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Eugene "Gene" Jensen (? - May 15, 2004, Inverness, Florida) was an American canoe racer and designer.

Gene Jensen had a passion for all things canoeing, particularly for racing. He spent his lifetime developing innovations of boat, paddle and technique that would shave away minutes from canoe racings best times. In the process, he rejuvenated interest in recreational canoeing in the United States and beyond.

Biography

In 1948 Gene Jensen entered his first canoe race, and he started big. At the age of 19, Jensen and his partner Tom Estes entered and won the 450-mile Aquatennial Canoe Derby, a ten-day stage race that ran from Bemidji to Minneapolis. Even though Jensen won the race, he felt that his boat had not performed as well as other he observed. It would be the start of a lifetime vocation for him. Jensen would race and win many more times in his career, but more importantly his natural curiosity and desire to paddle faster would drive him to make revolutionary improvements in canoe design and paddling technique.

Jensen was a prolific designer of both racing and touring canoes, with over 100 of his designs going into commercial production by companies such as Wenonah Canoe and Clipper. "At any marathon canoe race in North America, over 90% of the canoes at the starting line are Jensen designs."

Jensen is also credited with having invented the bent shaft paddle, and for having coined the use of "Hut" as the call paddlers use to signal switching sides of the boat. Both innovations were reported to have quickly spread worldwide.

Canoe Journal called him the Bill Gates of canoe design, saying that he "revolutionized" canoe racing and brought about a "renaissance" of recreational canoeing.