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Class I: Fast moving water with riffles and small waves. Few obstructions, all obvious and easily missed with little training. Risk to swimmers is slight; self-rescue is easy. Local examples: All flatwater; most of the Delaware. Waves may be up to a foot high.
Strainer: The deadliest trap on the river! When water pours through the branches of a fallen tree, or through a pile of rocks or ice, it produces a strainer. Even with a gentle current, strainers are bad. They can pin you below the surface of the water and you can’t get out. If you realize you can’t avoid a strainer, climb on to it, climb over it! If you are swimming in the water, and about to wash into a strainer, swim headfirst as aggressively as possible toward it and climb onto, up and over it.
Wet Exit: Going into the water directly from your boat. It is imperative that both decked and open boaters be able to wet exit their boats quickly, smoothly and without tangling in gear, especially when in disoriented and violent whitewater (the usual conditions that mandate a wet exit.)
Hairboating: Boating within a hair’s breadth of disaster. Boating beyond your skill level, or boating extremely dangerous stuff.
Boof: To bounce off rocks in the process of paddling. Sometimes done on purpose.
