Rowing Club Incident Report Form
A one-page form for recording incidents and near misses properly - on the day, while people remember. Download the PDF, keep blank copies in the boatshed, and file every completed one. Free, no email address required.
What should an incident report capture?
Date, time and exact location; who was involved and who witnessed it; the boats and equipment concerned; water and weather conditions at the time - on a big lake, wind state matters more than almost anything else; a factual description of what happened; any injuries and treatment given; and the follow-up actions with a named owner and date. Near misses get the same form as injuries - they are the cheapest safety lessons a club ever gets. Clubs affiliated to Rowing New Zealand should also pass reportable incidents on through Rowing NZ's incident reporting process.
Download the form
Download PDFFree. No email, no watermark. Print a stack for the boatshed noticeboard.
What is on the form
One page, seven sections. Designed to be completed in five minutes on the day, not reconstructed a week later.
1. When and where
Date, time, and precise location - "500m past the yellow buoy, towards the dam end", not "on the lake".
2. Who
People directly involved, their squads, and witnesses with contact details. Include the duty coach or session leader - and for school crews, note which school or squad they row for.
3. Boats and equipment
Which shells, oars, coach boats or trailers were involved, and any damage - this feeds your maintenance log.
4. Conditions
Wind and chop, lake level or flow, visibility, temperature, daylight. The pattern across incidents is where the safety lessons hide - and on NZ lakes, wind will dominate that pattern.
5. What happened
A factual account in the writer's own words. What was seen and done - not whose fault it was.
6. Injuries and treatment
Any injury however minor, first aid given, whether medical help was called, and who was informed - for juniors, that includes parents and the school where relevant.
7. Actions and reporting
Follow-up actions with a named owner and a date, whether the risk assessment needs updating, and whether the incident was reported to Rowing New Zealand.
This form is a club-level record. It does not replace any statutory or workplace reporting duties that may apply to your club, or your governing body's incident reporting requirements. Clubs affiliated to Rowing New Zealand should pass reportable incidents on through Rowing NZ's incident reporting process.
The form is for the day. The pattern is the point.
One incident report tells you what happened on Saturday. Fifty of them tell you which stretch, which wind direction and which boats keep coming up. That needs the incident, the people and the equipment to be connected records rather than paper in a folder - which is what Row HQ does: members, boats, damage history and outing logs in one place, so when something happens the who-had-which-boat-when question answers itself. Print this form for the boatshed; keep the system of record in Row HQ; coach with the time you get back.
Set up your club freeFree for clubs of up to 20 active members.
Incident reporting FAQs
Should near misses be reported as well as injuries?
Yes - always. A near miss is an incident where nobody happened to get hurt this time: the eight that missed the sculler in morning fog, the crew that got caught out when the wind swung and the chop built mid-outing, the trestle that collapsed with no one under it. Near misses are far more common than injuries and show you exactly where the next injury is coming from. Use the same one-page form, mark it as a near miss, and review the pattern at committee level each season.
When does an incident need reporting to Rowing New Zealand?
Rowing New Zealand expects affiliated clubs and schools to report safety incidents and meaningful near misses - capsizes, collisions, injuries, equipment failures and anything a regatta safety officer would want to know about. The club form on this page is for your own record on the day; the Rowing NZ submission is the formal report. Check Rowing NZ's current guidance for exactly what is reportable, and note the submission on section 7 of the form so nothing falls through the gap.
How long should incident reports be kept?
Keep them for as long as a claim or question could realistically arise - for juniors, that means keeping records until well into their adulthood. Many clubs simply keep all incident records for the life of the club: they are also the club's institutional safety memory, and with school squads cycling through every few years, paper memory is the only kind that survives. Store them securely: they contain personal data, so access should be limited to those who need it.
Related
The incident log is the feedback loop for your risk assessment - review one against the other at least annually. Browse the full templates library for more club documents.