contributed by John FX Flynn, row2k

Here is a simple trick that can come in handy and save a lot of wear and tear on your shell: take your water bottle, and put a sock on it.

Why? Well, a hard plastic or--in these BPA-conscious times--a metal water bottle that rocks and bounces around in the footwell of your shell will eventually rub a hole in the carbon-fiber. That exposes the sandwiched honeycomb found in most shell designs to water damage.

The Sock-ed Water Bottle is a simple--if not, in all its dirty-white-sock glory, actually elegant--solution: the sock prevents the wearing of the hard plastic on the hull and it has a few other benefits aside, of course, from a way-less-grumpy boatman

The water-bottle sock can also