Rowing Hack: How-To Hack for CoxBox Cabinet-ing – Rowing Stories, Features &

Sure, there are a lot of ways to rack, stow, charge, and–let’s face it–centrally-locate your team’s collection of cox-boxes and other must-have electronics, but this week’s Hack is a handy how-to on making perhaps the key piece of any cox-box cabinet: those perfectly-sized holes that do the trick of holding the boxes vertically so you can mount them on a wall or, as our clever Rowing Hacker here has done, in a neat, lockable cabinet that keeps them secured as they charge up for your next outing.

The “hole” trick? The 4-1/4″ inch hole saw and, while you might only need it once, this is the perfect example of one of those times where having the exact right tool makes the job–and the hack– 100% easier, and better . . . even if you never have occasion to use that tool again!

This how-to came to us from Aidan Skelding, who spent a few hours using his 4-1/4″ inch hole saw to hack up this storage solution for the coxswains at St. Ignatius Chicago. The hole saw and the 3/4 inch plywood are hacker stand-bys for this build, of course, but Coach Skelding added some sweet hacks of his own here, as he described for us:

“I screwed a 4″ PVC pipe end cap to the back of the plywood with L brackets and drilled 1″ holes for the charging plugs. Fits nicely into an existing cabinet we had, which helped keep the cost down.”

Finding a way to use PVC pipe and an existing cabinet that did not cost the team any extra? That’s some heads-up hacking right there, and it adds yet another way to put PVC pipes to work in the boathouse. Well done.

Now, we are guessing that St Ignatius Chicago is not the only place that put some of their COVID downtime into sprucing things up to make the boathouse run better, and it was great to see Jim Cooper’s Electric Closet hack from a few months back inspiring some fellow hackers, but we do have to wonder: did he remember to add a christmas light timer?

If you’ve been busy like Aidan, hacking away at your place on the “let’s make this place more efficient” front, share your tips–and hacks–in the comments below.

Have a great rowing hack to suggest for future inclusion? Send it to us!