when I heard that the superfly tarp now had snaps I said "cool, I can take them off or leave them on, my choice" , (unlike on my speer swt).
this afternoon I went through a really good rain, a real downpour and stayed under the superfly (with bb). I heard the storm cell approaching and saw it on my nexrad weather radar on my garmin 478 and had just enough time to re-set the tarp. I had it a bit low for high protection but wanted to raise it a bit for better air flow and to see just how it might handle the rain, but what we got I wasn't expecting though I did get the superfly to the real test!
I learned a few things from the heavy downpour, one was that the "drip drain" on the blackbird worked pretty darn good, this is the combo of straps and triangle rings. something I didn't expect to find out is that unlike on my other hammock setup and tarp is that if I was to strike camp right after the rain those soaking wet straps were going to end up inside the stuff bag with my dry hammock, not a good thing! though I hadn't have it happen yet with the bb, tree sap is also going to be a problem so I think I prefer to have my straps separate from hammock.
I'm thinking about surviving the nasty conditions and what I'd might have to do to weather the storm when in the backcountry and keep going like nothing happened. details, details, details ........
so on to the superfly tarp and the snaps. In a regular rain the tarp did just fine, better than fine. It's bigger than the speer swt, and has side pull outs, something I wanted so I could have max rain protection. In the big rains however the small openings between the snaps would allow a small amount of spray in making things a bit damp. Now the thing is, just what can I do about this? Snaps? yeah, thought they were cool at first, but always left them attached and always use the door panels. hey, it's why I got a max protection tarp in the first place. besides, I'd just tie up the two doors to each other underneath so they were out of the way when the weather was nice. the few oz isn't a problem for me. do I really need this snap feature? nope. so do I sew it up somehow? Ideas, suggestions are welcome .....
Bookmarks