I had thrown a tensa style stand together partly using scrap metal(trampoline stand/poles) that I had been using on my bipod stand for a couple of years. I was using it successfully enough on my back porch. I had the foot end tethered to a DIY boom stake in the yard a few feet from the end of the patio, and that worked great. It never moved even a fraction of an inch as far as I could tell.
But I had to balance in it just right. Not just to avoid the well known mouse trap risk, but I had a different issue. Often, when I first sat in it, all would be fine. But when I went to lay back, if I shifted my weight the least bit too far to the head end, the feet would slip towards to foot end and lower me to the ground. I finally got that fixed by running some cordage to a patio door, into the living room, wrapped around a shoe. This solved the problem fine, and it was very stable after that. Though my wife was not crazy about the black strap around a shoe in the living room, it worked quite well.
But today I decided to move out past the end of the patio onto the grass where my boom stake had been, I tethered the foot end to a nearby tree, and tethered the head end loosely to a boom stake, though probably not needed. With the feet digging into the ground, it seemed about as stable as being attached to 2 trees. Lots of room for this gathered end Claytor hammock. After the videos, I put an SMR Inferno on and had a warm nap. 3 short videos, the longest is the first, where I am hopping in and flopping around just to see how stable it is. The next too shorter videos concentrate on the hammock connection at the apex, and the wire ropes/clamps. All seems uber solid. (sorry, I don't know why a thumbnail for the videos is not showing) EDIT: figured out the thumbnails, thanks to Promotions!
Getting in and out and thrashing around in the hammock:
Foot end apex with occupied hammock(as I get in, applying load):
Head end apex with occupied hammock(as I get in, applying load):
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