HG Incubator - Secondary Suspension

[Rex Clifton]

Does anybody use this? It's the shock cord above the main suspension with a biner in the middle and linelocks on the corner. I've played around with this and don't see any benefit so am planning to remove and save a few grams. If anybody uses please respond and describe how you hooked it up. Any comments would be greatly appreciate.

Thanks,
Rex

[supermario]

As taken from:
https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ilt-suspension

The secondary suspension was added to alleviate some of those shortcomings associated with using the primary suspension alone. It effectively keeps the underquilt pulled from the corners so there is no loss in the effective length of the underquilt. Also, because it is working with the primary suspension, the secondary suspension significantly reduces sagging that can occur when shock cord is subjected to sub-freezing temperatures. Another advantage to using the secondary suspension is that the line locs allow the quilt corners to be adjusted individually. This can sometimes help if you are having any problems with shoulder slippage that can sometimes occur with a more extreme diagonal lay.

Hope this helps.

[SilvrSurfr]

Very few people dump the secondary suspension (hutzelbein and maybe OutandBack are the only ones that come to mind).

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ary+suspension

I certainly wouldn't dump the secondary suspension - I find it extremely useful.

[hutzelbein]

Very few people dump the secondary suspension (hutzelbein and maybe OutandBack are the only ones that comes to mind).

I don't know how you get the idea that I dump the secondary suspension. On the contrary, I added a secondary suspension to all my non-HG underquilts because it's that useful. I just don't fix it on the ends, because I don't have the need to adjust each corner separately. But that is not "dumping" it.

[SilvrSurfr]

I don't know how you get the idea that I dump the secondary suspension. On the contrary, I added a secondary suspension to all my non-HG underquilts because it's that useful. I just don't fix it on the ends, because I don't have the need to adjust each corner separately. But that is not "dumping" it.

As silentorpheus said (post #19), in the thread I referenced before:

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ary+suspension

"If you remove the knot [on the biner], you eliminate feature #2 completely," and it sounds like that's exactly what you've done. It's your quilt and you can use it as you wish, but I just don't see how the secondary suspension does anything if you can't adjust each corner separately.

[bwg]

Does anybody use this? It's the shock cord above the main suspension with a biner in the middle and linelocks on the corner. I've played around with this and don't see any benefit so am planning to remove and save a few grams. If anybody uses please respond and describe how you hooked it up. Any comments would be greatly appreciate.

Thanks,
Rex

I use the secondary suspension by running it over my hammock ridgeline. I've found this to be very effective at closing gaps between hammock and underquilt even in stiff breezes. The red line in the attached image shows how I run the secondary suspension.

hg_suspension.jpg

[hutzelbein]

As silentorpheus said (post #19), in the thread I referenced before:

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ary+suspension

"If you remove the knot [on the biner], you eliminate feature #2 completely," and it sounds like that's exactly what you've done. It's your quilt and you can use it as you wish, but I just don't see how the secondary suspension does anything if you can't adjust each corner separately.

If you quote, then please do it right. Here is the complete quote, which does not equate to "you can dump the secondary suspension if you don't fix it on the head and foot end":

The secondary suspension does 2 things:

1.) it pulls the ends of the under quilt towards the ends of the hammock, stretching out the UQ along the primary suspension and eliminating the 'accordion' effect where the ends of the quilt tend to sag towards the center of the hammock (due to gravity)

2.) due to its fixed point on the s-biner (the knot), it allows you to adjust the under quilt asymmetrically, pulling any individual corner more or less towards the ends of the hammock on its particular side, like a parallelogram.

If you remove the knot, you eliminate feature #2 completely. You can no longer make asymmetrical adjustments, as pulling on one side's line lock would result in the shock cord sliding and centering itself back to symmetrical orientation. Once you do that, there is then no reason to have 4 line locks, one at each corner of the UQ. You might as well just have one on each end of the UQ, to make the secondary suspension longer or shorter - this would still allow you to make adjustments to feature #1, but simplify by removing yet another now redundant adjustment point.


Either way, you accomplish feature #1 - tightening the quilt and eliminating the accordion effect. By leaving the fixed point (knot), you can then further tweak the quilt's hang asymmetrically. If you lay head left and feet right in the hammock, you can get your quilt to match your off center lay by tightening the left head line lock, and the right foot line lock. If you lay head right and feet left, you tighten the right head line lock, and the left foot line lock. This helps to ensure that the quilt stays better on the two places it is likely to slip off - your shoulder and your feet.

If you don't want to shape it asymmetrically, then just keep the right and left head end line lock adjustment equal. But I see little that would be accomplished by removing the knot. In the end, the reason that both the primary and secondary suspension are made using shock cord is that it provides a gentle pull with some give, not an immovable fixed tension. Shifting in the hammock and slight body position changes will be compensated for by the fact that the shock cord will stretch with you.

I don't need my quilt to remain assymetrical, which is what you achieve by having a fixed center at the secondary suspension. My uq slides to accomodate whichever way I lie. If I want to change from a head-left/feet-right lay to a head-right/feet-left lay, I don't need to get out of the hammock and adjust the four corners of my secondary suspension - I can just move, and the underquilt moves with me. I tried the fixed secondary suspension, and it did nothing for me. Maybe it's because I'm not very tall. You do it whichever way it works for you - but saying not doing it your way equals "dumping" the secondary suspension is simply not true. If you would try the other method (or just think it through), and subsequently dump the secondary suspension completely, you would know.

[SilvrSurfr]

Thanks for the quoting lesson, hutzelbein, but I think I'll just let you follow the linked thread so you can read the entire thread.

Once you remove the knot on the secondary suspension, you can no longer adjust the quilt corners individually. It just doesn't do anything (or does very, very little). Silentorpheus chose to eliminate the knot and the s-biner. That's not the way the secondary suspension was designed or intended, as evidenced by Stormcrows's own words (forgive me for not quoting the entire post):

"Another advantage to using the secondary suspension is that the line locs allow the quilt corners to be adjusted individually. This can sometimes help if you are having any problems with shoulder slippage that can sometimes occur with a more extreme diagonal lay."

As Stormcrow says, "Another thing to note…you do NOT have to use the secondary suspension. If you have always had good results with only the primary suspension, you can continue to use that system with all new quilts. You can even save a bit of weight (not much) by removing the secondary suspension altogether."

The OP is considering dumping the secondary suspension for this very reason.

[hutzelbein]

I did read the entire thread. And I agree with silentorpheus - the secondary suspension eliminates the accordion effect even if you opt not to fix it at the end (see my highlighting in red). The Incubator did *not* work for me without the secondary suspension. I had the original one without it. I have other underquilts without secondary suspension. I always had CBS. So explain to me why it went away when I used the secondary suspension but without the fixed end? Must be an illusion then.

@Rex Clifton: You can easily remove the thin shock cords of the secondary suspension without cutting anything. Just do that and see if you get CBS, but make sure that it is a suitably cold night. If it really makes no difference to you, you can cut off the linelocs. But I definitely wouldn't do that before you're absolutely sure.

[El Gordo]

Well, I'm too stupid to figure out how to attach the primary suspension to the ends of the hammock so that it stays in place. So - I clip each end of the primary suspension loop to the corresponding secondary suspension s-biner, and then clip the s-biners over the continuous loops at each end of the hammock. Glad to have them both!