Kayak, bellyak, riverboards or boogie board.

I want to get into whitewater sports, I’m okay at kayak but I can’t roll although I took a lesson in rolling and almost got and might have figured it out, but I’m looking for an easier alternative until I can roll the kayak. I might have found it, would you go bellyak, or riverboard even though it seems like river boards are hard to come by at least where I live. Well can you use a regular old ocean boogie board on a river, as a riverboard at less on some easy class 2s and maybe 3s if I can’t find a riverboard I have a boogie board but it’s old I had since maybe 1997.

I’ve taken two large foam boogie boards that I use at the beach and duct taped them together, one on top of the other. When duct taping leave room to jam your hands in between the boards- toward the front of the board. You need the extra flotation of the two boards for rapids. Make sure your pfd has a good bit of flotation as well. The difficulty with riverboards, boogie boards, and bellyyaks is a lack of vision and they all require a high fitness level- flippers and special webbed gloves are worn by some. I don’t think there is anything easier about this. Make sure you pick a deep river- locally (for me) Fayette Station rapid on the New is popular for this.
I can’t watch youtube on a work computer so I’m getting as bad as datakoll(suggesting links by their title alone) but this video might interest you- riverboarding the upper gauley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFtWXEddI44

They actually look fun

When we were kids, we’d run NC streams on cheap air mattresses. In the heat of summer, it was great.

I have not tried river boarding with an official board. I have tried board surfing on rivers. I took a lesson on the St. Lawerence River and although I have a lot of kayaking and surfing experience I ended up spending most of my time on my belly getting washed down through the rapids. Sort of like being flushed down a 1/4 mile toilet. You can’t see where you are going and you have poor control, and I was worried about foot entrapment sometimes , much more fun in a whitewater kayak in my opinion, but maybe not a valid test of the method.

in general river boards, ww boogie boarding, ww sup are park and play activities. Meaning I’ve see far more people doing this in one spot than going down the river. The play holes on the Arkansas in Salida CO see it all- from kids on air matresses to advanced play boating. .