Three ways to seat a boat
Nationals weekend. Three heats, two late swaps, and someone just asked whether the mixed 200 is balanced. You can work from a paper roster, wrangle a spreadsheet, or use Paddltir. Here is the honest difference.
| Paper roster | Spreadsheet | Paddltir | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the data lives | Names scribbled on a clipboard, weights in someone's head | One shared sheet, often with conflicting edits | One roster your whole coaching team reads from |
| Seating a heat | Draw boxes on paper and hope you counted seats | Copy-paste rows, manually check left/right balance | Seat the boat, swap paddlers, copy heats in a few clicks |
| Trim and balance | Eyeball it, or run numbers on a calculator afterwards | Formulas if someone built them; fragile when weights change | Fore-aft trim and side balance update as you seat people |
| Race-day changes | Cross out names, redraw, pray the sweep can read your handwriting | Find the right tab, undo the wrong paste, notify everyone again | Swap seats, copy to the next heat, empty-seat check before you launch |
| Multiple heats | Separate sheets per heat, easy to mix up | Tabs multiply; version control becomes someone's job | Crewlists for the weekend, heats linked, compare lineups side by side |
| Time on race morning | Works for one boat; falls apart with three heats and a late swap | Faster than paper until someone edits the wrong column | Minutes to seat, check gaps, and confirm balance |
Paper roster
Simple, visible, and hard to argue with on the bank. For one boat and one heat it works fine. The problem is scale: multiple heats, last-minute swaps, and balance checks mean redrawing or maintaining parallel sheets. By Sunday afternoon the authoritative version is whichever clipboard the coach is holding.
Spreadsheet
Better for sorting names and storing weights. But seating left and right, copying heats, and checking trim usually means custom formulas someone built once and nobody wants to touch. One wrong paste on race morning and half the club is looking at the wrong lineup.
Paddltir
Built for the actual workflow: roster your paddlers, crewlist the weekend, seat each heat, swap seats without starting over, and read trim and side balance before you confirm. Empty-seat checks catch missing drummer or sweep before you leave the dock. You still make the selection calls — Paddltir just stops the admin from eating race morning.