This week's hack comes to us from Derek Blazo, who came up with a handy way to keep Westerville Crew's collection of megaphones off the ground and on the charge: The Megaphone Mega-Rack.

Yep: we've been on a bit of a "rack hack streak" in the past month or so, with hacks for charging and hanging and securing, but 'tis that time of the preseason: that magical time of year when there is NOT that much going on at the boathouse and there is a moment or two to re-think your spaces and your storage to make the coming year run just that little bit more smoothly.

For Derek, who spends a fair bit of time hanging out in the Westerville Work Shed as the Program Director, seeing how the teams $400 a pop megaphones were being left around on workbenches and shelves--without having a place of their own--got him to thinking about whether these odd-shaped tools of the trade could be racked vertically as easily he'd seen other rowing electronics get hung up to charge.

His solution? Some plywood and some skillful jigsawing to create curved slots and a cut-out for the double-handle you find on the new-fangled rechargeable megaphones. By getting the diameter of the curve just the right diameter for the bell and using the backboard as a stop, the megaphones can't tip over or fall out, and the face of the rack leaves plenty of room for the battery chargers themselves to hang out and keep the batteries topped off.

(And, as those with rechargeable megaphones know, it could be pretty darn handy to have the charger right by the resting spot to remind you to do some recharging after practice and, even better, to prevent you from heading out with a loud hailer whose battery is still sitting on a charger out of sight, back where ever those might live at your place now.)

Nothing like the inspiration of frustration to create a great hack, and the Megaphone Mega Rack neatly solves the problem of storing megaphones by finding a way to take things vertical. Sure, our PVC Hack works fine for a single megaphone on a launch, but using the PVC trick to create a spot for each megaphone in a program can take up a lot of floorspace in a boatbay. So, unless you have some serious square footage in your 'house, Derek's idea is a much better use of the wall space.

Invented any sweet storage solutions at your place lately? If so, share your tips--and hacks--in the comments below.

If you have a great rowing hack to suggest for future inclusion, like Derek did here, then please: send it to us!