Cinch buckle multi-fail last night

[dudeman_atl]

A few months back, I switched my stock HH lines out for cinch buckles and have come to the conclusion that they aren't going to work for me for a variety of reasons.

First, the stretch in the webbing is somewhat annoying during good weather, but last night I rode out a crazy N GA thunder storm with my SuperShelter HH and the stock "napkin" tarp which has never failed me--until last night. The stretch in the webbing made it impossible to mate up the tarp to the hammock ridgeline effectively. The tarp kept serperating from the Under Cover as the hammock sagged under my weight which opened enough of a hole between the UC and tarp to let in some rain. Let me tell you, 1:30am with water running down your back is no fun. Luckily the rain stopped, I had to pee and I have a bottom entry HH so I drained the hammock and some other stuff and kept going. I tried to run the suspension webbing through my snake skins to help snug the ends up but couldn't figure out how to do it effectively at zero-dark thirty.

Then around 3:00am I heard a twang and thud--I hit the ground with an audible "ooof". The webbing got sideways in the cinch buckles which caused the buckles to chew up the webbing. Interestingly, the webbing didn't totally fail, but rather the cinch buckles simply slipped. I re-hung the hammock and added a slippery half-hitch behind both buckles to keep going.

As it turns out, all the tent dwellers got flooded and my Tenderfoot came to get me at 3:30am. His headlamp looked like a huge flash of lightning in my eyes and we went to sort out his problems. He experienced Total Soaking (forgot to zip the fly) and we rode out the rest of the storm in the car.

The silver lining is that my wife was under my DIY silpoly tarp and was dry as a bone so I count that as a win.

[dudeman_atl]

[Theguywitheyebrows]

sorry to hear of your gravitational dilemmas during peak wetness. super lame. i wonder what caused the failure? are they dutch buckles? is the webbing substantial enough in thickness? was it the water that contributed? im sure dutch wants to remedy whatever went wrong, especially if they're dutch buckles.

[latriper]

Are these polyester straps? I know nylon straps have stretch issues but I have not experienced it with polyester straps.
I always tie the half hitch just in case. I have used other suspensions but I have used straps/buckles for a while now. Both from Ripstop By The Roll.

[Roaming Gnome]

Sorry to hear this. I use his cinch buckles and have never had an issue.

[lazy river road]

Always tie a half hitch but your experience us exactly why I use inverted woopie slings with dutch hooks. Its a pretty fail safe system.

[latriper]

Just a quick suggestion. I noticed in the picture that your amsteel(?) Is looped around your cinch buckle 4 (?) Times. I wrap mine 7 to try to eleminate any space between the amsteel and the edge of the buckle. This helps the buckle from sliding and twisting. Just a thought, good luck.

[DuctTape]

I do a quadrupled larks head with my amsteel loop to mitigate the twist, this also puts the force in the center of the buckle as opposed to the sides. The strap seems thin in the photo. Maybe due to the stretch? In all my years and hundreds of n8ghts, i havent had any slippage, or a failure like described. My guess is the strap itself is not thick enough to get a good bite, and also the material .

[powerboil]

May be your webbing too thin. When you use a long time, it's can be wrap and slip with buckle. Try to thicker and weave tightly webbing.

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[SavageRunner]

Man, I can't help you on a solution because I'm just a newbie to hammocks but last night's storm was a rough one. Lots of lightening and loud thunder over on my side of town. Not to mention all the rain. Glad you made it through as well as you did. It was nasty out there.