Whoopie Sling Suspension

[SlowBro]

Here we are, almost one year from ZA206's first post on UCR's with TeeDee/TiredFeet and Frawg still making improvements and doing a little good natured jousting about the merits of whoopies and UCRs. In other forums I frequent, these kind of differences of opinion seem to turn into a "grudge match to the death." I can't explain it, but maybe the civility here has to do with sleeping in the air. You know- We are above it all!

But seriously, let me say once again, it is a pleasure being associated with all the folks here. And a special thanks to the moderators for keeping us focused.

-Mark

[mtncmpr]

Here we are, almost one year from ZA206's first post on UCR's with TeeDee and Frawg still making improvements and doing a little good natured jousting about the merits of whoopies and UCRs. In other forums I frequent, these kind of differences of opinion seem to turn into a "grudge match to the death." I can't explain it, but maybe the civility here has to do with sleeping in the air. You know- We are above it all!

But seriously, let me say once again, it is a pleasure being associated with all the folks here. And a special thanks to the moderators for keeping us focused.

-Mark

HEAR, HEAR!!


.

[TiredFeet]

.... The only other thing I found annoying with the WS is its tendency to pop off a toggle when adjusting it; probably my clumsiness, but still it's ME I'm thinking of...

Yep that can be a problem. We were thinking of using a short Solomon Bar on the adjustable loop so that we could cinch it down on the end of the loop and "capture" the Marlin Spike in the webbing. That's what we do with fixed eyes. Didn't get past thinking about it though since the Solomon Bar would make adjusting the loop extremely difficult and lose the "ease of use" of the whoopie. Since we have dropped all webbing and use rope huggers of AS-78, we now use a variant of the nacrabiner to attach the whoopie to the rope hugger and so no longer have the problem.

TeeDee is still working on switching the huggers from 1/8" AS-78 to the 2 mm Dynaglide. That would significantly reduce the bulk of the huggers even more and drop the weight of both huggers to approximately 0.3 oz which gets the total suspension and hugger weight to about 1.2 oz. The bulk of the whole suspension and hugger system would then be about half or so that of one 6' webbing hugger we used to use.

Two words: helium balloons....

He promised to work on the problem while he was away. I asked him how since he wouldn't have any tools or computers. He just smiled and said he still has his mind and plenty of nights alone ahead of him.

[TiredFeet]

Frawg - It occurred to me today a possible reason why we have different perspectives on toggles and lanyard knots in the previous discussion.

I think you are using a gathered end hammock and I'm using Bridges exclusively.

The different perspective comes because of that difference.

For a gathered end hammock you have a single rope coming off the hammock with a fixed eye that gets hooked over the toggle. The rope also is aligned with the suspension.

For my Bridge, I have 2 ropes, one from each arc, with a fixed eye on the end of each. Both eyes then get hooked over the toggle. This leads to a problem in that each rope is pulling on the toggle from a different angle that is not aligned with the suspension. Because of the angle, the forces are pulling one or both eyes off the toggle.

We found 2 solutions for this problem:

1. make the toggle long enough that the eye could not slip off the toggle. This has obvious problems in storage of the toggle and in getting the eye over the toggle to begin with. For our use, a 4" toggle was needed which is obviously not desirable.
2. confine the 2 ropes of the suspension triangle so that they cannot slip off a reasonable sized toggle.

We went with the second solution. We experimented with rings, both steel and cord.

With 1.5" toggles, 3/4" ID steel rings worked perfectly. To use the rings, the cords of the suspension triangle were inserted through the ring and then hooked over the toggle. The splay of the cords kept the ring tight again the toggle and the ring prevented the cords from being able to reach the end of the toggle and slip off.

We replaced that set-up with lanyard knots. TeeDee took a length of cord and tied a lanyard knot in the middle. Then he tied 2 more lanyard knots, one on each leg coming off the first lanyard knot. That gave us 3 lanyard knots, with one in the middle. The 2 lanyard knots on each leg are inserted into fixed eyes coming off the cord in the arcs of the Bridge. The middle lanyard knot is inserted into the fixed eye on the end of the whoopie sling of the suspension. The cord with the lanyard knots is left attached to the Bridge on take down, so that on set-up, only the single middle lanyard knot needs to be inserted into the whoopie fixed eye of the suspension.

So for us, the lanyard knot is easier because it replaces the ring and toggle. Now the ring and toggle were quick and easy to use, but TeeDee has been on a mission to eliminate hardware from our suspension and still keep it simple and easy to use. The lanyard knot in this case did that because it eliminated the need to insert through the ring and hook the toggle. The lanyard knot also had the benefit of reducing the weight - rope is always lighter than h/w.

[Frawg]

Ahh, that makes sense, TF -- I've never used a bridge hammock, though my channel end one is close enough to a gathered end. Good catch! Yeah, 4" toggles are a bit much, and the other approach is indeed a lot of hardware. Sounds like you have a good solution.

I've finally () settled on a toggle at the hammock end and a "nacrabiner" loop shackle at the tree end of each UCR. It gets involved at the tree strap, which I'll post more about when I get some pics**. Bottom line, I now leave the tree strap, UCR and tarp line connected via the shackle. The knot end of the shackle forms part of a double sheet bend with the tree strap, so I can size the tree strap and set the tarp line / UCR tie point right next to the tree. This way I can stow the (potentially) wet parts (lines, straps and tarp) together, separate from the hammock & accessories. Makes for a pretty quick setup & tear down. For me, anyway...

Good stuff, amigo!

** Edit: I must have subliminally recalled Grizz's idea about the double sheet bend with a tree strap from an earlier post in this thread. Here are pics of what I do now. (tarp line would be lark's headed next to the UCR end):

[Frawg]

... doing a little good natured jousting about the merits of whoopies and UCRs. ...

My dog's bigger than yours...

[woodstock64]

Experienced WS failure my first hang two weeks ago. I was hanging my HH when I absent-mindedly picked up my hammock by the tail exiting the WS bury. Pulled the entire loose loop into the bury, rendering my WS useless. Fortunately this being my 1st hang, I took no chances amd packed the decender rings and extra amsteel. Fixed the WS when I returned home from my backpacking trip. Moral of the story be careful and be prepared.

[SlowBro]

Experienced WS failure my first hang two weeks ago. I was hanging my HH when I absent-mindedly picked up my hammock by the tail exiting the WS bury. Pulled the entire loose loop into the bury, rendering my WS useless. Fortunately this being my 1st hang, I took no chances amd packed the decender rings and extra amsteel. Fixed the WS when I returned home from my backpacking trip. Moral of the story be careful and be prepared.

To avoid this, some folks use a bead on the line before they bury it. Anything will work and if you want you can just tie a scrap of line around the cord making up the loop after the whoopie sling is already made ( or clip a small carabiner on the loop.) Then if you pull it all the way in you have something to grab- to pull the loop back out.
- Mark

[Frawg]

Hey TF -- thought you'd be amused to know that I've been playing with your lanyard knot idea and have come to appreciate the technique. I usually connect to my gathered hammock end with a double sheet bend using a loop of Amsteel 7/64 and put the loop over a toggle to hang. Instead of making a double-spliced continuous loop, though, I made one with a diamond / lanyard knot. Now my hammock can (ahem) swing either way -- from a toggle, as before, or using the knot and a scarab-secured loop. Only takes me a few seconds longer to (dis)connect but I have to agree that it's nice not to have to depend on hardware for a hanging solution. Still need to adapt my ridgeline & bugnet for quick (dis)connect. Think I'll try this for a while.

[TiredFeet]

Hey TF -- thought you'd be amused to know that I've been playing with your lanyard knot idea and have come to appreciate the technique. I usually connect to my gathered hammock end with a double sheet bend using a loop of Amsteel 7/64 and put the loop over a toggle to hang. Instead of making a double-spliced continuous loop, though, I made one with a diamond / lanyard knot. Now my hammock can (ahem) swing either way -- from a toggle, as before, or using the knot and a scarab-secured loop. Only takes me a few seconds longer to (dis)connect but I have to agree that it's nice not to have to depend on hardware for a hanging solution. Still need to adapt my ridgeline & bugnet for quick (dis)connect. Think I'll try this for a while.

Thanks -technically it's TeeDee's idea, but we both like it a lot.

And yes it was really nice getting rid of the hardware even though it was minimal. But hardware cannot be replaced when hiking. With the Lanyard Knot, a length of rope and you're good to go. Heck, TeeDee and I both carry small, blunt needles with a loop of 40 lb dyneema fishing line through the needle eye. Makes a great splicing tool and no bulk. With this and spare DynaGlide we can replace the whole suspension - 2 DynaGlide whoopies and a length of 1.75 mm Lash-It with eye splices on both ends for the ridge line - and the Bridge suspension triangle - 2 lengths of DynaGlide with 3 Lanyard knots on each - no sweat maybe an hour to fabricate. With the DynaGlide huggers, we could replace those also. Accidents do happen and it's nice knowing that we could replace the whole thing (well except the Bridge Hammock itself ).