Kayak confusion...

[spider solo]

I get confused with all the different types of kayaks so I thought someone might have an idea as to what type of boat (used) I might want for playing in the surf/ chop oceanside whitewater foam...kind of stuff.
I see there are playboats, and boats for "creeking".... boofing and what not....?
Flat bottom boats for "planning" if I have my "terminology" right.

Can I just pick up an old whitewater kayak for a couple of hundred...be none the wiser...and have a bunch of fun with it ??

Not thinking of the long elegant surf kayaks like Darren's photo...but the other end of the spectrum...the shorties?
Any advice....?
thanks... spdr

 

[Amicus]

If you are looking for something inexpensive, an old Dancer . . . . will do the job. They roll easy.

My Dancer XT - new when I received it as a birthday present in '89 - is absolutely unpatched and unimpaired after 17 years of steady use (most recently yesterday). It's very nimble in whitewater but also great for winding up two-foot-wide creeks where you have to pull yourself over beaver dams. At the end of one river run, I even paddled it across Buzzards Bay to Dighton Rock, when the smallcraft warning flag was flying and the waves seemed to be about 10 feet high. In two words - versatile and durable.

It may roll easy but, alas, I don't. The one time I made a serious effort to learn how, I pulled a muscle in my side so badly after about ten minutes that I had a hard time driving home from Errol.