Tag: cox box

Reviewing the Cox Orb

Coxing Rowing

Reviewing the Cox Orb

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Game. Changer.

That’s the best way I can describe the Cox Orb. It’s one thing to “ooh” and “ahh” over it on Instagram or at the regatta booths but I’m telling you guys, if/when your team is in need of new cox boxes I really hope you alert your coaches to the existence of the Cox Orbs because they are a much more worthwhile investment than NK’s original model. Don’t get me wrong either, I love NK’s cox box – I’ve been using them for 14 years now with minimal issues – but I can’t deny that a competitor in the cox box market as well as an update to what’s currently available is long overdue.

In today’s post I’m going to briefly talk about my experience with the Cox Orb so far and highlight some pros and cons that I and the MIT coxswains have come across as we’ve used it throughout the last several months. To start though I wanna point out the different models that are available, as well as do a price comparison between each one and the standard NK model.

Price comparisons & who each model is best suited for

Below is a Google Sheet that includes the price of each model (the price links to that model’s page on the Active Tools website) as well as the key features of each one (in separate tabs at the bottom). To view the full spreadsheet in a separate tab, click here.

Some notes:

High school clubs/teams don’t need the fancy features that come with the Platinum. Although the GPS would be great to have, the Steel, Cobalt, or Tungsten will accomplish everything you need at this stage in the game.

College programs should consider the Tungsten or Platinum simply because the data you can collect will go farther here than it would at the high school level (and if you coach/cox a bunch of data driven nerds like I do, they’ll appreciate having something else to look at other than whatever data you collect from the ergs).

The full package is, in my opinion, a better deal than just getting the unit, mic, and charger because the full package comes with the carrying case (which is $40 on its own). I’m obsessed with this case because it’s small, lightweight, and has a shoulder strap so I definitely recommend using it over NK’s cases (which should fit these cox boxes, although I haven’t tried to see if it does yet).

Pros & Cons

I’ve had the Platinum model since September and I love it. I raced with it at Head of the Charles and used it regularly throughout the fall while I was coxing. Here’s my pro/con list thus far.

PRO The microphone is loads better than NK’s in nearly every capacity. The sound comes across clearer and even on a low setting it’s still pretty loud. The head strap gets a huge thumbs up from me because, as someone who hates wearing the mic, NK’s drives me crazy. Even their new head straps seem flimsy at best and I always felt like no matter how tight I made it, it never stayed in place, even with a hat on. The Orb’s strap is wider, thicker (I think … or at very least, more durable), and just more comfortable in general so once it’s on I don’t have to think about it again until I take it off.

CON My only con with the microphone is that it doesn’t seem to fare well in strong winds. For as good as the sound is, it seemed to get easily drowned out when the wind was hitting the mic, despite my attempts to shield it with my hand, turn my head a little, etc.

PRO Real time splits and check factor. Speed coaches are great but it’s just one more thing to have to remember and carry whereas with the Orb, the splits are already built in. I never tried it with the impeller but when I compared the splits I had with my Speedcoach they were very similar. Not quite exact but the margin of difference between the splits was consistent and never more than 1-2 splits total. I didn’t play with the check factor very much (this was mainly due to the level of boat I was coxing, I don’t think the data would have been that useful for us) but the fact that it exists is a huge plus (and again would definitely be data that college coaches would appreciate having).

CON There’s kind of a steep learning curve that comes with the more advanced models. The Steel and Cobalt are very similar to NK’s (they’re basically idiot proof) but the added features on the Tungsten and Platinum (particularly the Platinum) mean that you’ve gotta spend quite a bit of time reading through the instruction manual and playing with it before taking it on the water if you want to actually be able to use them to their fullest capacity. It took me a few practices before I felt comfortable just using the basic features and remembering which buttons did what. I didn’t expect to “get it” right away but I also didn’t anticipate how much time I’d need to spend familiarizing myself with it before I practiced with it. I guess this isn’t so much a “con” as it is a friendly warning that this isn’t a piece of tech that you’re gonna want to figure out how to use as you’re trying to use it during practice … speaking from experience, you’ll just frustrate and distract yourself if you try to do that.

PRO In the Tungsten and Platinum, the need for an external voice recorder is eliminated because the Orb automatically starts recording your voice as soon as you press “start” to do a piece. To get it off the unit (along with all the other data) all you’ve gotta do is plug it into your laptop via the included USB connector.

CON This may be a user-error issue but I had some trouble with the Orb staying in the holder while I was racing with it during HOCR, as well as when it was cold out. I noticed that the colder it was the less likely it was to stay in place, I assume because the plastic on the holder was less malleable than it is when it’s warm. When I was practicing this wasn’t that big of a deal but it did distract me while I was racing at HOCR. I didn’t have issues with this when we were in Florida though (where it was substantially warmer) so I’m attributing it to either me just not using enough muscle to get it into the holder properly or, like I said, the cold affecting the malleability of the plastic.

(Keep in mind that the Orbs don’t fit perfectly into the standard holders, which is by design. The rounded bottom (hence, “orb“) lets you position it however you want, that way you don’t have to lean forward or adjust your body in any way in order to clearly see the screen.)

PRO You can program workouts which means, for example, you don’t have to remember each individual chunk of time for your interval workouts because you can just program them straight into the cox box. I used this a couple times when I coxed the guys in Florida over winter break and it was a life saver. When you’re on a busy waterway with giant channel markers scattered all over the place (that you need to pay extra attention to since one of the coxswains already hit one, broke an oar, and ejected the bow seat…) all the while actually trying to cox a piece, the last thing you want to be doing is distracting yourself by trying to remember how much time is left in this interval. Programming it and letting the cox box do the work is a god send.

PRO The customer service is A+. I’ve had minimal dealings with NK’s customer service myself but we’ve all heard the stories so … yea. The guys at Active Tools are awesome and I strongly encourage you to talk with them if you come across one of their booths. They are fully committed to creating a product that fits our needs and is something we’ll want to use, not just something we have to use.

PRO My favorite feature – GPS! Unfortunately it’s only available on the Platinum but this alone makes that model worth getting, at least in my opinion. I used it a lot in the fall to track my HOCR course (although I failed at recording it during the actual race so that was a bust) and I used it in the spring to judge/observe the courses our coxswains took during some of our races. Once you connect the Orb to your computer all you’ve gotta do is open the associated GPS data in Google Earth and you’ll be able to zoom in and see every touch of the rudder along your course. In the case of our coxswains it was a huge reality check because looking at it zoomed out you’ll think “that looks like a pretty straight course, yay, go me!” and then you’ll zoom in and be like “… oh”. It’s a great tool to have though and kinda the only one out there that actually holds you accountable for your steering by actually putting in front of your face the exact course that you steered.

Below are some screenshots of the course our varsity eight coxswain steered during practice on a day when we were doing 4x2ks. The blue line is the course he took and the red line is the ruler feature on Google Earth that I used to compare how straight his course actually was. Given that this was a fairly windy practice day, overall I’d say this isn’t too bad. You can see though that it really captures every single time you hit the rudder so there’s no escaping the accountability here.

Throughout winter training in Florida and the spring season I lent the Orb to a couple of the coxswains in the boathouse to get their thoughts on it. For the most part we all had similar pros/cons but below are some that one of our lightweight coxswains shared after using it for a few weeks.

PRO Being able to track the course is huge. If I remember correctly, the GPS it captures has an error margin of +/- 2-3 meters, which, when zooming in on Google Earth lets you see which coxswain had the straightest/most correct course.

CON There is a lot of information of the screen, which is good, but sometimes distracting (and a little bit too informative, if that’s possible).

PRO The ability to position the box is super nice and it won’t move around no matter how soaked it is – see “adventure row”, hahaha. (For context, when we’re in Florida the lightweights do a marathon row around the island we row off of and this year the wind and chop was pretty epic so it was basically like sailing the high seas for them. Below is a screenshot of the course they took this year.)

CON There’s a very harsh/difficult learning curve. A lot of the features are super useful if you know how to use them (i.e. timing pieces). My main issue was not knowing how to set up pieces – if you don’t know how to do this fast (or can’t remember how to do it) you’ll never want to do it while you’re on the water and then you lose the functionality of being able to match up and break down data according to which piece the boat was doing.

PRO It’s loud and can handle being loud. Like, significantly better than the NK boxes can, which was huge for us because my bow pair were having problems hearing me with the cox box. The Orb had no issues at all. At one point, they actually asked me to turn it down (haha).

(Biggest) CON When you turn it on, theres a good chunk of time where you can’t see the time. This is huge if you need to restart the box in the middle of practice for some reason (basically turn on and off because you’re stuck on a screen because you don’t know how to use it, which happened to me, or to test connections because a speaker isn’t working) and need to be able to see the time immediately after.

PRO The battery life is incredible. I didn’t charge this nearly as often as I should have and I never had any issues.

Final thoughts

All in all, it’s definitely a well-liked tool in our boathouse. We’ve also affectionately nicknamed it “the Borb” because its faster and more fun to say than “Cox Orb”. The other heavyweight coaches dig it too and have already given me some ideas for how to better integrate it into our practices next year so we can better use the data it’s collecting (for the coxswains specifically, we’re gonna abuse the hell out of the GPS feature … fair warning guys!).

Looking back, I can recall specific conversations I’ve had in the past with my dad (5+ years ago when I was in college) where we talked about what should be included in a cox box, what would make them more effective tools, etc., so to now actually see and have a tangible piece of equipment that embodies everything you could possibly need … like I said, it’s a game changer.

I’d love to hear any questions you have so leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll do a follow-up post sometime in the next couple of weeks. I’ll also be bringing it with me to the camps I’ll be coaching at this summer so if you’ll be at either of the Sparks Middletown camps or at Northeast Rowing Center you’ll get a chance to try it out firsthand and see how it works.

Image via // @beantownkmd

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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Hi – we were doing 6×5′ race pieces today at 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, open. Obviously the coaches were being sticklers on the rate but my cox box was not giving me the right stroke rate – it said I was at a 22 the entire time when I knew that we weren’t and the boat really likes to know what rate they’re at. When I felt the rate coming up I would call to bring it down but the coaches kept saying “you’re above rate, bring it down! It’s your responsibility!” I know that it’s my responsibility but how do you deal with these kinds of situations? We don’t have speed coaches to use either. Thanks!

I really, truly, genuinely hope that I’m not the only one who thinks that the most obvious (and only legitimate) solution here is to just tell your coaches that your cox box isn’t giving you the correct rates. It is your responsibility and part of that responsibility includes communicating with the coaches when an issue that could impact the workout arises. You literally have no excuse to not speak up in situations like this. It’s not that hard to say “hey, my cox box keeps showing that we’re at a 22 even though we should be at a 28…”, to which the coaches will respond (maybe slightly annoyed but whatever, they’ll survive) “ok, we’ll keep the rate from the launch and let you know where you’re at”. Every coach has a stroke watch (which is how they knew you were above rate) but they’re not gonna know that you need them to tell you what they’re getting if you don’t speak up.

The other thing you need to do is put the boat in slings after practice and have the coach or your boatman look at the sensor under the stroke seat since that’s probably where the problem lies.

(Another reason) Why you need a working cox box

Coxing

(Another reason) Why you need a working cox box

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Below is an email I received from a coxswain who wanted to share her experience of coxing without a working cox box. I will never understand programs that look at cox boxes as an option rather than a necessity or say that sending them in to be repaired, serviced, whatever is too much effort, too expensive, etc. Cox boxes are expensive, yes, but so are boats and oars and riggers and you rarely, if ever, see programs so flippantly write off issues that arise with them. So … why are cox boxes any different?

“I’ve been following your blog for a while now and I have seen several stories and questions about not having a cox box. I just wanted to share my story about not having one.

My freshman year of high school I decided that I wanted to try out for crew. I was put as the coxswain because I was one of the smaller girls. At the start of the season, our team had 4 varsity 4s (coxed) and the novice team had an 8 and 2 extras. Between the time the season started and when we really started to learn how to row effectively, more girls had joined which gave the novice team an 8, a 4 (coxed), and an extra. The eight was the worst boat and I was given that boat because the other coxswain was better than I. I didn’t have any problem with that because I wanted our team to be fast.

Since our freshman year (I am now a sophomore) both the other coxswain and I did crew in the fall and spring of freshman year and fall of sophomore year. This spring season however, she decided that she wanted to do lacrosse. Now I am going to get to cox the second boat – in the fall I was in fourth boat because there are only 2 experienced coxswains. But my story really starts with the eight novice year.

Our school has a total of 8 boxes. Box “A” is the newest and the best. Box “B” is the next best. Box “C” is third best (and mine for this fall season). Box “D” is fourth best. Those are the four varsity boxes. The novice boxes aren’t named because they change hands ever year. One of the boxes that we have really does not work at all but another one works fairly well. The last box, my box for my novice season, did not work in the eight or the novice four and was just really staticky in the varsity boats. I brought this up to the coach and he said that there was nothing that we could do so I should just try and yell. IN AN EIGHT. I some how managed to make my self heard and when the other coxswain and I switched halfway through the year we kept our boxes because at this point I was pretty good at projecting my voice so my rowers could hear me. Now though I was in a bow loader four.

At some point along this path I had developed a cough that sounded uncannily like a goose. Like not even kidding, the geese on the dock would honk back at me. Now this cough didn’t really bother me, it was just part of who I was and it didn’t hurt. My rowers though told me to go to the doctor. Being a silly fourteen year-old, I did not connect the cough to the coxing so I continued as normal. Fast forward through the winter (during which I play ice hockey) and the spring season (when I decided that I wanted to try rowing for some unknown reason). My cough continued but was less noticeable. Spring season ended. At our school spring sports end before finals start and at the end of the two week finals I get a cold (right before my oral Chinese final…). Of course along with a cold comes a cough. At first they were just normal coughs but towards the end of my cold they turned in to the dry deep coughs I refer to as my “goose cough”.

I took the first two weeks of summer off from doing anything and my cough continued. Soon though my summer job started up. At my summer job I biked 7 miles to a pool and then helped with swim lessons for the morning. I also knew that I was going to take the life guarding course at the end of the summer so I started swimming laps. I used to be able to swim laps with pretty good stamina but now I started getting out of breath after one lap. This shortness of breath continued throughout the summer and continued getting worse. Eventually at the end of the summer I had to go to the doctors for my regular physical. I mentioned my breathing problem and my doctor said it will probably pass and not to worry about it so I didn’t. Well a couple weeks later I’m back for some reason and I mention that it had gotten worse and she was able to hear me cough because I had been slightly sick. Without running any tests she “diagnosed” asthma and prescribed an inhaler, which didn’t really help. I went back to tell her that and she put me on another inhaler that was every morning and night rather than as needed like the other one was and yeah, it really didn’t help. It made me dizzy, tired, and was such a hassle.

Now school starts again and my breathing gets to the point were I am out of breath when walking down the hallway and I simply can’t do stairs. The crew team decides to go run Harvard stadium for a workout and the coxswains decided as a group that we would do this workout with the team, so I took along my inhaler. To warm up we run once around the stadium. I used my inhaler and tried to jog with them. I managed to get around but it was a very big struggle. We start to run the stairs and I do the first section with lots of problems. By section 3 I have to take the inhaler again because I physically can not get air in. I made the decision to stupidly do at least half of all the sections because … I was stupid. I took probably 8 puffs by the time we were done with 30 of the sections. Cut to the car ride home and the entire way I could not breathe. My mother was close to turning around and bringing me to the emergency room. She didn’t but made an appointment for me with a pulmonologist (lung doctor). He had me do a bunch of tests and when they gave me the asthma medication they normally used, my breathing capacity went down. So they gave me the proper tool to use the inhaler with and sent me on my way with a follow up appointment in 6 weeks.

I go back in six weeks and – surprise surprise – the medications are not working. They take me off them and suggest a possibility that had not previously been discussed. They asked me if I had ever misused my voice for extended periods of time and I was like “yeah try the whole fall season my freshman year.” They said I most likely had something called vocal chord dysfunction where the vocal chords actually close when you try and breathe, making it feel like you can’t get any breaths in. This perfectly described my situation and they put me on a different medication that mostly worked for the first couple of weeks (as in I no longer get out of breath walking down the hall) but I am still not completely well. I go back in two weeks and they will probably change my meds to better fit my needs (probably a stronger dose or something). And who knows, I might not ever be completely better. My breathing problems at one point made it so I was afraid I was going to faint while walking to chemistry class.

DO NOT LET ANYONE COX WITH OUT A BOX BECAUSE IT MIGHT CAUSE PERMANENT DAMAGE. I shared this story because I wanted to tell someone how dangerous coxing without a box is. By the way, love the blog, it has definitely helped me improve. Thanks for reading.”

I know I’ve talked to several of you recently via email about similar breathing/coughing issues so if this isn’t something you’ve already explored as the cause, I’d talk with your parents about it and make an appointment with your doctor as soon as you’re able.

Thanks to the coxswain who I sent this in, I appreciate it and I’m sure other coxswains (and their parents) will too.

Image via // @ryanjnicholsonphoto

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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Hi – Our rowing club in LA is having all sorts of coxbox/wiring issues lately. Weird thing is it’s in different boats and different boxes so I’m wondering if it could be something global like weather. Now, we don’t get that cold compared to other regions but we do row all year and last 3 weeks its been in the upper 40’s/lower 50’s in the early morning. The main symptoms are very low volume throughout the boat or intermittency – all speakers cutting out in middle of row. We did try at least two microphones in one boat this morning. Any ideas??

40s-50s is not cold … I mean, maybe by LA standards but that’s not the issue here. By the sounds of it, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you row in salt water, in which case that’s your problem. When the salt comes in contact with the wires it can cause corrosion which in turn can/will effect the sound quality, transmission, etc. That’s one of the main reasons why you have to wash the equipment (which includes cox boxes!!) off regularly, tedious as it might be, otherwise eventually it’ll catch up with you and you end up with problems like this.

Assuming you do row in salt water I imagine that you’re washing your boats every day after practice so while the rowers are doing that I’d grab a washcloth or something and wipe off the cox box, the wires, the connectors inside the boat, etc. With the newer cox boxes I think you can probably get away with doing this 2-3x a week since most of the important stuff has the rubber casing around it but with the older cox boxes where the mic connector is metal, the prongs on the connector inside the boat are a little more exposed, and the wires are more likely to be frayed due to age, I would probably wipe them down every day.

My next suggestion would be to check the wiring throughout the boat and make sure the speakers haven’t come unplugged anywhere. Sometimes that happens if the wires are exposed and accidentally get pulled or caught on something. Since this is happening across multiple boats with multiple boxes though I think salt water corrosion is your culprit.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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I’m a senior coxswain going into my last school season in October. During the winter I’m training with my school crew for a sports exchange and a university club’s school winter program. I’ve been looking into buying a cox box recently but I don’t know if I should get my own. The uni club has good cox boxes but all of my school’s cox boxes are pretty dodgy. Do you think I should get my own cox box? I want to keep coxing when I finish school but I don’t know.

There are definitely pros and cons to investing in your own cox box (which is a whole other topic of conversation…) but for me it comes down to whether or not you’re 10000% sure that you’ll be coxing after you graduate (whether that’s in college, with your country’s national team, with a masters program, etc.). If you’re not sure you will be or aren’t sure you want to then it’s not worth it. It sucks having cox boxes that don’t consistently work but I don’t think that’s necessarily a reason to buy your own, especially if it’s your last season and you’re unsure if you want to continue after this. If the club has any to spare then you could always ask them if they could loan you one while you’re with your other team but unless your current team has plans to get theirs fixed or to buy new ones (something you should suggest if they’re in need of one or the other), you might just have to deal with the dodgy ones for the time being.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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Hi, this is quite important as I have a race tomorrow, sorry it’s short notice and I completely understand if you don’t have time to answer this. Anyways I have taken my CoxBox home to charge before the race (as usual). I plug it in and it says 46% battery, 5 mins later it’s at 100%, so I switched it on and off to double check and it goes back to 46% or lower. I need as much charge in as possible as it’s a long race, and we’ll be on the water for 2+ hours. I don’t know how to fix it! I have tried also leaving it on charge all day and night, but again the same thing happens, it goes to 100% then when taken off charge back down to 46% or less. It’s always roughly the same number it goes back down to. Sorry if it doesn’t make much sense… bit stressed!!! 🙂

That’s odd. Off the top of my head I’d say try resetting the battery but that requires more time than it sounds like you have. If you can’t borrow another cox box (which you should try to do) then you’ll just have to find a way to deal with this one. Make sure your coach and crew know ahead of time that you’re having issues with it and then plan to use it as little as possible tomorrow before the race actually starts. Once it’s in the boat just leave it off until maybe 5 minutes before your race starts. Yea, that means you’ll have to project a little more than usual but if people are quiet and paying attention it shouldn’t be much of an issue. Make sure you’re fully hydrated beforehand too since this will help keep you from losing your voice. If it stays at 46% then I’d guess you’ll get maybe an hour or so out of it, provided you don’t have the volume up super loud, so just make sure you plan accordingly.

Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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We have a coxswain who always covers his microphone with his hand which he thinks gives him this like gruff thing going on, but the problem is we can’t always understand him and quite frankly, it’s annoying. I don’t get why he needs it when we’re not going into the wind but what should we do? Would it be rude to ask if he could please stop or what?

I know several coxswains that do/did this and they were all guys so it’s funny that you say your coxswain does the same thing. If you can’t understand him (and even if you think it’s annoying) you should just ask him to stop. I can understand trying to hold the mic a little closer to your mouth if the wind is particularly strong but it’s really rare that this is actually necessary. If what he’s saying is muffled then that negates whatever effect he’s going for anyways. As long as you aren’t rude when you say something, asking him to stop messing with the mic wouldn’t be rude at all.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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Hey! So my novice team has about 5 boats with coxswains and 2 cox boxes. The novice girls have 5 boats and 5 cox boxes and the varsity all have enough also. It is really annoying when we go on the water and three coxswains don’t have cox boxes or are stuck with a cox box mini (we have one) or cox box (also only one). The coxswains on the team all really want functioning cox boxes, so how do you think we should go about asking our coach about it (or rather if we even should ask)?

You should definitely ask for several reasons but the biggest reason is for safety. For some reason this always gets overlooked and I cannot for the life of me understand why since everyone always says it’s their number one priority. If you don’t have a cox box, everything you say (or yell, rather) is only going as far as 7-seat, maybe. If you’re in a bow loader, your bow man is probably the only person who hears you (as long as there’s a headwind). That’s annoying when you’re trying to make calls, especially to novices, but it’s a HUGE problem if you get into a dangerous situation and need to have everyone’s attention. If you’re in bad weather and it’s raining and really windy, there’s no way anyone can hear what you’re saying which makes it difficult if you’re trying to get your point, rowing in a strong current, trying to dock, etc.

I would bring this up to your coach(es), in addition to any other issues you’ve encountered by not having one. My one caution though would be to not say you want one just because everyone else has one. If your coach really needs to be convinced, ask them how well a boat would function if you only had 5 oars instead of eight or if only half of the seats were slid back and forth. That’s similar to the disadvantage your boat is at when the coxswain doesn’t have their one crucial piece of equipment.

Cox boxes are expensive though so I guess if you want to look for a reason to justify why not every coxswain has their own, this is that reason. Between the cox box, mic, charger, and case it totals something like $680. Multiply that by three and that’s over $2000 (which is ridiculous given how limited the cox boxes are…). Coaches, parent/executive boards, etc. see that and say “no way” because they’d rather spend the money on riggers, oars, boats, travel, etc.

When you talk to your coaches, go in knowing how much the three cox boxes would cost your team and a plan for how you plan on raising the money to purchase them and/or a plan to search for and acquire used cox boxes from other teams. Linked below is a post on fundraising that you can use for inspiration if you need some ideas.

Related: How to raising money for your club team

If you’re interested in buying them used, I’d suggest posting an ad on row2k in their classifieds section under “Accessories Wanted”. You could also post it under “Oars and Equipment Wanted” for additional exposure. Make sure you list the contact info of whoever is in charge of the search (even if you’re doing the work, I’d put a parent or coach as the contact person) and the price you’re willing to pay (make sure it’s fair and reasonable!).

Coxing

Question of the Day

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Hi! Totally random, but my team just officially gave me a cox box to keep for the rest of my high school coxing career. I really want to personalize it but I don’t know how! Do you have any ideas on how to decorate a cox box?

Nice! Since I assume you have to give it back when you graduate, I wouldn’t do anything too permanent, like writing on it or attacking it with glitter and a Bedazzler. Your coaches might not appreciate you doing anything to it either, especially since they’re $500 (literally). The first thing that came to mind was getting some cross-stitch thread in your team colors (or your favorite colors, whichever you choose) and macramé-ing the strap (like this).

Other that that, I’d definitely get a sticker label and write in permanent marker your name, team name, and city/state on it in case it ever gets lost. I’d put this either on the back or the bottom of the cox box. Put a piece of packing tape over it to make it “waterproof”.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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How long can a cox box go without dying? (If it’s fully charged to start with.)

If it’s fully charged you can probably get around 3-4 hours out of them with normal use. Not having the volume turned up all the way for an entire practice is a great way to save battery – you shouldn’t need it more than half to three-quarters of the way up anyways. The older the batteries in them get though the harder it will be to hold a charge so some older cox boxes might not last as long compared to newer ones.