Paging all sages of Hammock Forums. Looking for a history lesson/discussion.

[nothermark]

The book? Would that have been Ed Speers?

yes. Read the book and started haunting Walmart for $1/yd fabric. Probably build 10-12 hammocks that summer with 4 yds of whatever looked interesting and some 3/8" yacht braid to hang it with.

Also opened the hood on the Hennessy to see how he did it. That would have been the accordion fold hot cut with two punched holes and the rope wound around. I recall trying that with the sheet bend type fold and tie off. I do not recall if that was in Ed's book or not.

Called my buddy with the Clark. He says that his is a sewn channel gathered end.

[dirtwheels]

Pretty sure there are lots of dated info over at just Jeff's.

[OutandBack]

Pretty sure there are lots of dated info over at just Jeff's.

I've been on all the websites listed and it is not easy finding stuff from 1999 to 2006
I haven't been able to find any history on DD are they a British only company? Did they offer some feature or unique design before anyone over here?

[chefkeith]

You can use the waybackmachine from Internet Archive.

For instance, here's a snapshot of Just Jeff's Hiking page from Nov. 25, 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20051125...ikingPage.html

[oldsoldier]

I have an original Ed Speers hammock tarp

[SGT Rock]

This is an interesting discussion, I don't know who was first on a lot of this stuff, but I can reminisce about how I remember the evolution of hammocking.

2000 I just finished a winter thru-hike of the Pinhoti in "traditional" hiker style with a 70 pound pack and a two person tent. I ended up at Fort Polk Louisiana with the aim to get my pack lighter. Soon after getting there I realized that sleeping on the ground in a swamp like area is a challenge and dug out my old net "survival" hammock and used my poncho as a tarp. It worked OK and I decided about that time to get a new one person shelter that would both lower my pack weight and get me off the swampy ground. I used my improvised rig for about 6 or 7 months.

I researched buying a surplus jungle hammock and then looked into how much they weighed. OUCH! But on my searches I came up with Clark and Hennessy hammocks, but not many reviews other than the manufacturer cherry picked user feedback. I settled on the Hennessy because it was lighter and less expensive. I also liked the idea of using a reflective space blanket as the insulation - which turned out to be one of the worst ideas in the world but that is a whole 'nother story.

I had started a website in 1997 with my children as a family project one Memorial Day when we were all at home. I take my children backpacking so I encouraged them to come up with ideas for pages. We did some reviews of tents and packs, so after getting some time in the Hennessy I wrote a review of that: http://www.hikinghq.net/gear/hennessey_hammock.html
That first part of the review was done in about October of 2000. Follow up was in December. In December or January I heard about the new Ultralight version and was a little miffed that I could have waited and got a lighter one and fired off an e-mail to the company (what I thought was a big company at the time) and got a response back from Tom Hennessy himself that he would be happy to switch me out. I got one of the new ultralight hammocks before they were even carried in REI.

This is happening in late 2000 to early 2001 and you have to remember that back at this point there was no such thing as Youtube and most people had fairly low speed connections so using pictures to show steps of tying a knot or some detail of set up was about the best I could do. But I wrote more and more about the hammock including my experiments to truly stay warm, riding out a hurricane in a hammock, set up, etc. At some point (I can't remember exactly when) I got contacted by Tom Hennessy because he was apparently reading my reviews and wanted to send me a couple of new items he was testing: snake skins and tree straps. I got those and quickly modified my hammock to use those and started writing about that. At some point around that time I also did a temporary gear swap with a Clark owner and we both reviewed each other's hammocks. I'm glad for this as it gave me a chance to see if I was missing something. The Clark is a well made product, but it isn't for me. But it did have some cool ideas. In some of my early pictures you may notice that there are no tree straps. As far as I know they were not invented yet. Think about that!

Later (I think it was 2002) Tom contacted me and sent me a camouflage sil-nylon tarp and cammo hammock to test as he was trying to get a contract for some military unit and was also looking at getting carried by AAFES. As far as I know it was the first sil-nylon cammo ever and even then it wasn't commercially available until about 12 years later. First pictures I have of it are on this page: http://www.hikinghq.net/gear/henness...m_hammock.html Late 2002 I became half owner/administrator of this little site called WhiteBlaze, you may have heard of it. Anyhow, that forum gave me another platform to spread the gospel of hammocking. At first it was mainly me answering all hammock related questions. After a short while we started getting a wider base of knowledge so there was some variety of opinion and styles.

Around this time I don't think I had heard of many other hammock companies. I do remember Crazy Creek (or something like that) giving some hammocks over to BackPackGearTest.org of which I was often a reviwer and that hammock was terrible and fell apart the first trip I took it on. They asked for them back and we never finished the reviews. I do think it is for sale though. I'm sure some other people were probably doing hammocks at this point, like probably Ed Speer though I didn't hear about him until about 2004 I think.

I deployed to Iraq in 2003 and about 6 months into it, Tom sent me a hammock because I didn't bring mine. I lived in it for about 6 months and made my first underquilt out of a poncho liner. When I got back to the US in 2004 I went to my first Trail Days and met Tom Hennessy and his brother James. I also met Ed Speer and I think that was probably the first time I was aware of his kits he was selling so folks could make their own. I got his book, but at that point it didn't tell me much I didn't already know. Ed also mentions that he is holding these meetings he calls "Hangs" over at Hot Springs and I should try to make it sometime. 2004 is also the year this new startup company contacted me about what I would want to see in a hammock quilt, that would be Jack 'R Better and the No-Sniveler quilt (wonder where they got that name?). I shortly had my first prototype which I still use today.

I did find out that Ed Speer and my wife (who is a Speer) are distant cousins - small world. But short story, not to toot my own horn but to give you an idea about how hammocks were starting to grow: Tom Hennessy told me at that meeting that he had started selling his hammocks in 1999 and that there wasn't much growth in it. He had gotten REI to start carrying his hammocks (which is where I bought my first) and then in 2001 the business started taking off. He often asked his customers where they heard about his hammocks, and the usual reply was "there is this guy called SGT Rock who has a website..."

So 2004 I start seeing this thing taking off. Ed is selling kits, Hennessy and Clark are the two main manufacturers that I know of selling complete kits, and I seem to remember other people starting to talk about making their own hammocks based on the Speer design. Later that year the Army decided to move me to Knoxville, TN of all places. I don't get to a hang right away as the Army keeps me pretty busy, but I do start maintaining for the BMT in 2005 and at the grand opening of the BMT I meet Youngblood who I consider one of the early innovators in the DIY hammock world. I am pretty sure he is the one that made the first angle chart where we all adopted the 30 degree hang standard. He and I help a new hammocker to figure out why he is not comfortable in his hammock (I think it was a Hennessy). At this point I connect with Just Jeff who has a great website for hammocks as well, especially if you want to go DIY. I'm also pretty sure that this is the year I meet Brandon at Trail Days where he is displaying two hammocks that he just started making, I think it was called a Warbonnet or something like that LOL. I honestly didn't pay them the attention I should have.

2006 I head back to Iraq but don't sleep in a hammock during this tour. Just Jeff and I correspond about military stuff but not hammocks. When I get back in 2007 my wife wants to start hanging, and she makes her first hammock! I didn't even do that yet. She gets all her info from Just Jeff's site. I'm pretty impressed by what she makes. We also go to a hang together at Hot Springs for the first time and meet all the hammockers there. There are a lot of interesting ideas floating around, but my general impression was a lot of this tricks were really unnecessary even though they were very clever. I also put in my retirement paperwork and start getting ready to hit the AT on a thru-hike. I realize at some point that fall that my Hennessy bug net is going to be superfluous in January and decide to make my first ever DIY hammock. That hammock went 852 miles (when I got off with an injury) and is still just as good today as it was then.

2005 Youtube started, and by 2007 you could start to find some interesting videos about hammock camping. I think that this innovation is also one of the things that really started spreading the gospel of hammocking. I remember on WhiteBlaze getting some complaints about "all the hammock talk" and Troll at some point started this site. I know sometime before that he converted to a hammocker, so that was just a natural way to deal with the WhiteBlaze sniveling and get what was starting to become a hot topic into it's own realm. I really had nothing to do with starting this site - it was Troll's baby. I'm not even sure when he opened this site, it seems like he mentioned it in a conversation and I sort of looked at it, but has other things keeping me busy so I didn't even post here for a while after it opened.

2010 I decided to start experimenting with ultralight hammocking as my pack weight had sort of stalled around my DIY hammock/Hennessy solution. There wasn't much (if any) talk about that. It seemed that most HF members were offended by the idea that one might sacrifice comfort for weight as if you couldn't have both. I don't think for me there was much relevant on the site here other than a couple of people with wacky ideas like Cuben Fiber tarps and using Dynaglide (oh the safety!) for suspension. Slowly the ultralight hammock idea is seeping in.

I don't know that I directly answered any of your questions about who did what first, but maybe it gives everyone an idea where this all started from.

[Sunndog]

I've been on all the websites listed and it is not easy finding stuff from 1999 to 2006
I haven't been able to find any history on DD are they a British only company? Did they offer some feature or unique design before anyone over here?

They are a scottish company started in 05-06 if thats any help

Cant help on what they did or didn't do first, though they do claim the lightest hammock in the world

[mountainhanger]

Sgt rock- great write up full of info, as a relatively new guy with 3 yrs here and backpacking in general, I appreciate all you did for the sake of others. Both professional and personal. Like your videos straight and to the point...very interesting read..thanks

[Roche]

...where they heard about...hammocks, and the usual reply was "there is this guy called SGT Rock who has a website..."

This edit is also applicable.

[WV]

Great memoir, Rock. Thanks.

I don't recall exactly when I decided to get off the ground again. Maybe it was 2002 or 2003. I had used a jungle hammock as a kid in the 50s. I found the Yahoo HammockCamping group, and learned most of the basics from Ed Speer and Youngblood. I bought a discounted Hennessey Hammock for $50 (the only camping hammock I have ever purchased, though there are more out there now that I'd like to try). It was an early model they had on sale because they had just switched to asym tieouts and bugnet. I found a place called Quest Outfitters, and asked Kay what fabric people were buying for hammocks. She said Ed Speer bought Supplex nylon, so I got some of that for my first insulated hammocks. I later found out that Ed used Supplex for his "heavyweight" hammocks, and I could have used a lighter fabric. Supplex feels great, though, and it's tough enough to withstand dog toenails. I converted an early insulated hammock to a dog hammock. I also made these hammocks adjustable by cutting off all the fabric that wasn't touching me and replacing it with lots of small whoopie slings - about 20 on each end of the hammock. I used bungee cord for the strings at the edges so they would hold the foot end up to keep my top quilt from sliding out, but still let the side of the hammock stretch under my knees when I sat in it. A couple of years later, in a 3-way PM conversation with Dutch and Knotty we were talking about floppy hammock edges and tight hammock edges, and I told Knotty to try my side-stretch on a regular gathered end hammock. He engineered it to perfection, and it took off. I took my first right-angle hammock to the Mt. Rogers winter hang around 2012, I think. It was a year or two before Exped introduced the Ergo. I didn't sleep in the right-angle hammock, though, as it wasn't insulated. I was using my old Supplex insulated hammock inside a hammock sock-tent with an additional insulated pod-like cover. I still use that for very cold weather. The tarp design for that setup was based on an asym rectangle with triangular additions on all four edges. I used the same design for a summer tarp, too, and I recall one guy at Ed Speer's Hot Springs Hang who asked a lot of intelligent questions about it. Afterwards, a bit embarassed, I asked one of the guys there who I had just been talking to. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "That was Sgt. Rock."