Rowing Club Risk Assessment Template
A water-specific risk assessment written for rowing clubs, not adapted from a generic sports sheet. It works for a stretch of the Shannon, the Lee or the Lagan just as it does for a coastal club launching off a slip into open water. Download the PDF, walk your own water with it, and adapt every line to your club. Free, no email address required.
What should a rowing club risk assessment cover?
A rowing risk assessment should cover the water (cold water immersion, capsize, stream and tide, weirs, locks and obstructions), traffic (other craft, navigation rules, blind bends), conditions (darkness, fog, wind, lightning, and Irish weather that turns in an hour), people (swim ability, medical conditions, juniors and supervision ratios) and land-side hazards (manual handling of boats, trestles, trailers and slippery slips). Coastal clubs add sea state, swell and launch and recovery through surf. Each hazard gets a likelihood score, a severity score and named controls, reviewed at least annually and after any incident. Irish clubs should check the finished assessment against Rowing Ireland's safety guidance.
Download the template
Download PDFFree. No email, no watermark. Covers river, lake and coastal rowing hazards.
How to use it
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1
Walk your water. Do the assessment on your actual stretch or your actual bay - every club's hazards are different. A weir 400m downstream, or a headland where the swell wraps in, changes everything.
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2
Score honestly. Likelihood (1-5) times severity (1-5) gives each hazard a risk rating out of 25. Anything above 15 needs a control that reduces it before crews go afloat.
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Name the controls and the owner. "Be careful" is not a control. "No outings when the river is above the marked flood level, checked by the duty coach before boating" is.
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Set the review date. Annually as a minimum, plus after every incident or near miss, and whenever your circumstances change - new water, new boat types, new junior intake, a first coastal season.
The hazards in the template
The PDF includes a scored row for each of these, with typical controls filled in as a starting point. Adapt every one to your own water and circumstances - a Liffey club and an Atlantic coastal club will score the same hazard very differently.
| Hazard | Who is at risk | Example controls in the template |
|---|---|---|
| Cold water immersion | All rowers, especially Oct-Apr | Cold-water briefing each autumn, capsize drill for new members, layered kit guidance, buddy boating rules in winter |
| Capsize and swim failure | Scullers, novices, juniors | Swim declaration at joining, capsize drill before single sculling, coach cover for novice outings |
| Collision with craft or obstruction | All crews | Local navigation pattern taught at induction, circulation map in the boathouse, lights and lookout rules |
| Weirs, locks and hazards downstream | All crews | Hard limits marked on the club water map, stream and flood-level checks before boating, no-go zones briefed to every new member |
| Darkness and poor visibility | Early morning and winter crews | Bow and stern lights required, high-vis kit, restricted outings in fog |
| Weather: wind, lightning, heat | All rowers and coaches | Named decision-maker for cancelling, forecast check before every session, lightning 30-30 rule, heat guidance for juniors |
| Medical emergency afloat | All rowers | Medical declarations at joining, emergency contacts accessible to coaches, launch with throw line and phone |
| Manual handling of boats and trestles | All members, land side | Lifting technique at induction, minimum numbers per boat class, trailer loading rules |
| Juniors and vulnerable adults | Junior squads | Safeguarding policy, Garda vetting for coaches and volunteers working with juniors, supervision ratios, parental consent records |
This template is a starting point, not a completed assessment. Your club is responsible for assessing its own water, activities and people. Irish clubs should check the finished document against Rowing Ireland's current safety guidance and any requirements set by their insurer.
The risk assessment is a document. The controls are data.
Half the controls in a rowing risk assessment are really record-keeping: who has done a capsize drill, whose swim declaration is on file, which members have medical flags, whose Garda vetting is current, which boat is out and who is in it. That is exactly what Row HQ keeps live - member records, qualifications, emergency contacts and outing logs, filled in once and always current. Write the risk assessment with this template; run the controls in Row HQ; spend the time you save on the water. There is also a free interactive risk assessment tool if you want a guided version.
Set up your club freeFree for clubs of up to 20 active members.
Risk assessment FAQs
Does a rowing club legally need a risk assessment?
Treat it as non-negotiable. Every club owes its members, juniors and visitors a duty of care, and a written, current risk assessment is the clearest evidence that the club has thought about foreseeable hazards and acted on them. Insurers routinely ask to see one, Rowing Ireland expects affiliated clubs to manage safety properly, and if something ever goes wrong the first question asked will be what the club knew and what it did about it. In practice: every rowing club in Ireland should have one, and should be able to show it is reviewed.
How often should the risk assessment be reviewed?
At least once a year, and immediately after any incident or near miss, any change to your water (new moorings, changed stream or flood behaviour, harbour works), or any change to your activities such as starting a junior programme or adding coastal outings. Irish rivers can carry winter flood levels for weeks, so many clubs pair the annual review with a written stream or sea-state protocol. Put the review date on the document itself and name the person responsible.
Who should write the club risk assessment?
Someone who knows the water and the club - typically the club safety officer, with input from coaches and the committee. It should not be written by one person at a desk: walk the site, boat the stretch or the bay, and involve the people who coach on it. Coastal clubs should include whoever makes the daily go or no-go call on sea state. The committee should formally adopt the finished document so responsibility is clear.
How does this template relate to Rowing Ireland's safety guidance?
Rowing Ireland publishes safety guidance for affiliated clubs covering areas such as cold water, capsize, safe boating and safeguarding. Guidance is not a template, so clubs still need to produce their own risk assessment documents for their own water. This template gives you that document structure with rowing-specific hazards pre-loaded; you should sense-check the finished assessment against Rowing Ireland's current guidance and anything your insurer requires.
Related
Pair this with the incident report form - the risk assessment says what might happen, the incident log tells you what actually does. There is also a guided interactive rowing risk assessment tool and the full templates library.