definitely aren't as stable and so you're more likely to capsize in one of those boats but more importantly it's how your boat how easily your boat is dealt with if you do capsize and swim. Sit inside kayaks when you swim and you capsize and swim they fill with water and they're much more difficult to deal with especially when you have strong current pushing that boat around and so you need a sit inside kayak that has flotation and there's a couple different ways a sit inside kayak can have flotation. For one a sit inside kayak can have bulkheads. Bulkheads are walls inside the kayak that separate the kayak into different compartments. On a very bare minimum level a sit inside kayak and this is mostly some recreational kayaks will have this some recreational kayaks won't have any bulkheads but some better recreational kayaks will have a bulkhead right behind the seat and that separates the whole back of the kayak into its own compartment. So that if you were to flip and swim only the cockpit in the front of the kayak is going to fill with water. The back of the kayak is going to stay filled with air. Better recreational kayaks or touring kayaks and sea kayaks will have two bulkheads. The one behind the seat to separate the stern into its own compartment and one right in front of the feet to separate the front of the kayak into its own compartment. So if you were to capsize only the center cockpit area where you sit is going to fill with water. The two ends of the kayak are going to be holding a ton of air. The boat is going to float so much higher it's going to be so much more easily dealt with whether you're swimming it to shore where whether someone's towing it to shore whatever you're doing even getting back into the boat if that's what you're doing getting back into the boat from the water. It's also a whole lot easier to deal with once you get to shore and need to empty it out because there's so much less water in the boat. If your kayak doesn't have bulkheads all isn't lost. Some portable sin side kayaks high performance ones won't have bulkheads and some recreational kayaks just won't have bulkheads. If yours doesn't have bulkhead or bulkhead or bulkheads then you can use flotation bags and flotation bags just go into the stern and into the bow of the kayak fill up that space so that less water gets in the boat and the boat will float higher. You just have to make sure that those flotation bags if you're in current and swamped those flotation bags are secured in the kayak enough so that they're not going to just come out pop out and and now you have a kayak that's not going to be floating very well and float flotation bags that are drifting away. Now if you're dealing with a river or a section of river that has actual white water even fairly mild white water the type of kayak you can use narrows down even more. The big issues are you need to deal with waves breaking on your boat and so waves that can swamp your kayak. You need to have a boat that can just deal with the white water and avoid capsizing and you need a boat that you can handle or deal with if you do end up capsizing and swimming. Inflatable kayaks and sit on top kayaks are still great options for these types of rivers because well for one they don't swamp they're filled with air and so even if a wave breaks on top of you water will drain out it's not going to swamp. If you do end up capsizing them well they're filled with air and so they're easy to deal with and also they're easy to get back onto relatively speaking. Sit inside kayaks can also be good for mild to moderate white water but the type of sit inside kayak you have to have does narrower it changes. You need a sit inside kayak that has a smaller cockpit that's designed to use a skirt and what that skirt does is it seals the boat up so that waves that are breaking on you aren't going to just end up in your boat the skirt is going to shed that water away. Touring kayaks, sea kayaks and white water kayaks are your good options. Recreational kayaks typically have big cockpits and they're not really designed to be used with skirts and even if you do have a big skirt for a recreational kayak it's not going to provide a good enough seal so that a wave that crashes on it won't pop it blow it and your kayak will swamp. Now as the white water gets more challenging the types of kayaks that are ideally suited for it are fewer. White water kayaks are probably the best choice because they're designed to use a skirt and they're short they're nimble fast maneuvering and designed to deal with waves but inflatable kayaks are also great choices especially for people who don't want to be inside a kayak and don't want to or haven't learned a role yet. White water specific inflatable kayaks in particular can be extremely maneuverable and can deal with some very challenging white water. There are other types of kayaks that are great for challenging white water. There's packrafts which are designed to allow paddlers to hike a portable inflatable kayak deep into the backcountry because they're so small and light but packrafts can be high performance white water boats as well. And then you have something that's not as common but a type of kayak that I used for a four-day white water multi-day trip or a five-day white water multi-day trip that I did last year. It's called a crossover kayak and a crossover kayak is designed to provide the best of flat water paddling with the best of white water paddling. It's a hybrid kayak. It looks very much like a white water kayak. It has a small cockpit is designed to be used with the skirt but it's a little longer than most white water kayaks and it has a hatch in the back, a bulkhead to separate the whole stern into its own compartment. Great for multi-day trips and it also has a drop skeg in the back to allow the kayak to track much better when you're dealing with flat sections lakes or rivers with big flat zones and then you can pop that skeg up when you're dealing with the white water itself. Challenging white water can also be tackled with other types of boats with things like touring kayaks but the reality is they're not ideally suited for challenging white water but as long as a kayak can be used with a skirt or won't swamp because it's filled with air and if it does capsize it has bulkheads or flotation to help with the rescue slash recovery process then it is appropriate for challenging white water. The limiting factor becomes your skill level and as an example I've tested a few long sea kayaks in some very challenging white water. They're not the ideal boats for this but because of my paddling experience and because these boats have bulkheads in them and they're designed to be used with the skirt I was I had the option to take these boats in onto rivers with challenging white water even if it wasn't the best decision. Well I hope that provides some clarity on what are the boat best kayaks for river running. I've tested almost a hundred different kayaks over the past four years and done full reviews of all of them and you can find those here on my PaddleTV channel. If there's a certain boat you want to know about get a review about well do a search on the channel first to make sure that I haven't done already because there's a good chance I have and if I haven't leave a comment down below and let me know what boat you want to see reviewed. Better yet email the manufacturer and tell them to get me a boat to test because that's usually my biggest challenge. Otherwise check out some of my river adventures on my Ken Whiting Adventures YouTube channel and we'll see you again soon for another paddling tip, gear review, or paddling adventure. Thanks for watching. That's all I got to say. Cut! Why are you still watching? If you really want to watch more you can go to my other channel Ken Whiting Adventures. Long videos of me going on adventures that are way more interesting than this.