Quick disconnect for the worst situation.

[ikemouser]

Hey guys, i have been considering a few things. Imagine your sleeping through a thunderstorm, everythings fine, but suddenly the winds increase in speed dramatically. Your not in a thunderstorm, your in a situation that has extremely fast fast winds. The violent rocking of your hammock, your tarp smaking you in the face, wakes you. Limbs crash, debris flys past your bugnet.

My solution: Have quick disconnect points at each end of the tarp. This point would be a length of rope(maybe 1-2 feet) from your dring, or in my case a break in my continuous ridgeline a foot or two from my tarp with a loop . Maybe my continuous ridgeline would be three pieces, connected by toggles.

First i would undo the toggles connecting my hammock to the tree, go into bivy mode. Next, undo the toggles connecting the part that goes around the trees to the part middle part of the tarp ridgeline. So the tarp would reamin connected to the stakes, but disconnected quickly from the tree. A length of line would still be connected to the tree on each side, but would not be in use. All that would need to be done would be to run a stake throug the loops on each end of the tarp that you just released, and cinch down the other stake loops tight. Maybe you could use drings instead of toggles, would be easier to disconnect. If your having trouble visualizing, i wiill come up with a visual later.

[WV]

Toggle + marlinspike hitch, Ike. If the wind is strong it might be difficult to disconnect anything else.

[KerMegan]

you might also consider moving the downwind stakes of the tarp to stretch it taunt again; (it should give enough to let you crawl back under) to reduce 'flappage'- I've seen tarps on the highway beat themselves to shreds just by flapping in 60 mph winds...admittedly they were the blue poly tarps, but the principle applies. KM

[ikemouser]

Yea tarp flappage is the main concern. This is just a brewing thought, another thread made me consider it. As of right now, i would have to disconnect my tarp from its prussics And remove the ridgeline from the trees. That doesn't sound very optimal in a massive storm. So im gonna get to work figuring out the simplest and lightest way to go from tree mode, to ground mode in as fast as time as possible. I want to retain the ease and adjustability of a continuous tarp ridgeline, while being able to disconnect in an instant and goto ground mode. I haven't seen anyone else address this, and i think it should be a vital concern for most. WEather can change rapidly, especially near the end of the treeline at high elevations.

WV: yea im leaning toward a spike, but will have to investigate as many things as i can find.

[drewboy]

My MLD cuben hammock tarp came with integrated Linelocs on all tieouts. I loop the ridgeline guyline around the tree and attach to itself with a mini biner. I can quickly re-tension any of the lines from underneath the tarp. I find this setup to be incredibly fast and easy.

For your scenario I would loosen up the ridgeline tieouts enough to just form a loop in it and stake it to the ground.

[KerMegan]

I have the prussik loops on the ridgline over the tarp, which I connect to the tarp with toggles (sticks) For worst case scenario-pull sticks, tarp falls, move to down wind stakes, pull one tight, get under, push 2nd into ground; initiate prayer protocol.
this assumes the hammock was dropped first..
Just a thought. KM

[noontime]

Imagine your sleeping through a thunderstorm, everythings fine, but suddenly the winds increase in speed dramatically. Your not in a thunderstorm, your in a situation that has extremely fast fast winds.

Check the weather before you go! Ha.
I'd say your in bigger trouble than just adjusting your hammock at that point, having lived through a plethora of tornadoes and one BIG hurricane if you've got trees and limbs falling around you your screwed in a hammock or bivy!

[ikemouser]

Check the weather before you go! Ha.
I'd say your in bigger trouble than just adjusting your hammock at that point, having lived through a plethora of tornadoes and one BIG hurricane if you've got trees and limbs falling around you your screwed in a hammock or bivy!

Obviously you always check the weather, but as you know the weatherman is often wrong. Especially in the last few years when weather has become even more unpredictable it seems. All im saying is that in this situation, you need to do as much as you can to survive the situation, doing nothing and being unprepared will not help.

[ikemouser]

I have the prussik loops on the ridgline over the tarp, which I connect to the tarp with toggles (sticks) For worst case scenario-pull sticks, tarp falls, move to down wind stakes, pull one tight, get under, push 2nd into ground; initiate prayer protocol.
this assumes the hammock was dropped first..
Just a thought. KM

Good idea KM, there may be no need to modify the continuous ridgeline, simply disconnect the prussics attached to the dring, put a stake through the dring(the 2 on each side is what im talking about) loop and secure to the ground. Maybe you don't even need a line going from the now disconnected dring to a stake, just put the stake through the dring loop, or have a small prussic already attached to the dring. I think having an extra little prussic attached to the dring would work great, opinions? Also weight would not even be noticeable.

[ikemouser]

SO now im leaning toward about a 9-12 inch piece of speer no tangle, with a prussic loop attached to the dring. The speer no tangle has a bowline loop on the end. And a stopper on the other end so it cant slide out of the prussic:


Stopper...............Line.....................Bow line(goes around stake)
XX---------------------------------------{ }


The line portion of this will slide through the second prussic (the first prussic is for the trees) attached to the dring, allowing adjustment to tighten the tarp down. So essentialy it could be done with practically no weight penalty. Its also the fastest as all you have to do is pull the toggles to disconnect from the continuous ridgeline, the ridgeline can stay up, no problem, we don't need it anymore at this point as we are connecting to the ground on each end of the tarp using our second prussic. During regular use(using first prussic and attaching to tree) the second will just remain attached to the dring and hang down, waiting for that bad weather.


The only issue is when you disconnect from the main tarp ridgeline and the tarp is falling down, will the slack of it falling down disconnect it from all the guyline tieout points at the stake, or will the loops remain attached. If they remain all you need to do is tighten the line. In my case i have prussic attached at the dring guy line points that allow me to slide the line through(just like the diagram above). So i would just need to pull more line through i guess. Can't wait to test this and report back, im excited because its relatively easy. You would just have to carry 2 more stakes, or before you goto bed use your knife to make 2.