GoPro Hero2.  Video feedback is very useful to try to figure out what you are doing wrong, and I use a GoPro waterproof camera to do that.  I use it in one of two locations.  First, I have a mount on my stern deck.  This view provides a view toward the bow and shows me and my oars out to the ends.  You can see issues with balance and oar height, but you can really see body mechanics all that well.  This is also a good mount for races where you want something relatively unobtrusive.

This creates video like this:

For side view video, I was sent a gift by a friend in Canada.  An old backstay.  He had previously improvised a mount to put this on the end of his rigger to get the camera about 4 or 5 feet out to the side of the boat.

I modified the way to attach the gopro to the rigger. The end of the rigger is a 1 1/2″ OD aluminum pipe 3 1/2″ long welded to the rigger tube vertically. This tube is drilled on the stern side to mount the oarlock. Looking at it, I decided the easiest way to mount the backstay to the gopro was to put a bolt through the pipe and hold each end with a 1 1/2″ OD fender washer. It worked like a champ!

With this mount, I get videos like this:

Notice the pace, rate and HR?  I’ll do another post later about how to do that.