Records rules

One page: what is recorded, how a time is verified, how a record is ratified, and what is published. This is the rule sheet for the Records page.

What is recorded

Six distances are recorded: 500 m, 1,000 m, 1,500 m, 2,000 m, 5,000 m and 6,000 m. There is a record book at every distance, in every category, at every scope.

School competition in a PE period races 500 m, 1,000 m and 2,000 m. Those three fit a 45-minute period on six machines, and they are the distances the Virtual Indoor Sprints and the Virtual Indoor Championships use. The 1,500 m, 5,000 m and 6,000 m books are open books, filled from after-school sessions, club and adult rowing, and rowers overseas. They will be thin at first. They are shown thin rather than hidden.

Categories are women and men, in age bands U15, U17, U19, Open and Masters. Masters run in ten-year bands from 30.

Your age for the season is your age on 31 December of that year. This is the rule the Virtual Indoor Championships use and it matches World Rowing's junior rule. A time counts in every junior band whose age it satisfies, so a 14-year-old's time stands in the U15, U17 and U19 books. Every time counts in Open as well.

Records are kept at three scopes: national, island (Upolu, Savai'i, and overseas for Samoa-eligible rowers living abroad) and school. A result is filed under the school and island the rower was rowing for on the day, so moving school later does not move an old time with it.

A season is a calendar year. Each book is published twice: for the current season, and for all time.

Records are set on a Concept2 RowErg, static machines only. The monitor must produce a verification code, which in practice means a PM5. The machine is identified by school and serial number.

Verification tiers

V1 verified. The piece synced from the monitor to the rower's Concept2 Logbook through ErgData, or was entered by hand with a verification code that validates in the Logbook. V1 counts for records at every scope.

V2 witnessed. A photo of the monitor's memory screen showing the verification code, taken within ten minutes of finishing, with a paper slip in the same frame carrying the rower's name, the date and the distance in the witness's handwriting, plus the witness's name on the log sheet. V2 counts for school records as submitted. It does not enter the island or national books until the Records Officer has validated the code in the Logbook, which makes the result V1.

V3 claimed. Anything else: hand-timed, no photo, no code. V3 belongs to the rower's own history. It never counts for a record and it is not published in a book.

H historic. A mark set before this system existed, published with the evidence for it. See below.

Every verification code is kept for good. A result is never deleted from the Association's records: one that is withdrawn is marked struck, keeps its row and keeps its code, and simply stops counting. A code that appears twice is rejected and flagged, so that one good piece cannot become several rowers' results.

A time that could not be a real piece at its distance is rejected as a transcription error rather than published.

A verified time is recorded to the tenth of a second. Where an older mark reached us without its tenth, it is published as it was written down and ranked at the slowest it could have been, so an unknown tenth never takes a place off a timed piece and never shares one.

Historic marks

An empty book motivates nobody. A standing time tells a student where the bar is.

The all-time books therefore open with historic marks, tier H: times set by Samoa-eligible rowers before this system existed, accepted by the Records Officer on the evidence available, which may be a Logbook entry, a race result, a photograph or a contemporaneous record. The evidence is recorded alongside the mark and shown under it on the page. The entry is labelled historic and shows the date it was set.

The same distance definitions and the same static Concept2 rule apply. A mark set on another make of machine is either noted as such or left out.

A historic mark stands until a verified result beats it — V1 at any scope, or V2 in a school book. It then drops to second on the all-time list rather than vanishing.

How a time gets in

The paper log sheet is the primary record. One sheet per machine per session, kept by the school: rower, distance, time, the verification code copied from the monitor before leaving the machine, and the witness's initials. Teachers do no data entry.

Once a month each school sends its personal bests to the Records Officer, as a photo of the sheet or as the sheets themselves. A record claim at school, island or national level also needs the V2 photo, sent when there is signal.

The Records Officer or a school records captain transcribes the rows into the Association's records sheet. The age band is computed from the year of birth and the season. Nobody picks a band by hand.

Where a school has a phone with data, the ErgData app syncs the piece straight to the Concept2 Logbook. That is the better path, and it is what the Virtual Indoor Sprints run on.

Two spare D-cells live in every machine's box. No batteries, no code, no record.

Ratification, ties and disputes

The Records Officer is Daniel Marquardt until the Association's general assembly, and the elected Secretary after it. A submitted record is ratified within seven days of receipt. The Records Officer may ask for the photo or the Logbook entry, and may strike a result with a written reason. A struck result keeps its row and its verification code.

Any result involving a relative of the Records Officer is ratified by a named independent second signatory. That name is published under the record.

Ties: the earlier date holds the record, and both times are listed. Identical times set on the same day share the record, and are shown as an equal place: 1=.

Age comes from the school roll. It is checked against a birth certificate or passport when a national record or a prize is at stake.

Records are computed, never typed. Every book on the Records page is derived from the results rows by the build script.

To dispute a time, write to the Association. The Records Officer answers in writing.

What is published

Each book shows the top ten and the number of rowers it holds. One rower appears once in a book, with their best time.

The published fields are full name, school, island, distance, time, average split per 500 m, date and verification tier. Results are published with full names, as results are published everywhere in the sport, by USRowing, by World Rowing and at every school athletics meet. Dates of birth are not published.

A family that asks for a name to come down gets it taken down. There is no form and no process.

Each school also gets a printable A4 leaderboard for its noticeboard.

These leaderboards feed the Virtual Indoor Sprints and Virtual Indoor Championships. Selection for overseas trips is by National Selection Trials, run separately.

Last generated 7 September 2026.