Osmosis and Hammock Suspension

[Slanket]

After hanging my brand new Warbonnet Blackbird (which is a great hammock, in case you were wondering), I noticed that the excess suspension was touching the ground. Sure, having stuff hanging down off the suspension is great for preventing rain water from soaking your hammock, but it got me wondering about having the water soak up through your suspension and getting your hammock wet. Not sure if this is something to be concerned about, but it seems to me that it could be with certain suspensions.

On many systems (like the WBBB) this might not be a problem because the suspension has rings that won't soak up the water and pass it on to the hammock but there are many systems that are all cloth. For those of you who have experience with these sorts of suspensions, have you ever noticed any problems from your suspension touching the ground?

If this is a problem, the solution is easy of course (just keep your suspension away from things like puddles by bunching it up before it hits the ground), but I'm curious to know if it's ever actually been a problem for anybody.

For those of you who aren't familiar with capillarity and don't care to look it up, here is a simple experiment you can do:
-Take two glasses, fill one with water
-Take a cloth, roll it up into a long cylinder of cloth
-Put one end of the cloth into the empty glass and the other end into the glass with water
-Leave them overnight, and eventually both glasses should have equal amounts of water in them. Congratulations: You have done a science!

[Silverlion]

I have Amsteel on my Hennessy. I usually take the excess and make a few "drip loops" by looping the excess, tying an simple loose knot, and let the rest of the string that formed the knot hang down a foot or so. I have physically watched the water run down the suspension, get stopped and redirected by the knot, and follow the string down. Never once have I had my hammock get soaked.

[Marwood]

A techno-pedant writes:

The drawing up of liquids against the gravity through porous or fibrous materials is an example of capillary action or capillarity. The demonstration you describe is shows a combination of capillarity and a siphon. Osmosis refers to the movement of water from an area of higher concentration solute to an area of lower concentration of solute though a semi-permeable membrane.

Just thought you'd like to know

[JohnSawyer]

ok, then how much capillary action is there in polyester straps? Could water climb a strap 4'?

[perdidochas]

After hanging my brand new Warbonnet Blackbird (which is a great hammock, in case you were wondering), I noticed that the excess suspension was touching the ground. Sure, having stuff hanging down off the suspension is great for preventing rain water from soaking your hammock, but it got me wondering about having the water soak up through your suspension and getting your hammock wet. Not sure if this is something to be concerned about, but it seems to me that it could be with certain suspensions.

On many systems (like the WBBB) this might not be a problem because the suspension has rings that won't soak up the water and pass it on to the hammock but there are many systems that are all cloth. For those of you who have experience with these sorts of suspensions, have you ever noticed any problems from your suspension touching the ground?

If this is a problem, the solution is easy of course (just keep your suspension away from things like puddles by bunching it up before it hits the ground), but I'm curious to know if it's ever actually been a problem for anybody.

For those of you who aren't familiar with osmosis and don't care to look it up, here is a simple experiment you can do:
-Take two glasses, fill one with water
-Take a cloth, roll it up into a long cylinder of cloth
-Put one end of the cloth into the empty glass and the other end into the glass with water
-Leave them overnight, and eventually both glasses should have equal amounts of water in them. Congratulations: You have done a science!

Technically speaking, that's not osmosis, it's capillary action. (Osmosis is diffusion of water through a selectively permeable membrane). Capillary action is water rising through a narrow tube against the force of gravity. (the cloth is composed of tubes.) (Former science teacher)

[dragon360]

Gotta love science!

[OutandBack]

I never let my excess wbbb straps lay on the ground. Just tie them up.

[Slanket]

A techno-pedant writes:

The drawing up of liquids against the gravity through porous or fibrous materials is an example of capillary action or capillarity. The demonstration you describe is shows a combination of capillarity and a siphon. Osmosis refers to the movement of water from an area of higher concentration solute to an area of lower concentration of solute though a semi-permeable membrane.

Just thought you'd like to know

Heh, thanks for the correction.