Who this is for: equipment managers and coaches who keep the club's fleet up to date, and members who want to look up a boat. Permission required: none to view the inventory. Add Equipment to Inventory to add boats; Manage Equipment or Add Equipment to Inventory to edit boats and to add, edit or delete oars and ergs. Equipment Usage Hours & Group Permissions to choose which groups may check out each boat.
The inventory is the list of everything your club owns that can be rowed, pulled or reserved. Every other equipment feature builds on it: reservations and practice lineups pick boats from it, members report issues against it, and the insurance, valuation and usage reports are calculated from the details you enter here. The more complete each record is, the more useful those reports become.
Open Equipment → All Equipment and pick Boats, Oars or Ergs.
Boats
The Boats page shows one column per size — 1x Singles, 2x/- Doubles/Pairs, 4x/+/- Quads & Fours and 8+ Eights — with a tile for each boat. The tile color shows its status: green for Available, red for Out Of Service and grey for Archived.
Add a boat
- Go to Equipment → All Equipment → Boats.
- Click the green + button and choose Add 1x, Add 2x/-, Add 4x/+/- or Add 8+. (The button only appears if you have Add Equipment to Inventory.)
- Work through the three steps of the wizard:
| Step | Fields |
|---|---|
| Basic Data | Boat Name (required), Manufacturer (required — pick Other to type one in), Model, Serial Number, Year Built, Year Purchased |
| Physical Attributes | Avg Weight - Min and Avg Weight - Max (required, in lbs), Color, and for fours and eights Is this boat coxed? (No, Yes, Bow Loader or Yes, Stern Loader) |
| Financial Info | Purchase Price, Is this boat insured with the organizations insurance policy? and, if Yes, Current Value / Insured Value |
- Finish the wizard. The new boat's details open straight away.
Tip: Fill in the purchase price and insurance fields even if they feel optional. The insurance summary only lists boats marked as insured, and cost-per-hour figures in boat analytics are calculated from the purchase price.
Edit a boat
Click a boat's tile to open its details. The window has five tabs:
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| General | Physical attributes (name, size, coxed, manufacturer, model, year built, serial number, weight range, color) and other attributes (year purchased, purchase price, insured, insured value, status). People with Manage Equipment or Add Equipment to Inventory see an Edit button next to each editable field; click it, change the value and click Save. Boat size and manufacturer cannot be changed after the boat is added. |
| Rigging | Seat configuration and rigging measurements (see below). |
| Reservations | Upcoming and past reservations that include this boat. |
| Checkout Permissions | The groups allowed to check out this boat for personal and practice use. |
| Reported Issues | Issues reported against this boat, with the date reported, reporter, issue and resolution date (Pending until resolved). |
Status is set on the General tab: Available, Out Of Service or Archived. Only Available boats can be picked for a private reservation. There is no delete button for boats — set a boat you have sold or retired to Archived.
Record rigging
The Rigging tab has a section for each part of the setup: Seat Config, Spreads, Lateral Pitch, Front Pitch, Swivel Height, Track Length and Foot Stretchers. Measurements are entered per seat, in inches or degrees as labeled.
In Seat Config, click a seat's button to cycle it through Port, Starboard and Sculling. Set every seat: the lineup builder and other pages use the seat configuration to tell a quad from a four or a double from a pair.
Choose which groups can check out a boat
- Open the boat and select Checkout Permissions.
- Pick a group from Select Group to Add. Members of every listed group can see and reserve this boat.
- Click Remove next to a group to take the permission away.
Only people with Equipment Usage Hours & Group Permissions see the dropdown and Remove buttons. A boat with no groups listed will not appear when members make a private reservation. Groups themselves are covered in Groups.
Oars
Oars are kept in sets, so a club can track, say, the "Varsity Sweeps" as one unit while still recording each individual blade.
- Go to Equipment → All Equipment → Oars and click the green + button.
- In New Oar Set, choose the Type of Oars (Sweep or Sculling), then enter the Name of Set, Set Description, Manufacturer and Model. Click Add.
- Select the set and click Add Oar for each oar in it. Choose Port or Starboard? and enter an Oar Identifier (Name) such as the number painted on the shaft.
Click an oar to open Oar Details, where you can rename it, set its Status to Available or Out Of Service, or Delete it. Delete Set removes the set and every oar in it; reservations and practices that had already selected those oars are notified that they must pick new ones.
Ergs
- Go to Equipment → All Equipment → Ergs and click the green + button.
- In Add New Erg, enter an Identifier (the label on the machine), Manufacturer, Model, Year Purchased, Location, Is this erg insured by the organization? and, if so, the Insured Value. Click Add.
Click any erg in the All Ergs table to open Edit Erg. From there you can change the identifier, location, insurance details and Status (Available or Out Of Service), or click Delete Erg.
Decode a serial number
The free Serial Number Decoder at /tools/serialnumberdecoder (also in the Tools menu on the Boathouse Connect website) reads the serial number — the Hull Identification Number (HIN) stamped on the hull — and reports what it can work out from it:
- Manufacturer, Hull Type / Size and Hull Number
- Year / Month of Production
- Average Crew Weight Range, where the builder's code includes it
- Notes
Pick the manufacturer, enter the serial number and click Decode. Builder-specific rules are included for Vespoli and Pocock, and several other builders are in the list; for anything else choose Other (Standard USCG HIN) to decode the standard 12-character format. Use the results to fill in Year Built and the weight range when you add an older boat. For full boat details, contact the builder with your serial number.
FAQ
I can see the boats but there is no + button. Adding boats requires Add Equipment to Inventory. Ask an administrator to add you to a group that has it — see Roles & permissions.
How do I delete a boat? You can't delete a boat — set its status to Archived instead. That keeps its history (reservations, issues, usage analytics) intact. Oars, oar sets and ergs can be deleted.
Why can't a member find a boat when they make a reservation? Check three things on the boat: its status is Available, at least one of the member's groups is listed under Checkout Permissions, and no blackout time covers the period they chose.
Do I have to enter rigging? No, but set at least the Seat Config for doubles/pairs and fours/quads so the rest of the app shows the right boat type.
Can I import our equipment from a spreadsheet? No. There is no equipment import. Add each boat, oar and erg with the green + button on its page.