First Use of the DD from the group purchase

[OldnSlow]

Well, after owning the hammock for about a year, I finally got the bug net loops redone, and changed out the stock tube webbing for decending rings, caribiner, and webbing. I kept the stock webbing in the channel, and connected it to the decending rings by means of a prusic, and knot in the end of the webbing. I took the hammock, the claytor diamond tarp, my trusty wally world blue ccf pad, and my new kayak for a brief test trip to a local lake. After reading all eighty-some pages of the ring thread, I decided that one needed to be safe by adding a slippery hitch in the webbing, by the rings. (especially at my weight!) I set up, tested, reset up, and was finally satisfied that the system would work. I took my synthetic mummy bag rated for about 0* for use as an overquilt, the blue pad in the double layer, and put my polypro longjohns in the hammock just in case. I turned in about 11 pm, and soon fell asleep. Sometime in the night, I thought my bum was touching the ground, but ignored it until the call of nature became insistant at about 5 am. Sure enough, the bum was touching, with the ends still off the ground. The half hitches were still in place, and things seemed set up ok, but I had gently settled to the ground. I reset the hammock, and went back to sleep. At 11 am, when I woke up for good (GREAT SLEEP!), I was, again, genly on the ground, (or at least, my bum was touching.) I wonder if the strapping I bought, thinking it was polyester, might have been something else with much more stretch. The good news is that the kayak carrier came with extra strapping, that seems much more robust, and does not seem to stretch. I will try that the next time. All in all, a very successful test. I am not sure which Hammock I like best. (sort of like which child do I like best) I have more room in my HH safari, but I like that the underpad is not fighting me during my sleep in the DD. I guess the only way to know for sure is to get an underquilt to test the HH without the pad. (That is my excuse for purchase: so there! A much belated test of the hammock, with qualified success!

John

[Andy2112]

Funny you should say about the tape stretch, my DD tapes stretched terribly till they settled down.

[OldnSlow]

Andy 2112, thanks for the response. I expected some stretch from the original webbing / tape, but I was literally let down by the stuff I bought. That stuff, at 1 inch wide, really stretched, to drop the hammock 3 plus feet, 2 times in the night. The original DD webbing only seemed a small bit longer than original.