I thought I had seen a brief description of this alternative to whoopie slings, so I tried it out on my new hammock. So far it does what I expected. It adjusts the distance between the hammock and the tree strap, and it permits a shorter adjustment than a whoopie sling. This is just a loop with a single bury. It requires a sliding connection at each end, so it won't do for every hammock setup. I use a biner at the hammock and a marlinspike hitch and toggle on the tree strap. The single bury functions like a UCR - that is, there is only tension on one end, so for safety I added a bungee loop with a klemheist knot attached to the tail at the loose end of the bury. I used the pictured whoopie loop for several nights before I added the bungee protection, so it's not essential, but I noticed that just bumping the loose end of the bury could cause it to loosen further and slip. Once I was in the hammock, I think there was enough tension to keep it secure.
This loop was made with a 12 ft. piece of Dynaglide. I started the bury 13" from the end. It was 11" long until I pulled the other end of the line through it, when it shortened to 9". The largest loop this makes is 64" long. The smallest possible loop (shown below without the bungee attached) is about 6" long. That's a wider range than I'd get if I used the same piece of Dynaglide to make a whoopie sling with a locked brummel on the other other end. YMMV - I tend to use longer than standard buries with Dynaglide. In addition to allowing a shorter hammock to tree distance, this uses Dynaglide doubled, which Grizz says doubles its strength (in a perfect world with frictionless pulleys at both ends).
I went back to the post where I thought I learned about these things and found it didn't say what I thought it did. Can anyone identify the source for this idea? Is it called a "whoopie loop"? Anybody use this?
Inquiring minds want to know.
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