I have a couple of the asymmetric tarps and while I certainly like the ease of only having two tie-outs, I have to say I'm less than thrilled with how well they protect my hammock from wind and rain. Keep in mind I live in Western Oregon and that means rain, drizzle, wind and squalls.
Granted, I'm bloody new at this but I've been dinging around outside trying various things and it just appears to me that the asymmetric tarps really can't handle the weather. I've got an ENO DB and it's way, way too long for the tarps. I have a derelict hammock that's been fixed (sort of) and while it's much shorter than the ENO it's still not quite short enough. I went for the Walmart cheapo hammock (much shorter) and it was almost okay.
Took it out a month ago and got soaked. Back to the drawing board.
I was messing around in the garage with a tarp footprint I got a REI and had to quit for the night and cast around for a way to keep the REI footprint off the garage floor, noticed the extra long thingies for tying the footprint to mother earth and absentmindedly hooked one on the end of the asymmetric tarp I had up, and started to lay it over the rest of the tarp when I noticed something odd. The other end of the tie-out on the footprint came within a couple of inches of the tie-out for the asymmetric. So I hooked up and headed for bed.
Next morning after a caffeine fix, I looked at the tarp and footprint and thought, ****, they almost fit good. And it covers that big wwind tunnel at the end of the hammock right nicely. Hmmmm.
Long story short: Velcro, my wife's new sewing machine, more messing around. New add-on for the asymmetric if there's likely to be much wind and rain.
That made me think that perhaps there were others who might have done what I just did, but better, hence my asking what other ideas have been floated over the years?
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