You got it, it is a pipe under the middle of the cover. I cut little pieces of pipe to use as washers and used stainless steal screws to sandwich the cover between the pipe and homemade washers every 2ft or so. You just twist the pipe and the cover rolls up from both sides at the same time. You have to cut the cover in half as a 24 foot roll would be too much strain on the pipe and would be unwieldy to lift out of the water. Most of the time We just leave the cover in the pool rolled up if we are just hanging out on the shelf. I take it out on weekends or if we are having people over.