Human-powered watercraft
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Human-powered watercraft are watercraft propelled only by human power, instead of being propelled by wind power (via one or more sails) or an engine.
The three main methods of exerting human power are:
- directly from the hands or feet, sometimes aided by swimfins;
- through hand-operated oars, paddles, or poles, or;
- through the feet with pedals, crankset or treadle.[1]
While most human-powered watercraft use buoyancy to maintain their position relative to the surface of the water, a few, such as human-powered hydrofoils and human-powered submarines, use hydrofoils, either alone or in addition to buoyancy.
Oared craft
- Oars are held at one end, have a blade on the other end, and pivot in between in oarlocks. Such craft include:
- Using oars in pairs, with one hand on each oar, is two-oar sculling. The oars may also be called sculls.[2] Such craft include:
- Adirondack guideboat
- Banks dory, Gloucester dory, and McKenzie River dory
- Dinghy
- Sampans rowed by foot in Ninh Bình Province of northern Vietnam.[3]
- Scull, Single scull, Double scull, Quad scull, and Octuple scull
- Skiff
- Sneakbox
- Row boat
- Using oars individually, with both hands on a single oar, is sweep rowing or sweep-oar rowing.[2] In this case the rowers are usually paired so that there is an oar on each side of the boat. Such craft include:
- Coxless pair, Coxed pair, Coxless four, Coxed four, and Eight
- Galley, Dromon, Trainera, and Trireme
- Moving a single stern-mounted oar from side to side, while changing the angle of the blade so as to generate forward thrust on both strokes, is stern sculling or single-oar sculling.[4] Such craft include:
Paddlecraft
Paddled watercraft, or paddlecraft, uses one or more handheld paddles, each with a widened blade on one or both ends, to push water and propel the watercraft.. Commonly seen paddlecrafts include:
- Canoe, Outrigger canoe, Hasamibako bune,[5][6][7] Umiak, Waka, Pirogue, Shikara, Dragon boat, and Dugout
- Kayak, Sea kayak, Flyak, and Baidarka
- Coracle, Tarai-bune
- Paddleboard
Pedaled craft
Pedals are attached to a crank and propelled in circles, or to a treadle and reciprocated,[citation needed] with the feet. The collected power is then transferred to the water with a paddle wheel, flippers,[8][9][10] or to the air or water with a propeller.
Pedaled craft include:
Poled craft
Other types
Other types of human-powered watercraft include:
Gallery
Hand paddling surfboards
Polling a raft
Sculling a gondola
Paddling an umiak
Decavitator, the world's fastest human-powered watercraft, is a pedal-powered hydrofoil
Starting an AquaSkipper hydrofoil
Woman rowing sampan with her feet in Ninh Bình Province of northern Vietnam
Human powered aqua-cycle water trikes in the Pacific Ocean with Diamond Head, Hawaii in the background.
race in a wooden sow trough (ge: Sautrogrennen) in Bavaria, Germany (2012)
