Boat booking
Every boat in the club, on one screen. See what is free, book it from your phone, and forget about double-bookings. It replaces shared spreadsheets and the diary on the boathouse shelf.
How does Row HQ boat booking work?
A member takes out their phone, looks over the next few days of boat availability, and books in a couple of taps. Row HQ refuses any booking that clashes, marks boats that are out for repair, and keeps a note of who had each hull and when - which settles the argument when damage appears. Committees add rules per boat, so junior crews cannot book the senior eight before the Irish Championships.
All plans include boat booking as standard - see pricing for your club size.
An End to Slipway Rows
The old ways of sharing a fleet - diaries, texts, first come first served - cause trouble in every club. Row HQ takes that away.
Without Row HQ
- The booking diary and spreadsheets going missing or falling apart
- Two crews claiming one boat down at the slip
- Finding out at the water that your boat is out for repair
- The same handful of members holding onto the good boats
- Damage discovered with no idea who rowed the boat before
With Row HQ
- Book on your phone from anywhere in the county
- The calendar refuses clashing bookings outright
- Check every boat before leaving the house
- Access and fairness rules applied without a committee meeting
- A written history of every outing in every boat
Run the Boathouse From One Screen
Boats, blades and everything else the club owns, kept in a single system. Take a look at how Oundle Town RC looks after their fleet.
Availability at a Glance
Free, taken or in for repair - the current state of each boat is always visible in the member portal.
Clashes Refused
A slot that is taken stays taken. The second booking never gets through.
Booking on the Go
Members can book a boat on the walk down to the club - it takes no time at all.
Repair Tracking
When a boat goes in for repair it leaves the booking list, along with the date it should return. All handled in the admin dashboard.
The Outing Record
Each outing is written against a member and a boat, so damage questions answer themselves. Club data is held safe and secure.
Sorted by Class
Singles, doubles, fours and eights each have their place, with filters to jump straight to a boat.
The Full Fleet, Catalogued
From a club on the Lee to one on the Shannon, the register works the same way. New to the classes? Read up on all rowing boat types and what a rowing shell is in the glossary, and see the visual crew builder coaches use to seat crews.
Singles
Single sculler
Doubles
A pair of scullers
Fours
Sweep four with cox
Eights
Sweep eight with cox
Boat classes and their booking rules
How Irish clubs usually set booking rules across the main hull classes.
| Hull | Crew size | Typical use | Common booking constraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single (1x) | 1 | Sculling and individual water time | The busiest boats in the club - weekly caps keep them shared out |
| Double (2x) | 2 | Doubles outings, new members alongside experienced ones | A booking needs both scullers; if either drops out it reopens |
| Coxless four (4-) | 4 | Senior sweep training | Restricted to approved members, with the coach signing off |
| Coxed four (4+) | 4 + cox | Junior crews and masters racing | No cox confirmed means no booking |
| Quad (4x) | 4 | Squad sculling and head-race preparation | Kept for senior squad slots on the rota |
| Eight (8+) | 8 + cox | The first eight and championship racing | Only the coach can book it, on behalf of the crew |
Sample rules only - each club writes its own in Row HQ.
Also works with
Related reading
- Minding the club fleet year round
- Organising the training week
- Advice on picking crews
- What is a rowing shell?
- Every rowing boat type explained
- What is a scull? Sculling vs sweep
Anything unanswered? Try the FAQ, hear what other clubs say, or go ahead and view pricing.
Boat booking system FAQs
The questions Irish clubs ask when retiring the booking diary.
The club fleet appears as one live calendar. Members choose a boat, choose a slot, and confirm - and if the slot is already held the booking is refused there and then. Any change of status is visible to the whole club at once. Setting it up means entering each boat once, with a photo, its class and its rules; from there the running of it is automatic, apart from marking repairs. Bookings appear in each member's own calendar too, so the reminder comes before they set off.
Yes. The rules are attached to each boat rather than each member: which categories may book it, whether the coach must approve, and when bookings open. In most Irish clubs the senior racing boats are limited to the senior squad, the junior fleet to under-18s, and anything delicate carries a coach-approval step. A junior looking at the app does not see the restricted boats at all, and anyone refused a booking is told the reason and who to ask.
They are. A slot, once booked, cannot be booked again by anyone. Beyond that, clubs can require a rest period between outings in the same boat, cap how many bookings a member takes in a week, and hold boats back for squad sessions automatically. A member who runs into a clash sees a plain message about what is blocking them, and can join a waitlist that triggers if the first booking is cancelled.
Through the outing record. Member, boat, time and duration are all written down at the moment of booking and kept afterwards. When a boat turns up with a cracked rib or a scraped hull, the record shows who was in it last. There are reports by boat - hours rowed, heaviest users, repair count - and by member, covering booking habits and missed outings. The lot exports to CSV for the committee's end-of-year review.
They can, yes. The admin marks the boat out for repair, describes the fault and gives an expected date back. The boat comes off the booking list straight away, and members see the repair note rather than an unexplained absence. Once fixed, the flag is cleared and bookings reopen. Because repairs build up a history per boat, the committee can see which hulls are draining the maintenance budget when the time comes to plan replacements.
Try it free
The club fleet online and bookable inside an evening