Jacks R Better Fire Resistant Winter Hammock Tent

[turk]

I posted some updates today, because it was well over-due.
Rather than an the first simple "hey look, here is something new" ... it is slowly
turning in a review. Well, okay not yet. But its looking more like a "review in progress" now

I have a good deal of gathered data now. I just need to put it into some kind of review based format. For those interested. Stay tuned for more pics and updates.

There will be pant loads more pics, comments, charts, and data to follow.

[turk]

Major tragedy avoided.... narrowly this last weekend.
In preparation for my showshoe into Nunavut trip rapidly approaching, we did a dress-rehearsal weekend trip, using all of the equipment we planned to take.

I set a new personal low for myself in a hammock, fending off -20 deg F, and 20 mph winds, gusting to 25 mph. A poor comparison for what I am going to face, but the best I could do, close to home. Still pretty proud.

To make a long story short. I can say with absolute certainty that:
"JRB Tarp Tensioners WILL fail critically at -20F"

The rubber used in the tensioners stretched out like what can only be described as a "salt water taffy effect" When frozen they do not become brittle and snap, rather they stretch far beyond the usual 8"-10" of maximum tension. I measured one frozen tensioner at over just slightly over 17". All elastic effect is negated and the tensioners will remain in their elongated state until thawed. Miraculously, when I got them home, they returned to usual length and elasticity.

All 4 tensioners on the JRB hammock tent failed in this manner, causing a most serious incident with my Ti-goat stove inside the tent. Wind was gusting in spurts. At a key moment, around 11pm I failed to notice the slack in the walls of my tent. A wind gust took out the chimney pipe which was glowing a fierce orange as it was operating under maximum heat output using optimal firewood. I would estimate the temperature at the base of the chimney pipe well in excess of 1000 deg F.

The stove pipe came dislodged from the stove. (The pipe is secured directly in line, and supported by a single JRB tarp tensioner at the roof line. The stove tipped over and spilled burning embers inside the tent. The stove pipe tipped almost horizontal and was driven through the left hand wall of the tent like a knife through butter. The result was an almost perfect 3.5" hole through the wall of the tent. Far too dangerous to handle the stove pipe. I had to shed my fleece gloves, and find my over mits. This took many precious seconds as the stove pipe melted away the tent fabric. I had an earlier experience with fleece gloves and microfibre towels. Both will burst into flames if they come in contact with the stove during that intensity of burn. Too much lint on those kind of fabrics. Makes great tinder.



Thankfully nobody was seriously hurt, as three of us were lounging in the tent, deep in our cups at the time. I put the fire resistant material the tent is made of to the ultimate test. Had it been silnylon, .. I would have been in a most serious situation, and certainly would have had severe fire damage, if the structure could have been saved at all. This isn't so bad. I still have my tent. I can fix this

I have decided to cease all operation of the stove, while sleeping alone in the tent. Had the stove pipe come dislodged while I was asleep in my hammock, I might have gone up in flames inside my cocoon of underquilts.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye. We learned the hard way just how bad this kind of accident could be. Winter mittens will either burst into flames or melt instantly against hands when trying to quickly handle the pipe. Luckily titanium sheds its heat so quickly. Leather gloves are going into my equipment list of mandatory equipment for safety concerning the stove now.

I have also decided to build a bomb proof guy-out system just for the stove pipe using amsteel supports, and minimal 1/16" aircraft cable.

[turk]

My hiking buddy was also using my JRB 8x8 with 2 additional jrb tarp tensioners, that failed in exactly the same way. Late into the night, while asleep, the tensioners stretched way out and as a result the tarp was buffeted around and shredded the fabric just behind the outer edge seam.



I am now scrambling to find an adequate tensioning system that uses no rubber, and can be manipulated with gloves on.

I will have to perform a make-shift patch on the JRB tent as there is no time to obtain any of the fire resistant fabric. The 8x8 tarp is probably a write-off. But perhaps I can sew a reinforcement patch around the damaged area with some sil.

[slowhike]

so i guess you'll be staying away from tarp tensioners of any kind in that kind of temp & wind combo.

maybe a weight hanging on the line would provide a safer tension.
several times in high wind i've laid decent sized logs across the guy lines.
using a weight in a reasonable range allows the line to lift slightly under a heavy gust, providing some forgiveness.
but at the same time adds quite a bit of extra security to the guy line. works great.

a sack of packed snow might work.

i'm guessing you are you going to be patching the hole in the tent? i just looked back & saw the answer to that one.

glad yall weren't hurt.

[headchange4u]

That's a lesson learned the hard way. I'm glad that no one was hurt and that your gear is repairable and not a total loss.

Your safest bet may be just to forget tensioners altogether and just secure the guy lines to something solid and tie them off. The small amount of slack that fabric stretch cause is nothing compared to a tensioner failing like that and damaging your setup. It's pretty quick and easy to re-tie the lines to take up that slack, even with gloves on. I totally agree that the pipe needs to be secured to be bomb proof.

If you had been on the trail it in those temps, with that kind of failure, it could've been really bad.

[BillyBob58]

Wow oh WOW! Thank God for the dress rehearsal closer to home!

[GrizzlyAdams]

Turk, you're living out there on the edge. Sure am glad you survive your disasters to liven up our lives.

Seriously though, glad you're OK, some real potential for harm in your last encounter. I'm impressed that your brain worked fast enough to know not to just go for the stove pipe without better gloves. Even given past experience, I wouldn't trust my nuggen to be so on the up-take so fast. "Ah duh. What's going on " is more my immediate reaction to things that call for quick thinking and fast action.

Grizz

[Coffee]

That's crazy. I can honestly say that you go out in temps this southern boy doesn't like to go in. I heard a great saying though, the weather is never too bad just your clothes/gear.

Anyways. I had my DIY tensioners fail in a similar way in cold temps. They also returned to shape when warmed. I used excercise tubbing. You should contact JRB if they don't chime in. I think they would be interested in knowing the extreme limits of their gear.

I wonder if rubber tubes from a tire would work. That would seem to me to be a stronger material. Slowhikes idea of a weight as worked for me a couple of times. You could rig up something where you tie a wieght to the guy line to keep it in place in high winds.

[Cannibal]

Wow! I've not been that cold with the tensioners, but have been about 7 below 0F and didn't notice any issues. Course, I was asleep when it was that temp. I wonder if they did fail, but were warm enough by morning to appear fine.

Sooooo glad you made it through without harm.

[steene]

I wonder if some kind of light spring would be acceptable as a replacement tensioner. Just throwing that out there as a possibility.