The Ten-Yard Hang

[kitsapcowboy]

Kitsap,

Would you change anything up after your experience with this new setup. Why did you choose 1/8 for the buried portion? I have some extra single whoopie hooks that are begging for me to make a setup like yours. Any reason you chose double whoopie hooks? I just experienced my first ucr so I’m very new to the idea.

The 1/8" Amsteel for the constrictor section was a component I saw spec'd in an online tutorial when I was researching this concept again. UCRs are, by nature, a little more complex to design for ease of use than a simple whoopie sling, owing to the necessary tension on the constrictor tail section. Both the Prusik knot and the constrictor's bury need to move along the main line in either direction, so the key is to facilitate this. You could certainly make the UCR out of all one diameter of Amsteel cord, but the larger constrictor seems to need to bunch less over the smaller main line to move while still holding its intended load capacity when tightened again. The 1/8" cord also has a more generous margin to open up its core when compressed than the 7/4" cord sliding over a main line of its same diameter, which seems to make the motion quite fluid and smooth going either way, with the bury pushing the tensioning Prusik knot along or with the knot pushing the bury. The 1/8" also makes a fatter Prusik knot and tail handle, which is user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing. So far, holding has been rock solid, and the weight penalty on a couple of feet of the larger-diameter cord is pretty negligible, at around 7 grams for the pair of UCRs built by my method.

I used the Double Whoopie Hooks because I sometimes hang in tandem with my wife or daughter; we would simply use my UCRs at the head ends of the hammock and their suspension at the foot ends, with a spreader bar in between. You can also insert a Zing-It or Lash-It soft shackle through the extra hole in a double hook and use it to hang stuff off of your suspension.

I've noticed that it pays to keep Spider Webs flat when they're stored, which makes them easier to deploy and wrap smoothly around smaller-diameter trees (with multiple wraps). I have decided to keep them detatched from the UCRs in my stuff sack, rolled up to keep them smooth and easy to wrap when they come out. Using tree huggers in the traditional manner, without hardware (i.e., just wrapping the length and then using the end loops), is a little more time-consuming during the pitch than the other set-ups I've been using for the past couple of years, but it's no big deal since I never seem to be in much of a hurry when I am hammock camping. With these Spider Webs, I think ditching the Dutch Clips is a reasonable trade-off, and I can always carry some (or carry a couple of soft shackles) if a certain hang set-up makes detaching the tree end of the huggers more imperative.

The only other similar lightweight alternative I've wondered about is substituting Spider Daisy Chain for the huggers in the same 7-foot length and then splicing a Mantis into the fixed eye of the UCR; this would add a few grams but might make the set-up a little more user-friendly by eliminating the need to wrap the hugger so many times around small trees. Deployment would be a simple matter of sizing the Spider Web to the tree and inserting the bling. Food for thought...

[dakotaross]

I'm confused about the tree-climbing aspect. Doesn't the structural ridgeline mitigate the need for 30 degrees angle?

Here in the south, we are still recovering from deforestation, so we have plenty of smaller trees and space is not typically a problem, EXCEPT in areas where there has been a lot of tent camping. Good trees to hang on in these areas can be few, and often it requires an extended spacing. Most of these trees wouldn't support me climbing up 10'.

[kitsapcowboy]

I'm confused about the tree-climbing aspect. Doesn't the structural ridgeline mitigate the need for 30 degrees angle?

Not exactly, IMHO. A seatbelt is not a substitute for safe driving, after all. As hang angles get shallower than about 25 degrees, the tension forces exerted on your suspension rise exponentially, so even if your hammock maintains its sag, the strain on your SRL, your suspension straps, your hardware, and the trees (or whatever you're hanging from) can quickly approach safe limits -- especially on long hangs and with heavier hangers. Even a 175-pound hanger places an extra 80 pounds of force on the ridge line and suspension just by going to a 20-degree hang angle from a 30-degree hang angle; at 15-degrees that force is nearly double the occupant's body weight, and at 10 degrees its nearly triple. Long hangs tempt us get lazy about the vertical anchor height, but I feel it's best to be prudent and keep good safety margins.

[dakotaross]

Not exactly, IMHO. A seatbelt is not a substitute for safe driving, after all. As hang angles get shallower than about 25 degrees, the tension forces exerted on your suspension rise exponentially, so even if your hammock maintains its sag, the strain on your SRL, your suspension straps, your hardware, and the trees (or whatever you're hanging from) can quickly approach safe limits -- especially on long hangs and with heavier hangers. Even a 175-pound hanger places an extra 80 pounds of force on the ridge line and suspension just by going to a 20-degree hang angle from a 30-degree hang angle; at 15-degrees that force is nearly double the occupant's body weight, and at 10 degrees its nearly triple. Long hangs tempt us get lazy about the vertical anchor height, but I feel it's best to be prudent and keep good safety margins.

Agreed, and certainly not wanting to discourage safety. But using the Ultimate Hang calculator, a 15 degree angle only requires 5.5' up the tree and only exerts 390lbs apprx. on the suspension - I used a 200lb person for comparing results. Most of the stuff we use is rated well over 1000. Now, you can see what happens if you change the angle to 5 degrees, and yeah, that's a danger zone for sure. However, its nearly impossible to practically do that shallow an angle at 30'. You're gonna end up at 10-15 degrees unless you've got one of those Tentsile ratchets.

In terms of safety, I'll take the feet on the ground with the extra tension on the suspension. I've done this sort of hang lots of times, which is not a valid comment on safety per se, but rather my point is to say that I believe I'm well within spec to do it this way given proper supports/trees. Believe me, I'm happy to hear otherwise if there's something I'm missing.

[kitsapcowboy]

Agreed, and certainly not wanting to discourage safety. But using the Ultimate Hang calculator, a 15 degree angle only requires 5.5' up the tree and only exerts 390lbs apprx. on the suspension - I used a 200lb person for comparing results. Most of the stuff we use is rated well over 1000. Now, you can see what happens if you change the angle to 5 degrees, and yeah, that's a danger zone for sure. However, its nearly impossible to practically do that shallow an angle at 30'. You're gonna end up at 10-15 degrees unless you've got one of those Tentsile ratchets.

In terms of safety, I'll take the feet on the ground with the extra tension on the suspension. I've done this sort of hang lots of times, which is not a valid comment on safety per se, but rather my point is to say that I believe I'm well within spec to do it this way given proper supports/trees. Believe me, I'm happy to hear otherwise if there's something I'm missing.

dakotaross, I am probably the person on HF least invested in telling anyone what to do or how to hang her/his hammock, and if you've hung that way many times before I don't think you should do anything different. Maybe others will follow suit. All I can speak to is what I would do.

I'm 6'2" with long arms, and standing on my toes on the ground I can pretty much get my suspension at least 8 feet up the tree, so an extra 30" up to 10.5 feet is simply a matter of using a trail stick (or a hiking pole, if I were the sort to use them) to nudge my suspension the rest of the way. In extreme circumstances, I might climb or stand on something as high as a foot stool or even a chair to get my strap where it needs to be, so I'm not exactly talking about daredevil activities when I say "climbing"; getting canned goods off the top of your kitchen cabinets is probably a more risky venture that what I have proposed in this thread.

As for the tension at 15 degrees for typical hangers, I see your point, and 390 pounds may not seem like much to you. I agree with you that the trees will probably be just fine, but I consider the fact that that calculator computation is for a static load when the weight in the hammock is at rest. Sitting down in the hammock, turning over quickly, or, in case of accident, falling into the hammock all potentially induce live loads that may be significantly greater than 200 pounds. When you factor in the multiplicative effect of the shallow hang angle, it could be possible to achieve force numbers that aren't as easy to discount. Consider also the construction details of some popular camping hammocks. I believe my Dutchware Chameleons use a Lash-It structural ridge line with an "average break strength" of somewhere between 500 and 650 pounds; no one is going to die if that SRL snaps, but I would hate to see what shock-loading my hammock like that would do to my bug net or my sewn end channels.

Still, HYOH...

[daveysnowis]

I have just found what I will do with the mule tape I have laying around. Lit-tra-lee, a hundred yards... could be more.