Coach tools
Plan crews the visual way. A drag puts a rower in a seat, favourite combinations stay saved for reuse, and the old spreadsheets can finally be closed.
What do the Row HQ coach tools do?
The night before an outing, an Irish club coach opens one page and finds the lot: confirmed availability, erg times, recent turnout, and a boat diagram waiting for names. Fill the seats, press publish, and the app tells each rower where they sit. No ringing around, no scrolling back through a WhatsApp group hunting for who said yes.
Whatever band your club is on, the coach tools are in it - the details are on our simple banded pricing page.
Tools That Make Coaching Easier
Coaching time should go on the water, not the paperwork. Learn what a coxswain does, work out a split with the free erg pace calculator, or have a look at a club already running on Row HQ.
Boat Diagram Planner
A picture of the boat with a place for every rower, from bow through to stroke - filled by dragging, not typing.
Reusable Crews
When a four finds its rhythm, save it. It will be waiting when entries open for Cork Regatta or the Irish Championships.
Live Attendance
Replies to each training session arrive as they happen, so the picture is complete before crews are named.
Rower Records
The member portal feeds each rower's side, standard, and turnout into the planner where the coach can see it.
Instant Notifications
Name the crew and the member portal does the telling - nobody arrives at the slip asking what boat they are in.
Safety Access
If something happens mid-outing, emergency contacts and medical notes are on the coach's phone, not in a folder back at the clubhouse.
Crews Named Before the Kettle Boils
Whether it is a Tuesday training session on the Lee or an entry for a head race on the Liffey, the planner works the same: available rowers on one side, seats on the other, and the coach's judgement in between.
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Reply Colours
A yes turns green, a maybe amber, a no fades to grey
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Side Preferences Shown
Bow-side, stroke-side, and sculling rowers are marked before you place them
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Seat Switching
Two rowers trade places in one motion when the balance is not right
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Matching Boats
The planner points out which boats suit the crew you have built, through the boat booking system
Example: Coxed Four
Cox
Aoife Byrne
Stroke
Cian Murphy
3 seat
Niamh O'Sullivan
2 seat
Sean Kelly
Bow
Roisin Walsh
What Coaches Say
A week no longer spent naming crews by hand
Fewer changes shouted across the slip at dawn
Of crew decisions written down for the season
"Naming crews was a Sunday-night chore with the laptop and three group chats open. It takes a quarter of an hour now, and everyone knows their seat before they go to bed."
Related reading
- A coach's guide to crew selection
- Training sessions without the hassle
- Understanding erg data
- Ergometer explained
- Catching a crab, explained
- Free erg pace calculator
Not sure yet? The FAQ answers the usual questions, there are stories from other clubs to read, and you can always view pricing - the coach tools cost no extra on top of the club's subs.
Questions coaches ask
How Irish club coaches handle crew picks, lineups, and the week's sessions in Row HQ.
It exists because picking crews from a spreadsheet while three WhatsApp groups argue about availability is nobody's idea of coaching. Row HQ gathers the job into one place for the head coach: attendance as it comes in from each session, a boat diagram where names are dragged into seats, a single publish that informs the whole crew, and a written history of every combination the club has boated. From a junior squad in Fermanagh to a senior eight preparing for the Irish Championships at the National Rowing Centre, the pattern is the same - less chasing, more coaching.
Picture the boat drawn on screen with its seats empty, and beside it the names of everyone who said yes to the session. The coach drags a name to a seat and the software minds the details: the rower is told, the same person cannot end up in two boats, and the boat itself is reserved through the booking system. A change of heart about the stroke seat after the warm-up costs two taps. There is no going back to the spreadsheet, and the cox is spared the job of messenger.
You can, and it happens without asking. Every crew is filed with its label, date, and session, so the senior eight or the novice four you settled on last month is one tap from being this week's starting point. By season's end the club has a written account of which crews raced where and which were changed after a poor outing - the kind of record that turns the captain's AGM report from guesswork into fact. Any old crew can be copied to begin a new one.
The moment the crew is published, yes. Each rower named in it receives a notification with seat, boat, start time, and where to gather at the slip. The cox gets the same, along with the full crew sheet. Those not named get no message - the app never broadcasts who was left out. A preview step lets the coach read exactly what will be sent first, so a crew still being juggled cannot slip out early.
It does - and it is why the spreadsheet finally goes. When the planner opens, the last few sessions' attendance is already in front of the coach: who was on the water, who was on the erg, and who has not appeared since the month turned. Erg times sit beside the names too, so ordering the squad by 2k pace before naming a championship crew takes a moment. Nobody is cross-checking a group-chat poll against a personal-best sheet at midnight before Galway Regatta.