Human-powered watercraft are

watercraft A watercraft or waterborne vessel is any vehicle designed for travel across or through water bodies, such as a boat, ship, hovercraft, submersible or submarine. Types Historically, watercraft have been divided into two main categories. *Raf ...

propelled only by human power, instead of being propelled by

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

(via one or more

sail A sail is a tensile structure, which is made from fabric or other membrane materials, that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may b ...

s) or an

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ge ...

. 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. While most human-powered watercraft use

buoyancy Buoyancy (), or upthrust, is the force exerted by a fluid opposing the weight of a partially or fully immersed object (which may be also be a parcel of fluid). In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of t ...

to maintain their position relative to the surface of the water, a few, such as human-powered hydrofoils and human-powered

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

s, use

hydrofoil A hydrofoil is a lifting surface, or foil, that operates in water. They are similar in appearance and purpose to aerofoils used by aeroplanes. Boats that use hydrofoil technology are also simply termed hydrofoils. As a hydrofoil craft gains sp ...

s, 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. Oared craft include: *

Racing shell In watercraft, a racing shell (also referred to as a ''fine boat'' (UK) or simply a ''shell'') is an extremely narrow, and often comparatively long, rowing boat specifically designed for Rowing (sport), racing or exercise. It is equipped with lon ...

Using oars in pairs, with one hand on each oar, is two-oar sculling. The oars may also be called sculls. Two-oared sculled craft include: * Adirondack guideboat * Banks dory, Gloucester dory, and McKenzie River dory *

Dinghy A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or Towing, towed by a Watercraft, larger vessel for use as a Ship's tender, tender. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor. Some are rigged for sailing but they diffe ...

* Sampans rowed by foot in Ninh Bình Province of northern Vietnam. * Scull, Single scull, Double scull,

Quad scull A quadruple sculling boat, often simply called a quad and abbreviated as a 4x, is a racing shell used in the sport of competitive rowing. It is designed for four people who propel the boat by sculling with two oars, or "sculls", one in each h ...

, and

Octuple scull An octuple sculling shell, often simply called an oct and abbreviated as an 8xSkiff * Sneakbox * Row boat Wikifoto

Using oars individually, with both hands on a single oar, is sweep or sweep-oar rowing. In this case the rowers are usually paired so that there is an oar on each side of the boat. Sweep-oared craft include: * Coxless pair, Coxed pair, Coxless four, Coxed four, and Eight *

Galley A galley is a type of ship optimised for propulsion by oars. Galleys were historically used for naval warfare, warfare, Maritime transport, trade, and piracy mostly in the seas surrounding Europe. It developed in the Mediterranean world during ...

, Dromon, Trainera, and

Trireme A trireme ( ; ; cf. ) was an ancient navies and vessels, ancient vessel and a type of galley that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greece, ancient Greeks and ancient R ...

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 single-oar sculling. Single-oar sculled craft include: * Gondola * Sampan * Sandolo

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 A canoe is a lightweight, narrow watercraft, water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using paddles. In British English, the term ' ...

, Outrigger canoe, Hasamibako bune, Umiak, Waka, Pirogue, Shikara,

Dragon boat A dragon boat is a human-powered watercraft originating from the Pearl River Delta region of China's southern Guangdong Province. These were made of teak, but in other parts of China different kinds of wood are used. It is one of a family of t ...

, and Dugout *

Kayak ] A kayak is a small, narrow human-powered watercraft typically propelled by means of a long, double-bladed paddle. The word ''kayak'' originates from the Inuktitut word '' qajaq'' (). In British English, the kayak is also considered to be ...

, 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, with the feet. The collected power is then transferred to the water with a

paddle wheel A paddle is a handheld tool with an elongated handle and a flat, widened end (the ''blade'') used as a lever to apply force onto the bladed end. It most commonly describes a completely handheld tool used to propel a human-powered watercraft by p ...

, flippers, or to the air or water with a

propeller A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...

. Pedaled craft include: *

Amphibious cycle An amphibious cycle is a human-powered vehicle capable of Amphibious vehicle, operation on both land and water. Some designs allow riding directly into and out of the water, other semi-amphibious cycles must be converted in order to change fro ...

* Hydrocycle * Pedal-powered kayak *Pedal-powered

submersible A submersible is an underwater vehicle which needs to be transported and supported by a larger ship, watercraft or dock, platform. This distinguishes submersibles from submarines, which are self-supporting and capable of prolonged independent ope ...

midget submarine A midget submarine is any submarine under 150 tons, typically operated by a crew of one or two but sometimes up to six or nine, with little or no on-board living accommodation. They normally work with mother ships, from which they are launched an ...

* Pedal-powered hydrofoil * Pedalo

Poled craft

A pole is held with both hands and used to push against the bottom. Poled craft include: * Punt *

Raft A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is usually of basic design, characterized by the absence of a hull. Rafts are usually kept afloat by using any combination of buoyant materials such as wood, sealed barre ...

* Makoro

Other types

Other types of human-powered watercraft include: * Float tube * Hand-cranked submarine (disambiguation) * Hand-operated

cable ferry A cable ferry (including the types chain ferry, swing ferry, floating bridge, or punt) is a ferry that is guided (and in many cases propelled) across a river or large body of water by cables connected to both shores. Early cable ferries often ...

* Bodyboarding

Gallery

File:Paddleboard-race.jpg, Hand paddling surfboards File:Huck-and-jim-on-raft.jpg, Polling a

raft A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is usually of basic design, characterized by the absence of a hull. Rafts are usually kept afloat by using any combination of buoyant materials such as wood, sealed barre ...

File:Venice Gondola Grand Canal.jpg, Sculling a gondola File:Hopson Whaling Crew.jpg, Paddling an umiak File:Decavitator, Boston MA.jpg, Decavitator, the world's fastest human-powered watercraft, is a pedal-powered hydrofoil File:Schmidt aquaskipper CIMG2935 b1.jpg, Starting an AquaSkipper

File:Woman rowing sampan with her feet in Ninh Bình Province of northern Vietnam.jpg, Woman rowing sampan with her feet in Ninh Bình Province of northern Vietnam File:Aqua-Cycle Water Trike.jpg, Human powered aqua-cycle water trikes in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

with Diamond Head, Hawaii in the background. File:Sautrogrennen.JPG, race in a wooden sow trough (ge: Sautrogrennen) in Bavaria, Germany (2012)

References

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