: I'm having trouble picturing the 8-10m waves. Can you explain a bit more?

Sorry sir, I meant the depth of the river to be 8-10m...the river is rough with waves..Since the boat race is planned to be conducted on mid-March 2010 and paddlers who are students yet to be trained in rowing its tough decision in deciding kayak or row shell. I have read that row shell is much more faster than kayak. Is it true? Since one of our competitor team has decided on constructing a wooden row shell of 4.5 m length and 1.5 m beam and if we decide to go on with SOF type kayak of maybe about 4-5m length and 0.5-0.6m beam which one will be better.The row shell having 1.5m wil have more of drag resistance i suppose.We are thinking to give a month long lessons on rowing for our paddlers( each weighing 65kg). Ours is a low-budget (around $550-600) students work. Our race is planned on a downstream portion of the river, maybe rough..but not sure.
Hoping that you could guide me through the designing and construction stages please detail me some two paddlers kayak dimension best suited for our purpose.