Human-powered watercraft

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.

Above: sweep-oar rowing a coxed pair
Below: amphibious bicycle 'Cyclomer', Paris, 1932

The three main methods of exerting human power are:

1. directly from the hands or feet, sometimes aided by swimfins;
2. through hand-operated oars, paddles, or poles, or;
3. 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

Main article: Rowing

Oars are held at one end, have a blade on the other end, and pivot in between in oarlocks.

Oared craft include:

• Racing shell

A racing scull

Using oars in pairs, with one hand on each oar, is two-oar sculling. The oars may also be called sculls.^[2]

Two-oared sculled 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

Rowing a trainera

Using oars individually, with both hands on a single oar, is sweep 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.

Sweep-oared craft include:

• Coxless pair, Coxed pair, Coxless four, Coxed four, and Eight
• Galley, Dromon, Trainera, and Trireme

Sculling sampans

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.^[4]

Single-oar sculled craft include:

• Gondola
• Sampan
• Sandolo

Paddlecraft

A canoe (upper) and a kayak (lower)

Main article: Paddling

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

A pedalo (upper) and a hydrocycle (lower)

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:

• Amphibious cycle
• Hydrocycle
• Pedal-powered kayak^[8][9][10]
• Pedal-powered submersible or midget submarine^[11][12]
• 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
• Makoro

Other types

Hand-operated cable ferry

Other types of human-powered watercraft include:

• Float tube
• Hand-cranked submarine (disambiguation)
• Hand-operated cable ferry
• Bodyboarding

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)

See also

• Ocean rowing
• Fiann Paul