Sea Kayaking

A new program launched by American Rivers, the nation’s leading river conservation organization, is helping local businesses and outfitters connect with customers and join the effort to protect rivers and clean water...

While last year’s flooding in New England had area rivers at near-record highs, a pentathlon did so to heart rates this year at the Zoar Outdoor Center in late March...

You want this guy on your canoe team. On March 12, Hungarian Gabor Rakonczay became the first person to single-handedly canoe (yes, with a single blade) across the Atlantic, taking 76 days to paddle from Portugal to Antigua...

Yvon Chouinard can have his Let My People Go Surfing book. Thanks to longtime paddler, author and wilderness adventurer Alan Kesselheim, paddlers now have Let Them Paddle, his latest book on revisiting rivers with his three children that they unknowingly floated a decade and a half earlier as fetuses. PL checks in with the author...

First it was Savage Designs. Then Riot Kayaks. Now industry stalwart Corran Addison is moving on from the third company he’s founded in the paddlesports arena, this time leaving stand-up paddleboard company Imagine Surf.

Small World Adventures, which runs uber-sweet kayaking trips in Ecuador from its lodge on the banks of the Quijos River, is entering a new chapter with the sale of Small World and Cabanas Tres Rios lodge to Guy Erb, of Spokane, Wash. Erb plans on joining the SWA team for the 2012/2013 season and is leaving the structure of the staff, trips and logistics the same. Having been there to sample its first-class whitewater wares, PL checks in...

A few more kids might be getting wet than normal this paddling season, thanks to a new series of grants offered by Outdoor Nation. The group recently announced the 13 winners of its Paddle Nation Project, aimed at connecting young Americans with their waterways through recreational paddling...

Paddlers give up water? A tall order, perhaps, but that’s what Teva is asking paddlers to do on the eve of the 19th annual World Water Day...

Talk about throwing down when you need to. At this past weekend’s Pan American Championships in Foz do Iguassu, Brazil, with the U.S.’s sole C-1 and C-2 London Olympic spots on the line, U.S. paddlers Eric Hurdand and Jeff Larimer took first in the Men’s C-2 final, and Benn Fraker took home the Gold medal in Men’s C-1, ensuring the U.S. will have Olympians in both the C-1 and C-2 categories at the London 2012 Summer Games.

While the Aussies won the team event (and coveted Club Waikiki Trophy) of the inaugural ISA World StandUp Paddleboard Championships in Lima, Peru, two U.S. SUP gals helped the U.S. secure a second-place finish. Emmy Merrill, 18, ripped her way to first place in the women’s SUP surfing final with a point score of 15.94, and Brandi Baksic swept the women’s marathon.

A trio of paddlers is banding together to raise money for global peace through competitive endurance paddling. PL checks in with founder Dwanye VanHoose...

Kayakers tackling Class V Gore Canyon on the Colorado might soon be bringing playboats on their racks as well as creekers. Grand County is planning to build a whitewater park on the Colorado River below Gore Canyon, just above Pumphouse and at Inspiration Point. But the movement needs paddlers' help by March 7...

The Green River's whitewater canyon Gates of Lodore and the popular fishing stretches upstream in Brown's Park have at least had a water flow stay of execution with FERC recently dismissing the initial permit application for pipeline project that would pull water out of the Flaming Gorge Dam upstream...

$27,500 can buy a lot of shuttle gas money. Or, it can buy you a stand-up paddleboard. That was the price tag for the world's most expensive SUP, a Jimmy Lewis-designed board which recently sold an auction as a benefit for the Everglades Foundation in Palm Beach, Florida...

What would you do if you were an extreme boater living Down Under in New Zealand and vying for a spot on the Olympic Slalom team to compete this summer in London? If you’re Teva team member Mike Dawson, you hang up gates on a flooding Class V Kaituna to train on perhaps the toughest slalom course in the world...

The extreme sea kayaking world lost one of its most ardent pioneers with the recent passing of Eric Soares, a founding member of California’s Tsunami Rangers, a kayaking club specializing in big-wave feats along the rocky California coast. Soares died unexpectedly on Feb. 1 at age 58...

In 2009 Freya Hoffmeister—a 46-year-old former sky diver, gymnast, marksman, and Miss Germany contestant—paddled alone and unsupported 9,420 miles around Australia, breaking Paul Caffyn’s record set 27 years earlier. Now she’s at it again, this time nearly 150 days into her expedition to circumnavigate South America alone and unsupported. Click on for clips from her blog, which include surviving three brutal days on a deserted pile of rock called Isla Deceit while scratching her way to Cape Horn...

In the search for their newest Team Rider, Shred Ready was accepting video. While hundreds of stout paddlers submitted footage, only one, Jordan Byrum would join the team.

Sure, Freya Hoffmeister might have circum-navigated Australia. We’d like to see her keep up with the exploits of Australian Tanya Faux. This spring, Faux, a longtime creek and rodeo competitor and Australia’s2008 Adventurer of the Year, is leading a group of eight women into one of Australia’s most rugged and remote areas: a 30-day uncharted, unsupported, river exploration of the Kimberley region that aims to promote the Save the Kimberley campaign. Oh, and did we mention the Class V and crocs?

Confluence Watersports is now operating in full from its new campus in Greenville, S.C., and recently announced four key new hires supporting Confluence’s sourcing and supply chain, marketing and accessories teams. All four new hire investments underscore Confluence’s commitment to offering innovation, leadership and a profitable partnership opportunity to its family of specialty outdoor and paddlesports retailers.

Okay, all you free-loading dirtbags. No more free lunch. It's permit season. So get off your duff and send in your applications for your favorite river trip instead of waiting to get asked along. Plus, that way you can invite who you want (which hopefully will include us). Here's all the info you need...

Crossing Canada from the Pacific Ocean to the Hudson Bay under your own power would be a gruel no matter how you slice it, never mind trying it in a canoe. But that’s what Pete Marshall, Winchell Delano and Steve Keaveny are planning with their Trans-Territorial Canoe Expedition from May through to September 2012. PL checks in to see how their planning is going...

More paddlers will name be able to claim they’re Okies, if not from Muskogee, at least from Oklahoma City. USA Canoe/Kayak, the national governing body for sprint and slalom, just moved its headquarters from Charlotte, N.C., to Oklahoma City. PL reports on the move, with a special Q&A with CEO Joe Jacobi...

Finally, the Nantahala River has a sweet play wave. The Nantahala Gorge Organizing Committee (NGOC) will celebrate the grand opening of its new 2013 Wave on Friday, December 16 with a ceremony, reception and paddling exhibition starting at 12pm.