Originally Posted by
warbonnetguy
the tighter you pull the suspension (the closer to horizontal) the greater the difference between unweighted height of the hammock and weighted height of the hammock. basically it will drop more when you get in. this is somewhat counter-intuitive because you'd think the tighter it is the less it would drop, but that's not the case. the lines cannot support a horizontal position when the hammock is weighted, so the hammock will drop quite a bit until the angle becomes more reasonable. if your lines start out at a 30+ deg angle, the hammock will drop very little once you get in.
try starting at a 40-45 deg angle, get in and lay down. the ridgeline should be sagging. get out and tighten the suspension a little and lay down again. this make take several tries, but you're looking for the point where the ridgeline sags when you sit, but pulls tight when you lay down. when you find this, get out and take 10 steps back and look at the suspension angle and try to memorize it. (it's best to do all this before staking out the shock cord guylines, because their tension can mess with the angles of the empty unweighted hammock some.
for a short person, i'd say you should look for trees closer to the min. distance, which is 12-14'. as long as the span is long enough to get your tarp in there, which will depend on the length of your tarp. you'll probably want a tree distance at least 1' longer than the rl of your tarp, a couple feet longer than the tarp is ideal, so for an 11' tarp, 13' would be good, you might be ok with 12'