Row&Sail - „Design & Passion“ made in Austria

It all started with a big
vision and a load of passion

It all started in 2001 when Jochum Bierma, enthusiastic product developer and founder of Row&Sail, was doing a sailing course on Lake Mondsee in Austria.

He developed the idea of a sailing boat that is dismantled quickly and easily and can be transported using a normal car without a trailer. This boat must also offer enhanced safety and bring together several types of water sports into one harmonious product.

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The XCAT – the result of real
enthusiasm and innovative power

The original version has evolved into an innovative product that has impressed water sports enthusiasts all over the world. From sailing to rowing and stand-up paddling, the XCAT is the perfect, multifunctional platform for water sports that you can do any time and everywhere because it is quickly assembled and easy to transport.

XCAT - the result of real enthusiasm and innovative power

Consistently high quality thanks
to industrial series manufacturing

A key to its success is most certainly the fact that this amazing boat can be manufactured industrially in series production to achieve sustainable high quality.

For the production of our unsinkable hulls, which are filled with EPP particle foam, we have designed and built our own production machinery. As a result, Row&Sail is currently the only company worldwide that can make hulls from expanded polypropylene using an industrial process.

RowVista® forwards rowing system –
ingenious technology based on experience and inventiveness

As a passionate rower, it was important to our founder Jochum Bierma that the XCAT would be usable as a high quality rowing boat.

Having developed a traditional rowing system for the XCAT, a meeting with an experienced rowing athlete gave him the idea for the next innovation - a forwards rowing system. The requirements of professional rowers were laid down in detail following numerous discussions with the rowing sport insider to gain a foothold in the rowing sport industry.

The experienced rower revealed a challenge that not one of the 250 patented forward rowing systems developed over the past 100 years had been able to solve satisfactorily: feathering of the oar blade must be controllable using the rotation of the oar handle, even with the forwards rowing mechanism.

 

Hand-controlled feathering – that's unique to RowVista®

We combined this valuable information with the fascination we had already used in designed the XCAT and created RowMotion Pro – the forwards rowing system for the XCAT. We have since developed this system to become the current RowVista® forwards rowing system – the first and only forwards rowing system that allows you to feather the oar blade by hand. Technically straightforward and durable with sealed ball bearings, RowVista® is a smooth running rowing system that gives you perfect control over feathering with stops at the limits of blade rotation.

No more "catching a crab" or blisters

Experience rowers know what "catching a crab" means. RowVista® puts and end to crab catching and also to most of the blisters that occur with classic rowing system as a result of rotating the oar blade, (the sleeves on the oars or sculls have a large diameter and are more sluggish to rotate as a result!), because the grip oar section and blade oar section rotate on ball-bearing mounted axles. Race scullers and recreational rowers can effortlessly rotate the oar blade upwards using their little finger and forefinger. The weight of the offset big-blades allows the oar to rotate into the water stroke position more or less of its own accord.

In addition to this unique system for rowing in the direction you are facing, we also offer RowMotion® - a model for rowing in the classic direction - with the XCAT catamaran. A comprehensive range of accessories extends the capabilities of the XCAT to make it the ideal boat for sailing, rowing, SUP, motoring, fishing, diving, etc.

Further to:

Quick assembly without need
for tools and straightforward
transport on the car roof

With an assembly time of less than 12 minutes for the full sailing option (absolutely no tools required - just click-on and plug-in connections) and a light weight (no part weighs more than 17.5 kg), the XCAT is perfect when you need to transport it by loading it onto a normal car on your own.

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The revolution in rowing – ROWonAIR®

Now that the XCAT has become well established all over the world, the next innovation was hot on its tail, and in autumn 2017 we launched the ROWonAIR®. The objective of ROWonAIR® is to revolutionise rowing: everyone should be able to enjoy rowing simply and effectively on any stretch of water.

ROWonAIR® - the revolution in rowing

Where in the world is there still true freedom in sport?

These days there are not many sports where you can enjoy real freedom. True freedom is really only available on the water. Most stretches of water are open to everybody, there are almost no exhaust emissions and you are free to move anywhere. Due to the increasing need for people to do a sport activity, rowing is becoming more and more important because it makes you use your whole body and you are normally exercising within the aerobic threshold.

Rowing - a healthy sport. Perfect for newbies too thanks to RowVista®.

Thanks to the use of the innovative RowVista® forwards rowing system on the XCAT, we know that even beginners can easily get to grips with rowing properly and are soon able to enjoy pursuing this amazing sport. We combined this ingenious system with the principle of freedom and it soon became clear that the freedom of movement does not start on the water, but actually much sooner…

Transport on foot, by plane or by car.

Freedom is also being able to transport your sports equipment easily by car, plane or on foot. The RonA (ROWonAIR®) product range lets you row efficiently on inflatable SUP boards, inflatable kayaks and inflatable skiffs as well as on your existing SUP boards, kayaks, canoes, Cnadian canoes and other types of boat.

RonA customers can choose between the proven RowVista® and RowMotion® rowing systems.

Like with the XCAT catamaran, all ROWonAIR® products can be assembled and dismantled without the need for tools using click-on and plug-in connections and can be stowed away in the compact bags provided. That is what we mean by true freedom in sport.

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Quality and innovation made in Austria.

At Row&Sail we spend every day working enthusiastically on developing innovations at our boat yard in Lichtenberg near Linz / Austria. We always put new products through their paces to optimise them before they are launched on the market to be absolutely sure that they will exceed the expectations of our most demanding customers and fans.