If you're in/around Columbia, we can hook up and I'll show you.Originally Posted by SCGobbler
If you're in/around Columbia, we can hook up and I'll show you.
I used to be a somebody, now I just camp.
I'm north of you on 77.
Work sometime swings down that way.
I make it up towards Sesqui every once in a while.
I used to be a somebody, now I just camp.
So this afternoon, I detached my asym tarp and put a CRL on the bottom of it.
Got in the hammocks and it sagged down again. It went from a taught tarp to a floppy one completely detailed he'd. Same problem as before. How is that possible?????
Got pictures?
I used to be a somebody, now I just camp.
It sounds to me like your trees are bowing inward under load. If that is the case, you are going to need either a self tensioning mechanism like shock cord, or stouter trees.
God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools. --John Muir
The Hennessy Hex is not an asymp tarp. It's symmetrical.
Time to try some new trees, definitely. And dump the paracord - it's stretchy and gets stretchier when wet. I also don't ever put the ridgeline under the tarp - it can only wear. With the ridgeline over the tarp, there is zero chance of wear.
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Ralph Waldo Emerson
+1 on the ridge line placement, not to mention if it rains it provide a path right into your hammock. Zing it makes a great alternative...
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”
- Edmund Burke
I've hung my tarp both together and separate. Stretchier cord actually helps the situation you're experiencing, because it can contract when you get in and change the angles. I used 6" mini bungees, doubled up and hitched through the grommets and hooked to the hammock suspension to take up the slack when I got in. The ridge-line was not directly attached to the tarp, but the tarp was supported by it from underneath.
As long as it's level, and there's no sag to the ridge-line, water will not follow the line inside. It took me three days of steady rainfall that first summer to realize that the drips all fell from the bottom of the sag in the line, and not a hole my tarp, after which, I never hung gear from my ridge-line again, and haven't had any drips since. Likewise, the tension of the tie-outs can cause the exposed portions of the ridge-line to slope down to the tarp even if you hung it level before putting the tarp on. This slope gives a runnel of water the momentum to follow the line under the tarp. Knotting a small length of string around the ridge-line at the edge of the tarp gives the water something to drop from outside the tarp. As stated many places around HF the bends of a knot are a weak point in a cord, so better to not knot the ridge-line itself
I have never had trouble with water wicking in via paracord , nor with wear against my tarp, though I have had it fail as a tieout, but not due to friction that I could tell. It looked to me like it had been cut, there was no fraying, no friction marks, and the core was even with the sleeve as though sliced right through... though since sabotage by squirrels seems unlikely, I have to assume defect. I had used that it for most of a year before it happened though. I just tied it back together and kept using it for another few months after, not exactly a horror story. I bought fresh paracord when I bought my new tarp though.
My present setup, I use Atlas straps to go from the tree to my tarp ridge-line which hangs separate for the summer to promote air circulation. The ridge-line passes beneath the tarp, through the loops of the strap, back to the tie-out loops of the tarp, leaving perhaps 2inches of exposed line. I could use the excess from the ridge-line to tie around the ridge-line where it goes under the tarp, but so far the straps. Weight-wise, that's 2 extra straps as opposed to cord, though. On the bicycle the weight cost isn't nearly as high as would be backpacking though. I hardly notice.
I have had good experience running a very light line between the o-rings of the tarp. Acts like a ridge line to a large extent.
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