Back when I made my 1st Whoopie Slings, whenever that was, on my ist attempt to use them at a camp ground I ran into a problem. 1st time I went to pull them out of the pack, they became "shortened" as far as possible, leaving no loop to put on the webbing knot at all, and leaving them useless.

So I quickly posted a thread warning about that. That sure was a lot of work getting them pulled back out, took a long time!

From then on I either just started routinely lengthening the tree end loop to the max and also tying an overhand knot which made it impossible to close it up too much, then just undo the knot at set up. Or, I would wrap a bread or garbage bag wire/zip tie around one side of the WS at the junction, making it nearly impossible to get into trouble. Many folks here quicly came up with more permanent solutions, like burying some extra cord at the junction making it too fat to be sucked in, or beads. etc.

Sooooo, anyhow, my WL came with WS and nice little black beads ( right word? ) already installed. So the other day I am packing up in the woods, and I notice one of the loops is dangerously small, about to disappear, and their is NO BEAD! It has gone missing. I look at the other bead, and it is cracked and not long for this world. So, I am back to knots. Which is fine, takes a split second and is fool proof.

I am betting that the beads somehow became damaged when I hang from my stand, and don't use the actual WS tech ( hammock stand is normally too short, like trees too close together, leaving not enough room for WS), and instead just do a HH style lashing around my stands upright. The beads probably got caught between Amsteel and metal stand or something, and cracked.

But I thought a shout out/warning would be the thing to do. So here it is: keep an eye on those beads! Be careful out there!