So, I've been soaking up the knowledge on here for a while now. I eventually took the plunge and bought myself a DD Travel hammock, their extra large tarp and a mesh hammock for gear plus some 'snakeskins' and whoopie slings to make things easier.

After asking a few questions on here and learning a few knots etc etc, I went out at 2pm yesterday for my first hang feeling pretty confident.

By 7pm I still didn't have it sorted and it was too dark so I had to pack it away and come home. While trying to pack it away I managed to snap a titanium V-peg in half! So I'm much more clueless than I thought

I have some questions and I hope they're not too easy for you to bother answering or too difficult to answer


1. I saw dejoha's beautifully illustrated advice about finding the perfect trees: Three Paces apart (about 3.5m); Reach overhead (to hang straps at around 6ft) and Hang (at about 30degrees).
Well, if I do that, the hammock hangs well but the trees are too close together to get the tarp taut! I'm not sure why because the tarp is 4.5m x 3m, so the side that runs between the trees (3m), should be about the same length as the recommended distance between trees.
Am I doing something wrong? I found I need to walk four(and a half) paces to get a taut tarp but then I can't reach high enough to get the hammock suspension at 30degrees (I'm only 5'8" tall)... (I'm using a continuous ridgeline in the 'V' configuration as illustrated by dejoha, if that helps).


2. The instructions on DDHammocks website regarding outfitting their hammock with the optional whoopie slings are pretty simple: remove the standard webbing, run the whoopie slings through the webbing channels, clip into a 'biner, clip the 'biner to the tree straps.
However, when I do this, the whoopie slings are always in reverse! By which I mean, every demo or video I've seen, the hammocker releases tension on the sling by raising the hammock and holding in place (usually with their underarm) and then they pull the free end of the whoopie sling in towards their chest in order to raise the suspension.
With the setup I have, I have to pull the free end away, toward the tree in order to raise it, which is a bit awkward. Again, what am I doing wrong?
I tried making a small continuous loop with a section of the stock webbing in each channel end, then running the whoopie from the loop directly to the carabiner or to a Marlin Spike Hitch on the tree hugger but in both instances, I had to tighten the sling all the way to the very end in order to raise the hammock to the right height off the ground (sitting height as recommended by most - and I'm 5'8" btw).


3. I can't get the hammock to hang level. I don't mean that I want it flat with no sag, or that I want it so the head and feet end are at the same height, I mean I want it so that my left and right shoulder are at the same height. I hung and rehung it a few times while messing with the suspension setup and every time, it ended up tilted over one way or the other. Because it was not level, the gear hammock -which I've attached to the underside - would shimmy off to the left or the right when I got into the travel hammock, rather than staying directly beneath me. Am I missing a trick here, or do you just have to spend ages fiddling with the way the channel rouches up at the ends every time you hang?


4. I want to attach a structural ridgeline to make the sag static regardless of the distance between trees etc but the DD's built in bugnet means that it's not possible to attach a line to each gathered end. A picture may help here (not one of mine, it's taken from DD's website):

As you can see, the bug net is raised too high to allow a cord between hammock ends and I don't want to compromise the net (or the room inside) by making holes and running a line through it.


I can't imagine I'd be able to fix a cord to any point on the whoopie sling because that needs to be adjustable, so the next viable option is to run a cord between the 'biners at each end. I'm not sure if that would work though?
The way my suspension is currently set up is: Tree straps loop around the tree (obviously), The 'biner clips onto the loop at the end of the tree strap, the fixed loop of the whoopie sling clips into the 'biner, the rest of the whoopie runs through the channel at the gathered end of the hammock and back up to the 'biner.
So, if the trees are a different distance apart (or have a different circumference) from one camp site to the next, then the distance between the two 'biners will be different, right? If so, then a structural ridgeline is out of the question, no? Or, does the action of the whoopie slings serve to equalise the distance, meaning I can always get the right hang if I adjust the slings to bring the cord between the two carabiners to the right tension?


5. Bonus question for those of you who have made it this far ha ha! Because I'm using 'snakeskins' to pack the hammock in, I want to attach the mesh gear hammock semi-permanently to the underside of the camping hammock. That way it gets gathered up in the skins and doesn't need to be hung seperately.
If I can't install a structural ridgeline on the main hammock, and therefore can't guarantee the same hang at every site, what is the best way to do attach the gear hammock? The mesh hammock has a big, thick, continuous loop at either end, and I've left the small loops I created on the ends of the main hammock (in case I have to revert to using them as part of the suspension - although currently they're not being used). Is there a simple(ish) way to attach these two loops together with some webbing in such a way as to make adjustments straightforward if needed?



Thanks all for reading this and especially to anyone who can help! Sorry about the length of the post and I'm not even sure I'm in the right section of the forum, due to the number of questions I have (sorry mods if I messed up!).

Kind regards to you all and I look forward to reading your responses before my next attempt at hanging!

Dan