Flatwater racing kayaks are generally made out of extremely lightweight composites such as Kevlar, carbon fiber, or fiberglass. They are not intended for any condition other than flat water. They are narrow, extremely unstable, and expensive, with a competitive K1 or K2 running in the US$2000 - US$4000 range. They require a good level of expertise to paddle well, but are extremely fast in the hands of proficient users. The beam of a flatwater boat is typically barely wider than the hips of the person who paddles it, allowing for a very long and narrow shape to reduce drag.

Racing canoe (or sprint canoe) - purpose-built racing canoe for use in racing on flat water. To reduce drag, they are built long and with a narrow beam, which makes them very unstable. A one-person sprint canoe is 5.2 meters or 17 feet long. Sprint canoes are paddled kneeling on one knee, and only paddled on one side; in a C-1, the canoeist will have to j-stroke constantly to maintain a straight course. Marathon canoe races use a similar narrow boat.

Rafting or whitewater rafting is a recreational activity utilizing a raft to navigate a river or other bodies of water. This is usually done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water, in order to thrill and excite the raft passengers. The development of this activity as a leisure sport has become popular since the mid 1970s.

Whitewater kayaking is the sport of paddling a kayak on a moving body of water, typically a whitewater river. Whitewater kayaking can range from simple, carefree gently moving water, to demanding, dangerous whitewater. River rapids are graded like ski runs according to the difficulty, danger or severity of the rapid. Grades range from I (1) to VI(6). Grade I being a ripple or barely moving water.

Rafts were originally the simplest form of man’s transportation in water and were then made of several logs, planks or reeds which were fastened together. Nowadays, inflatable boat were used as rafts which were later adopted by the military for beach assaults. It consists of very durable, multi-layered rubberized or vinyl fabrics with several independent air chambers. Its length varies between 3.5 m (11 ft) and 6 m (20 ft), the width between 1.8 m (6 ft) and 2.5 m (8 ft). The exception to this size rule is usually the packraft, which is designed as a portable single-person raft and may be as small as 1.5m long and weigh as little as 4 lbs.

A technical competitive form of kayaking . Racers attempt to make their way from the top to the bottom of a designated section of river as fast as possible, while correctly negotiating gates (a series of poles suspended vertically over the river). There are usually 20-25 gates in a race which must be navigated in sequential order. Courses are shorter now with only 18 gates required. Green gates must be negotiated in a downstream direction, red gates in an upstream direction. This is typically done on class II to class IV water, but the placement of the gates, and precision necessary to paddle them fast and "clean" (without touching a pole and adding 2 seconds to the total time), makes the moves much harder than the water's difficulty suggests. (It has been described as performing class V moves with class III consequences.) Pro level slalom competitions have specific length (350cm - new rules) and width requirements for the boats, which will be made out of kevlar/fiberglass/carbon fiber composites to be light weight and have faster hull speed. (Plastic whitewater kayaks can be used in citizen-level races.) This is the only form of whitewater kayaking currently in the Olympics. Rodeo will be an Olympic sport by the next summer games.

Competitors are timed in completing a descent down the rapids of a whitewater course, in the process steering their canoes or kayaks through "gates" (a pair of suspended poles about 1 m apart), including going up against the flow, across the flow, and surfing the standing waves of the rapids. Again, there are both kayak and canoe classesport by the next summer games.