river runner

• river-runner

river runner (plural river runners)

1. (chiefly US) A raft, kayak, or similar watercraft used especially for traveling with the current of a river in a swift manner.
   • 2008, Gregory Shea, Robert E. Gunther, Your Job Survival Guide: A Manual for Thriving in Change, →ISBN, page 76:

     There are many ways to go down a whitewater river. . . . If you paddle a play boat, you will play. If you paddle a more stable river runner, you may play a little less or a little differently.

   • 2012 July 11, Dustin Urban, “Jackson Fun Runner Review”, in dustinurban.com, retrieved 19 January 2014:

     [C]heck out the Jackson Kayak Zen—it’s a full-on river runner but will still surf and flat spin nicely.

2. (chiefly US) A person who uses such a watercraft.
   • 1980, Don Hubbard, The Complete Book of Inflatable Boats, →ISBN, page 164:

     Books like WHITEWATER RAFTING by William McGinnis, go into great, and very necessary, detail to explain all of the hazards which the river runner may have to face and the proper procedures which should be followed to negotiate each of these.

   • 1998 March 11, Christopher Smith, “Moab's Natives Struggle With an Overabundance of Wildlife”, in New York Times, retrieved 9 January 2014:

     "It's fabulous, spectacular, a little scary and sometimes a lot scary," John Williams, a Moab river runner for 30 years, said of the Cataract spring flood.

   • 2013 July 23, Adam Roy, “Missouri Man Shoots River Runner”, in Outside Online, retrieved 9 January 2014:

     A Missouri man is being charged with second-degree murder after shooting a man from a float group that he claims to have found on his property. . . . Loretta Dart, the victim's wife, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that her husband was trying to prevent an altercation between Crocker and one of the river-runners.

3. (chiefly US) A recreational or commercial boat used for regular operation on a riverway.
   • 1997 Feb, Michael Verdon, “All-time-Classic”, in Motorboating & Sailing, volume 179, number 2, page 101:

     In 1919, C.P. built a true work of art, a 26-foot mahogany river runner, with a stepped hull and an aft cockpit

   • 1999, Ken Marsh, Breakfast at Trout's Place: The Seasons of an Alaska Flyfisher, →ISBN, page 16:

     The boat, a flat-bottomed river-runner with a forty-horse jet, slides off Mac's trailer, onto crumbling shelf ice and into the river, green, translucent.

   • 2009, Michelle Mythe, Aura Sight, →ISBN, page 150:

     The river runner was a broad flat boat, capable of holding a lot of cargo.

4. (chiefly US) A person who is an experienced worker or traveler on a riverway.
   • 1940 Oct., A. Capwell Wyckoff, "River Bank Position," Boys' Life, p. 12 (Google preview):

     [I]t was Captain Tod Halsey who had the responsibility of the whole thing. If the great marble shaft couldn't be dragged up the face of the bluff, the squint-eyed old river runner would be the loser.

• river running

• whitewater rafting

• “river runner”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.