Late Friday afternoon I was hanging my tarp, a BWDD Winter Dream. Weather was coming, and the plan was to hang the tarp before it hit. The skins were off, and I had staked one side, when all hell broke loose...winds I'm guessing in excess of 50 mph. The tarp was uncontrollable, Prusics wouldn't hold, and a #2 S-biner failed. Once the tarp was on the ground, the wild flailing stopped, and the tarp emerged unscathed.

I'm not sure what I learned other than what the weak points in my rig are. Sure, I can beef it up, and probably will, but otoh, we want other things to fail before the tarp, and that's exactly what happened.

This same storm killed 4 people in Oklahoma, took of roofs, knocked out power, blew over signs on I40, and took down trees. All told, I feel pretty lucky. Oddly enough, I kept thinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald...go figure.