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Figure 9 failure
I spent the holiday weekend at the in-laws' place up near La Crosse, WI. I of course put up my hammock and spent the three nights outside!
I had my Speer winter tarp up, using an "over the top" ridge line made of Dyneema. The tarp attaches to the ridgeline via prussik loops. I have shock-cord tensioners at all tie-out points.
For stringing up the thing I use a mini-biner at one end and a small plastic figure 9 at the other end.
On Sunday we had a steady wind with gusts up to around 25MPH pretty much all day. At around 3:00pm I just happened to go outside for some reason, and was standing near the hammock when the Figure 9 snapped! Guess the wind gusts were too much for it.
Good to know not to trust those plastic Figure 9's when I'm NOT 20 yards from the house. I replaced it with the next size up Figure 9 in metal.
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Like those plastic toilet handle flushers .... gonna break on ya' .....
Man ... there is a lot of crappy stuff put out there it seems.
Give me quality!!!!!!
SoapBox Shug
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Was it cold? I've had plastic stuff snap in the cold before, and with the pressure of the tarp, wind, and tension, that could have put it over the edge.
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You most likely didn't need to go a size up for the metal one.
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i bought a 4 pack of plastic figure 9s from REI one time (not paying attention that they were plastic, they were on sale) when i was doing mods to my tarp, i set it up with one and it snapped, from pulling on it to hard,
dont trust the plastic ones, even if they are on sale:rolleyes:
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I've been playing with some. I've had a tarp up in the yard for 3 days using one. So far no issues, but I will probably go with a truckers hitch instead - or something similar.
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Far from failing but many of my metal figure 9s are a little bent. I wouldn't trust those plastic one for anything.
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I'd guess the bigger the tarp, the bigger the combined force from wind gusts...and the SWT is a good sized sail (err, tarp!) ;)
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Sounds like simple plastic fatigue to me.
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I can't imagine this happening before the tarp or tabs rip. I have had mine up in these Georgia storms for a week now (won't get dry enough to take it down). It is still completely dry inside and no figure 9 failures.