I use shock cord on the side pulls on the walls of my HG DCF Hex.
Not so much to maintain tension as to allow the sides to move a bit with the wind if need be during storms.
I use shock cord on the side pulls on the walls of my HG DCF Hex.
Not so much to maintain tension as to allow the sides to move a bit with the wind if need be during storms.
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[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Pine Barrens Leather
Maybe I’m just an ox, but I found the shock cord helpful to avoid user error entering and exiting tarp. I tend to accidentally pull a stake out by rustling against tarp or lifting my head up too high underneath tarp- or in general just not being graceful. I found the shock cord takes those kind of abrasions better. And the forest is filled with a lot less swears.
This is the primary reason that I use them. Mostly where I camp we have thick woods - lots of ferns and foliage so its easy to stroll full-speed into a line. I also tie a small loop in the shock cord where it attaches to the tarp. I can then just roll up my guylines and stuff them into that small loop where they stay securely with the tarp - makes setup and take down combined with line locks super fast.
I choose SilNylon because where I play, reliability/robustness has a higher value than light weight. Now that I know Silpoly also comes in ripstop patterns, I may consider that for my next tarp. But again, usually my outings are planned for good weather. Of course it occasionally rains, tarps get wet without the opportunity to dry out. But that’s just the cost of doing business.
Think about what the people who first came west had to deal with. Dutchware wasn’t around then. The didn’t have REI. And yet, we’ve made it to here.
My one change has been to try a tarp suspension line directly from tree to tree with the tarp hanging underneath on Nama Claws like a hammock hangs on its SRL. I’ve tripped over guylines before but reflective lines and learning to enter from the ends, or a high porch mode, have pretty much eliminated that surprise.
In order to see what few have seen, you must go where few have gone. And DO what few have done.
Of the three cuben tarps I have, only the Standard Hex has any shock cord. My ground lines are all the same... 1.2 ZPacks Reflective Z-Line with a Double Dragon knot creating an eye in one end. I have a short 1/8" loop tied through that eye, using a double fishermans knot. I am still exploring the single line suspension for ultra lite summer trips and have found the shock cord useful in pulling up the wee bit of tarp slack that results when the hammock is loaded.
Other than that, no shock cord on my cuben tarps..
Yes, my pack weighs 70lbs, but it's all light weight gear....
Bob's brother-in-law
The Yeti hang last winter had heavy snows just before we hung in above freezing daytime temps. Unavoidably there were snow bombs of considerable size.
The weak point seemed to be ridgelines. Others may want to pass on details of their crashes.
I use a Dutchware CRL with the sliding prussiks. After my mid-day snow bomb direct hit my 12 foot HG Journey was only 7 or 8 feet long and collapsed. The prussiks slid under the snow load. The Hammock stayed dry, some snow anchors needed resetting but the Journey was fine after sliding the prussiks back. Oh. If it matters I use shock cord on the guys, AND on the hammock pullouts.
As a precaution against a night time concussion I backed up the ridgeline pullouts with some 36lb bank line around the trees for the rest of the stay. No more snow bombs, though.
Copied from another forum that I recently posted on: Allow me to share a story from this past week. We camped on a mountain (Shortoff Trail) above 2600' within twenty feet of the cliff in Linville Gorge last week during tropical storm Zeta. One of my buddies was using my four year old BCUSA 70D Nylon tarp, I used my one year old 20D silpoly tarp with the three pole mod, and my other buddy had his newish .51 dcf tarp. The winds on the first night were around 30-40 mph with gusts hitting upwards of 50mph. The rain was horrendous. We noted that the nylon wetted out in the first few hours so much that you could actually see the dark shape of the snugpak cocoon that was on the hammock inside through the material. It sagged noticeably compared to it's original appearance. The silpoly took two days worth of rain and was less than 30% wetted out by the end of the trip and showed no signs of sagging. The dcf of course absorbed no water.
On the second day of question we went to bed with a clear sky and just a very slight breeze. At 11pm we awoke to a massive storm that had winds in excess of 50mph. By 2am we had higher winds with frequent gusts of 70-80+mph that lasted until 5am. It sounded like a freight train coming, hit hard, and there was silence for a few seconds before it came again. All three of my poles were bent at the middle section (only) but held. Twice the end poles jumped out of their respective pockets and had to be re-inserted. The dcf and silpoly tarps used 2mm (glow wire) and 3mm Lawson (non-glow wire) lines...they held. The nylon tarp had non-Lawson lines that snapped from the pressure. When we finally awoke at daylight we discovered the bent poles at my silpoly tarp and the torn corner of the dcf tarp. The nylon had zero damage other than guy lines that were fixed/replaced on the fly during the storm.
Lessons learned:
1) the nylon took a beating and worked like a charm. Although soaking wet and weighing a ton compared to it's dry weight it did not leak
2) the silpoly took a beating and worked like a charm. It did not weigh much and had dried out for the most part by the time that we packed up at 9am. It did have more sunlight on it than the silnylon tarp
3) DCF is ultralight, waterproof, and strong for it's weight but it is neither silpoly or silnylon strong in my opinion. The tent stake that was attached at the guy line where it tore was heavily bent. It took a beating before it gave up.
Pictures were taken at approximately 7am the morning after the last storm before packing them up
Silpoly 20D 1.1oz Ripstop
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70D 1.9 oz ripstop nylon
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.51 DCF
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Video of abuse (strong language warning) at 11pm when it started-https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=g4CdSLxDUXA
Non tarp related damage: I use spider straps from Dutchware.com that have a breaking strength of 1500lb. The winds were pulling my trees so hard that my hammock would rise and fall as it swayed with the wind during the gusts. An audible "twang" sound could be heard from my amsteel structural ridgeline each time. My buddy reported also hearing this on his hammock. One of my straps gave near the end of the storm and I re-adjusted it. In the morning I realized that it had started to tear where it was locked down at the buckle. My tarp was about one foot off of the ground and yet my lightweight stuff was strewn in three different directions into the forest. Since the ground had large rocks/boulders many of the tent stakes were placed on the end of a rock at an angle. This is what caused the bent stake that was tied to the corner of the dcf tarp that ripped. I would like to note that these conditions were above and beyond the "normal" conditions that this gear should have been subjected to and yet they held when the chips were down. Personally I think that the evidence speaks volumes as to the excellent quality of the products produced by the vendors on here.
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Shortoff is unique in the winds that come through there. Just something about the freight train sound as it howls through the gorge before coming over top of the mountain. I love it. You know that it's coming and just pucker up waiting to see what happens. Torn a couple tarps apart up there, though. The split rings failing saved me a few times.
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