How to Survive Extreme Kayak Racing

Get comfortable in placid waters before you go extreme kayak racing.

Extreme kayaking racing can be the ultimate thrill, a daredevil sport that will amaze you and your friends. As long as you live through it so you can tell them about it. You can survive extreme kayak racing by first learning to swim and secondly taking some simple precautions with the following steps.

Difficulty:

Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Life vest
• Durable kayak made for extreme use
• Heavy duty oars

1. Know how to swim. This is the most basic of precautions but not one you should be without. If you haven’t taken swimming lessons or plunged in your neighbor’s pool since the age of 5, do bone up on your swimming skills. You can practice at a local community center or nearby river, but make sure you have this skill under your belt.

2. Learn how to kayak in slow waters. Start soft with learning the art of kayaking in placid lakes, and other controlled. Practice maneuvers like how to quickly extricate from the kayak if it tips over, how to duck and swim top speed if you are blasted from your kayak and it comes hurtling at your head and how to turn upright if stuck upside down.

3. Wear a life vest. Too bad if you look dorky, it could save your life. They come in a fine array of styles and colors so you can even match it up with your wetsuit or bikini, depending on what you don to kayak in.

4. Get comfortable with your oars. They will do more than simply help propel your kayak through the water. Oars will act as your steering mechanism to avoid sharp crags, hefty rocks, other racing kayaks, blazing shorelines and even help keep you at the center of the top of a waterfall so you don’t veer into oblivion riding it down.

5. Practice whitewater rafting, which you give you a glimpse of the kayaking thrill on a flat surface that is easier to escape if in peril. Once you have whitewater rafting down to a science, drag out our specially-designed kayak for the same trek in your little boat.

6. Make sure you use the proper equipment, which means a kayak built to withstand extreme use. They are heftier than the regular kayaks to take more abuse and usually made out of a mixture of a rock hard and flexible material so they bounce back instead of shattering.

Tips & Warnings

• It’s safer to kayak with a group or at least one other friend so you have immediate assistance if something does go wrong.

• Bring a cell phone, encased in a water proof case, on all your extreme kayaking adventures in case of emergency. Even if you have no service wherever you are out in the wilderness, you'll feel like you've done something smart to have it.

• Don't abuse other extreme kayaking racers by smashing into them on purpose or hitting them in the head with your oars.

Resources

• More kayaking tips and suggested trips at KayakingTips.org