Best knot for rigging tarp/hammock guylines to ground

[tsshaw78]

That's a good ideas posted. As PG said, find your favorite method and go with it. Shug once said in a video that hammock camping is great for those who like to experiment (paraphrased / misquoted maybe?). I agree, with all the different ways I can set up camp, I can experiment and customize my experience to fit me and my environment.
Tents are great, but often limited to the way the tent (not including tarp tents) is made; so while there is much guess work, there aren't too many opportunities to experiment with different knots for staking.

[amac]

I keep my lines tied to my ground stakes. I have plastic Figure 9s (from Nite-Ize) attached at the four corners of the tarp.

[GeneH]

Thanks to @OCDave's vote of confidence, I started splicing 2-4" loops in the ends of my 4-12' lash-it lines..... I read a comment somewhere here that someone puts a 2" loop on one end and a 4" on the other and they find it handy....

Is there any reason not to put the same dia loop on both ends? I'm thinking that once in the woods, the more simple the better when possible - no searching for the correct end.

[BigVillage]

I like the slippery half hitch.

[mab0852]

Is there any reason not to put the same dia loop on both ends? I'm thinking that once in the woods, the more simple the better when possible - no searching for the correct end.

I do different loop sizes on both ends. On the normal stake end, I do a large enough loop to wrap around my stake twice (a single loop can slip off). On the other end, I do a small loop, just big enough to easily pass a bite of line through. I do this so if I don't want to use a stake, I can use the little loop as a sliding marlin spike with the stake or a stick as the spike. If you have the loop small enough, it adjusts easily by spinning the spike, but won't readily slip under load. Just to describe, you go around your tie off point, pull a bite from the tarp side back through the smaller end loop, and then put a stick or stake through that bite. Sometimes I get luck on site selection and never get my stakes out of the bag. I have tarp worms on shock cord larks headed to the tarp tieouts on the other end so I can always fine tune the tension that way as well.

[mab0852]

I've been reading up a lot on knots and now that I'm trying them on my 1.7mm lash-it, I find some of the cinching knots difficult to work with. First off, my overall strategy for getting to the ground is 6-8" of shock cord using a sheet bend to make a loop then larkshead these on my 4 hammock and 8 tarp tie/pull outs to take care of elasticity. I actually have 4 of these with tarp worms already on them but I plan on using them for the doors since the shock cord is a bit lighter. I would then larkshead 4-8' of lash-it 1.7mm to each of these shock chord loops to get to the ground or to setup porch mode, etc...

Now to get to the ground, I found that the tarpworms are a bit annoying because you need to go all the way back to the tarpworm and if the stake/log/root I find is far away then I'm always hurting for extra line-length to get back. I came across the truckers hitch which looks to be a lot more flexible as I'd only have to backtrack my line part of the way. In terms of the loop to tie, I tried an alpine butterfly but since the lash-it is so thin, I found it a bit difficult to undo. The slipped overhand loop where you stick a bight inside another bight is quick and seems to come undone more easily and seems to be relatively strong. Is there a better loop to use for this size lash-it?

Also, any other knots or riggings I should check out? While I'm not yet at the stage of splicing my own lash-it, I'm considering learning so I can have nice berry ends and also a nice looking loop instead of my bowline loops. The lash-it I cut then melted with a lighter tends to fray and it's annoying trying to feed it through the small tarpworms.

I think you are using your tarp worms wrong, because I don't understand "you need to go all the way back to the tarpworm and if the stake/log/root I find is far away then I'm always hurting for extra line-length to get back". Tarp worms have 2 holes. You run your shockcord loop through the rear hole and larkshead it to the tarp. Your line then runs through the front hole (worm side) with the locking loop in place and down to the stake, tree, root or whatever to be tied off. It's a single run of line with no return. My lines at 6' and have loops at both ends and I always carry a spare in my snakeskin pocket. If a run is too long, I take the spare and larkshead it onto the end loop and proceed as normal. The only time that ever happens is if I running porch mode to a far tree. So it looks like this tarp();---------------(stake/tie out) or tarp();-------%--------(stake/tie out) if you are running an extension. Your description sounds like you are running them like line locs like this tarp();========stake/tie out) and needing twice as much line as necessary.

[Ged-fi]

I use a figure 8 larksheaded in the tarp end because I have polyester-coated dyneema as guyouts. With something spliceable that "should" be a spliced eye, of course. Until now I've used the Midshipman's hitch on the peg end, gives easy adjustability especially when my silnylon tarp stretches a bit when wet. Read up on the Farrimond Friction Hitch, and might be giving it a go next. Just because I can.

[richtorfla]

I still use a taughtline hitch. Learned it in Webelos and have used it all these years. Dang thats 40 plus years ago. I finish the end with a slip loop so I can tug it loose.

[Oquirrh]

I have hookworms and tarpworms for all my tieouts now, I love those things, but if I am in a situation where I don't have those with me and need to tie out to a stake, I'll just pull my guyline taut around the stake then wrap 3 times around, finishing off with a slippery half hitch; I've never had an issue with this coming undone even in high tension / tarp movement. Quick, easy, and gets the job done

[Rockdawg69]

Many good suggestions above. Personally, I leave my guy lines attached to my tarp (OES Spinntex) rolled up in the skins. The stake ends are in a Tautline hitch. All I do is set the stakes and tighten the hitch. Once all are in place, a final snugging and they are set for the night. No sag on this tarp like with silnylon.