Tag: salt water damage

Coxing Q&A

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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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How do you keep your wrenches and pliers from going all rusty? My team goes out on the water year round, rain or shine, in a salt water marina. My tools tend to rust within a season, if not sooner which is quite inconvenient because then I’m constantly purchasing new tools.

Well, first suggestion is an obvious one – don’t get them wet. Definitely consider getting a waterproof bag (like this one) to put your tools in so they don’t get wet if you plan on carrying them on the water with you. If they do get wet, wash them off with regular water when you get back on land and make sure they’re dry before you put them away.