so there's a lot of different ways to carry a single and it's going to depend a lot on what
your boat setup is so some boats have backstays like this one some boats have a bow mounted
rigger carbon rigger here some have a stern mounted rigger so it's really going to depend
a lot but basically the easiest way to carry a single is with two people one person on each end
that's not always possible so i'm going to show you a few ways to carry your single
by yourself uh the key is always to pick it up in the in the middle where the balance position is
so maybe a hand either side so just pretend we've got this boat here because it's got a
back stay i need to get on the inside of it and when i lift it up i have to get it in the middle
and so because with this one it's not that easy to pick it up like that and i've got quite long arms
it's easier for me to reach over the top like this puts a bit more strain on your back
but if you're stronger like i am it's relatively easy and you step over into the rigger you can
bring it up to the body and it's no longer that heavy so as you can see here i've got one hand in
front so this hand is in front of the balance position like towards the stern of the boat
this hand is towards the bow and if it's windy outside or something i can always pull it into
my body and use my body as a third point of contact so on my leg there so so you can imagine
that would be quite difficult for someone that didn't have as much upper body strength as me
so i'd suggest if you have a boat like this and you aren't as strong and it's
you know equally as busy with riggers get someone to help you get out of the shed then once it's on
some trestles it's a lot easier to do so with these um these bow mounted riggers it's a bit
easier because there's no back stay so you can sort of get in to the boat a lot easier so the
closer you can get to your boat before you pick it up the easier it's going to be to move around okay
so you know this isn't my boat so i don't know exactly where
the balance point is so i just sort of have to feel around until i can get it
and so again the main thing we want to watch is not hitting it on any of the riggers
yeah so now this boat's out and take it out and put on the trestles again it's going to
take a bit of practice to work out which way your boat goes best back into the rack
you might have to place it like i have here and move it along a little bit
to get it perfectly back where it was
all right i'll show you with my boat on the other side what i do
so i'd always suggest if you're a little bit taller or taller compared to others in the
shed that you pick a rack that's that's quite high up so basically your boat's out of the way
of all other people trying to get their boats off it's less likely to get damaged but with
mines because i i can't quite reach the center balance point there's often riggers in the way
things like this and so um i'm lucky that there's no back stays here so i can reach over but what
i do is i pick it up so now i'm in the balance point of it whereas before i couldn't reach it
pick it up take it out on a bit of an angle make sure my rigger doesn't touch anyone else's
it's on my shoulder and so i can take it straight out like this put it on the water if i want
or i can take it out through on tressles so
again taking the boat out by yourself is something you want to do
if you're confident that you can lift it safely uh you don't want to be overloading all your muscles
you don't be pulling anything in your back and so you know maybe takes a bit of practice before you
get the boat out by yourself but it's definitely possible and you don't have to be big to be able
to do it so it's generally easiest to have your boat facing whichever way you want to go
so you pick it up facing this way so i'm going this way boat's going this way so that's probably
the best way you don't really want to be picking it up backwards unless you really have to um so
there's a few different ways to pick up a boat um i'll start the easiest and we'll go to the
to the hardest so the easiest is probably just to pick it up in the middle so practice getting the
balance point right pick it up in the middle put it on your hip so rest it on your hip like this
you can even rest the riger on your shoulder a bit and then you can just walk the boat down like this
maybe i'll go put it in the water
so carrying the boat down like this is really secure this is the way i carry my boat if it's
really windy so i don't want to have it over my head because it's a lot harder to control
this way i can have my body touching it i can have a good good grip on with my hands
you can also see around you quite well as well so when your boat's on your shoulder it's obviously
in your line of sight so you can't really see very well but here i can see quite well what's happened
so again just resting it on my hip feel for the edge with my foot so i know where the
edge is bend down and place in the water and so this is a very controlled way of doing it
uh it's definitely where i'd be starting if you haven't picked up a single by yourself before
and getting it out of the water is very similar so
get down to the same crouch position you'll get used to where the balance point is it's
different for every boat but i know that mine's about here because i've rowed it so many times
pick it up on your hip then you can head back in so just take it slow you can see
here there's lots of things for me to hit so once i get straight i can walk it up like this
again it's important to take your time when you place it on the trestles you don't want to be
placing it on the hard bit of the trestles you want to put in soft bits so once you're lined
up rest it down like that so also it's important to work out what side of the boat you want to be
on when you get to the water otherwise you'll have to switch what side it is so if i pick it
up like this on this side my bow's facing that way i'll be heading down the river that way but
if i want to head back up this way i should be on the other side so i'll just come round
so there's a couple of ways to get the boat on your shoulder when you're when you're carrying it
so you can with a boat like this when you're carrying it by yourself you'll see um
you see a lot of crews with um you know with quads and things like pick the boat up they sort
of rock it like this and then up to the shoulder so the reason why that doesn't work in a single is
because the rigor is basically in the way of the perfect balance point so if you go to flip it up
this rigor will come and hit you in the back side and so you won't be able to do that because when
they when they've got a couple of people on the boat they pick it up but here they're clear of
the riggers they can go up so when you're picking the boat up you either have to pick it if it's up
this way you have to work around the rigger so if i had a back stay i'd have to step out and through
or reach over the back stay like this and it's not a very strong position you know if you're
not very strong through your back and arms you could you could hurt yourself so the way i pick
the single up like this is get it on my hip i lift it up so lift it up with my upper body
make sure the rigger clears my body and then rest it on my shoulder like this
and because so i've got this balanced here with just my shoulder and my hand because i'm in the
right point but my second arm holds onto it here and stabilizes it and if it gets too
windy i'll bring it back down to my hip and walk it slowly because it's more controlled
if i'll show you what happens if the boat's up the other way so i can reach over my boat quite easily
but that's not necessarily going to be the case for you when you're doing it so sometimes the
boats out like this if you want to carry it by yourself like this same deal you can pick it
up like this but then when you get to the water you're going to have to flip it over it's a bit
of a pain so if you're going to carry it on your hip i'd recommend the boat's already flipped over
if you carry on your shoulder though it's not too bad especially with these trestles they're quite
tall with the shorter trestles you won't be able to get under it as easy so i can get down on one
knee here reach under the boat put on my shoulder and stand up like this that's another way you
can pick up the boat it's a little bit harder than than i think uh lifting it up like this so
i think lifting up like this much easier you have to make sure you clear the rigger so i
pick up the boat and see if i went straight to my shoulder my rigor and hit me straight
in the back of the leg so what i actually have to do in one movement pick it up move it out
come back to the shoulder and so i'll go down to the water and show you what it's like to put it in
so when you come down you always want to have a look to see if there's anything in the water first
as you can see here if i look straight out i'm just going to see the boat so i have
to lift the boat up have a quick look and then come back down just like i did with
placing the boat from my waist so move around my rigger come down place the boat in the water
and so getting the boat out of the water is a very similar to getting it off the trestle so
i have to lift it up move it forward a little bit get the rig to clear my legs up on my shoulder
like that and you can see here that having it on your shoulder can be
beneficial sometimes because you're often up and above most other things
so you can see here that the the pylons of this pontoon uh cleared easily when i put
it on my shoulder but if it's at my waist i have to make sure i work around them so when it comes
to carrying your boat on your shoulder there's a couple of ways that you shouldn't do it just
because of uh the potential for causing damage to the the boat itself so when you pick it up
you want to make sure you're either supporting it
here on your shoulder and you're on the other side or you can carry it a little bit more like this
so you see here i've sort of got it vertical like that i'm supporting the weight all through the
side here and it's like a really distributed amount of support you don't want to carry it
like this so you don't want to carry it here it's basically you're putting a whole heap of pressure
through the through the base of the boat here and if you dig it in with your shoulder you can have
a very small point of pressure you can imagine if you were sort of like went over a bump or
um you know maybe tripped a little bit and hit it on your shoulder you could uh you could damage it
it's probably not such a big deal with this sort of boat it's really solid like got a really thick
skin uh really solid material but a lot of boats that you will row will be a lot more fragile so
you want to carry it like this you can hold it hold it down here like this or
carry it on your shoulder like this and uh yeah depending on what's most comfortable for you
you'll find out what you want to do but yeah try not to put too much pressure in one spot
especially on the hull of the boat because it's not designed to take it
so there's a couple of different ways there to carry the boat um if you're starting off i'd
recommend carrying it with someone else so one person at each end but you can pretty quickly
progress to carrying it by yourself you know either at your waist or on your shoulder and
just try and you know progress at your own sort of with your own confidence you don't
want to be doing too much too soon and you know don't hurt yourself when you're trying to do it