Thanks for all the replies and advice. I should have made it more clear that I plan to bring long tie outs, as well as medium ones, so I can use one, two or three together. But I wanted to find what the minimum length needed for hunkering down in poor weather. I had four six foot dyneema lines, and could double two up but with a larkshead on one end and an adjustable loop on the other end I found that with using knots only and six inches of shock cord at the tarp on my WB cloudburst, I never really got the edge of the tarp down low enough for really windy conditions.
Then getting soaked a few weeks ago motivated me to get a wider tarp, the Mountainfly. To get the sides down low to the ground and the tarp tighter around the hammock I found today that all I need is a foot of cord, maybe 18". So I've gone to hardware instead of knots only and put some tarp ticks on 3 foot long 2mm Glowire and the problem (as I saw it) went away. I'll use those in bad weather, and my old ways with 6 foot cord the rest of the time.
That extra width, the beaks and quick adjustability with tarp ticks should work out well with winter coming and with my dog sleeping right under my hammock on his travel mat. I tend to fuss and fuss at home with just about everything so that when on the "road" I don't have to fuss or think about things. It's a joy to have the perfect system, but I'm not at all there - not even close.
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