row2k Features
Boathouse Hacks
Right Spot Tape Trick
July 31, 2013
row2k hackers

Make sure that shell is in the right spot!

Need a simple way to make sure that the shell makes it back onto the rack in that perfect sweet spot where it is on nary a rigger? Mark that spot with electrical tape, and your crews will get it on the rack right every time. That's correct: this hack is the low-tech but effective "Right Spot Tape Trick."

Let's face it, lining up a shell, especially an eight, perfectly simply by saying "way 'nuff" hardly ever works, and what follows--helpful rowers up and down the boat chiming in as to whether the rigger they can see is hitting the rack--is disorganized at best. At worst, it can actually degenerate into a real scene of rowers yelling at your coxswain, to say nothing of the very real chance that you have of actually damaging a rigger or an adjacent shell if you get it just a bit wrong.

This hack makes getting it right easy, and darn-near foolproof: the coxswain or a crew member can sight the tape, line it up on the rack while the boat is still--safely--at shoulders and in the middle of the bay, then guide the shell in?all without having to ask that most annoying of post-practice questions, "Are we on a rigger?" An added bonus is that you can do your "in the house" and "out of the house" adjustments before the shell is on the rack, and before the riggers of the boat you are moving get anywhere near the hulls of the boats already in the racks.

This Right Spot Tape hack comes in real handy when you have new rowers using your facility during the summer or coming out to join the team in the fall. It also helps keep boats racked right even if the racks themselves are challenging, like when you are trying to wedge your 21st century winged eight into racks that date back a few decades or more. We've even seen it used for singles and doubles, particularly in boathouses where some creative stacking and racking of the small boats is a necessity to accommodate a big fleet of wee boats.

Got a trick that makes things fit right in your boathouse? Share your tips--and hacks--in the comments below.

Have a great rowing hack to suggest for future inclusion here? Send it to us!

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