A canoe is paddled with a one sided paddle, usually while sitting on either a raised bench or one or both of your knees. A kayak is paddled with a two sided paddle, usually while sitting on a seat on the floor of the boat. They're approaches to using different muscle groups. The main power of a kayaker comes out of rotation of the upper body, while in canoeing there's more of a front to back movement involved.

That's it. If you take a freestyle kayak, take out the seat and put in some foam knee supports instead you've converted it to a canoe, you're now eligible to compete in the c1 class instead of the k1 class. (The 1 is the number of people in the boat.) The hull shape and such are completely secondary.

If you have any specific boats to ask about, what their origins are or such, I'd be happy to take a look. But this is the difference.

The general answer is: A canoe is a boat designed or refitted to be paddled with a one sided paddle, usually while sitting on either a raised bench or one or both of your knees. A kayak is a boat designed or refitted to be paddled with a two sided paddle, usually while sitting on a seat on the floor of the boat. They're approaches to using different muscle groups. The main power of a kayaker comes out of rotation of the upper body, while in canoeing there's more of a front to back movement involved.

The definition can be blurry, which is where we need to differentiate what kind of kayaking and canoeing we're talking about. In competitions and general sports paddling the paddle is the main defining feature. If you take a freestyle kayak, take out the seat and put in some foam knee supports instead you've converted it to a canoe, you're now eligible to compete in the c1 class instead of the k1 class. (The 1 is the number of people in the boat.) The hull shape and such are completely secondary, and canoes can have closed decks. The international canoe canoe federation describes it as follows:

Blockquote The difference is relatively simple; it’s related to athlete’s position in the boat and the type of paddle they use to propel the boat. In a kayak, the paddler is seated and uses a double-bladed paddle pulling the blade through the water on alternate sides to move forward. In a canoe, the paddler kneels and uses a single-bladed paddle to propel the boat forward.

Canoe-kayak difference

In other fields there can be exceptions to the rule, as in the case of this Alaskan paddler. The boat design is from a long line of designs known as kayaks, and it's entirely suited to being paddled with a kayak paddle, but it can also be paddled with a single paddle, while being seated on the floor of the boat like normal for a kayak, but while getting much of the paddle power from a front to back motion like normal for a canoe. This type of boat in short was designed to be usable in different ways. In the end the only real rule seems to be: Q What do you call a paddler using features of both kayaking and canoeing? A: Whatever they want.