The "Hammies": Awards for Your Epic Fails!

**P-Dub** · 12-21-2016, 10:29

In the Suspension etc. forum, someone suggested the Hammy as a way to celebrate our Grand Mistakes, our Epic Fails, our DUH! moments in the world of hammocking. So I'm starting a thread for the Hammies, and will begin with my story.

After my annual two-weeks-in-August canoe-camp trip in the Canadian wilderness, this year I came back and started investigating lighter weight gear online -- fell into the hammocking world and became obsessed. I had some 24' long narrow scraps of nylon from a hot air balloon factory, so I stitched several together and made an 11' hammock. Sewed some tree straps, made some Amsteel gear, and went out to hang it up and try it out.

Straps around trees, picked up sticks to put in the marlinspike hitch, all is well, I climb in with a friend watching. Scooched around to get a diagonal lay, mmm, comfy! then SPLAT! (or maybe just a dull thud) I was on the ground flat on my back. One of the sticks I picked up had busted in half and let loose...

Slowly got up, a bit stiff, but since I was above spruce needles and duff, it was not a hard fall. I kind of had a bruised back, I thought... until a day or two later... when I started feeling a 'click' in my back. Went to the doc, and yep, had cracked a rib in my back!! AARRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

My rib has finally healed, and I have switched from marlinspike hitch to soft shackles... lesson learned....

**PharmGeek** · 12-21-2016, 10:38

Question....has this term been used before yall brought it up on my thread? It is great..."hammies" lol

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ckle-Fail-HELP

Your fail was far more epic than mine...mine was a very controlled fail...I was carefully checking that all was find when it kinda flopped down awkwardly but not hard...and..on carpet indoors lol...

The worst part was that I scratched my head fiddling for 2 hours till like 1am and lost sleep over what was just the dumbest of simple errors (cinch buckles installed bawkward, DUHHH)

So where was your point(s) of failure P-Dub?

PS - I have switched to Dutch Spiders...not because I had a fail, but I do kinda fear my mistakes made in haste or poor attention span.

**Aardvark** · 12-21-2016, 12:22

This one will happen to you guys at one time or another in your future, get ready to laugh! Midnite run to a nearby downhill tree, relieve internal pressure, head back to hammock. Of course with the beautiful moonlight, no use of headlight. Grab edge of hammock (?), recline into fabric, gravity must have liked me a great deal. Note to self, need hammock color to be vastly different from Underquilt color. Did get a wonderful view of the bottom of my hammock though! Puffy=UQ, Skinny=Hammock.

**Chesapeake** · 12-21-2016, 12:43

Can I nominate myself for the " longest string of bad luck" Hammie? It all started with the rabbid raccoon and snowballed from there lol. The 8 continuous hours listening to the "Waterfowl Chorus" being the iceing on the cake, so I thought. However, as I was getting in my car to leave this morning I found a penny on the ground...... but in true Chesapeake fashion, as I bent down to pick it up I realized it was on tails. I hope that didn't make the bad juju stronger, UGH! Let's hope it gets better soon, next month Im doing an overnight on the AT with OldnWay, and then the Jersey hang after that.

**Shug** · 12-21-2016, 13:05

Cinch Buckle Fail.......
Shug the Bruised

**PharmGeek** · 12-21-2016, 13:27

Question is, what is judging of the Hammies(tm) based on? Is it on pure magnitude of injury? Or is it a mix of that with "style points" or "novelty points"?

Rippin' ol' Green Bean....That in my mind is for the "classic reel of the Hammies".

**PharmGeek** · 12-21-2016, 13:32

"Do not do what I do...Do not do what I do!"

Lays in hammock with cinch buckles half crooked, no slippery half hitch, whoopie on the toggle not the knot, juggles, with jet boil balanced on head while in use.

**No-sage** · 12-21-2016, 13:33

I moved my turtle dog stand from a nice carpeted area to a tile floor.

I felt a weird shimmy as the head end feet started to widen.

As a said to myself, "something's happening", I fell flat unto my slippers, which failed to deploy.

**cap624** · 12-21-2016, 14:22

My pipe stand had an epic fail on Christmas Day, 2014.

I assembled the pipe stand (1" galvanized pipe) in my bedroom, over my bed, thinking that if the suspension failed, it would be a cushioned landing. When assembling the stand, one pipe didn't seem to take as many turns before it stopped turning. It didn't seem right, but heck, what did I know about pipe fittings? After two months of using the stand nightly, I climbed in on Christmas for a quick late-afternoon nap. Something wasn't right - I shifted forcibly to another position. The next I knew, wham!, and I was sitting on my bed.

The crossbar had come free of the tee joint (those balky threads were to blame) and 20 pounds of pipe had landed squarely on my head. Ouch. For the next two weeks, I could feel (from the inside of my head) where the pipe had hit me. It was another few weeks before that egg-sized area was no longer sensitive to the touch.

The day after the epic fail, I went back to Lowe's and they cut off the bad threads and re-threaded it. It's been fine since (2 years); still using it nightly.

**alifeoutdoors** · 12-21-2016, 15:31

I dont think I can compete with the fine tales above but this last May the wife and I headed up to the Snowbank Trail in the BWCA. I had been messing around with changing up our system and somehow in all the hubbub to get up to a fun weekend in Ely then a few days on the trail I forgot to repack the bugnet for my SLD Streamliner. Tried to make it work just sleeping in the open but it did not end well.