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  1. #1

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    Windy rigging suggestions?

    what do you all do to protect your silpoly tarps from tearing in high and gusty winds, yet still have it create a decent windbreak? I feel like just using a shockcord loop isn't keeping the tarp from blowing in too much, particularly in a bridge, and it's still whipping a lot.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Rolloff's Avatar
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    I use Tato's adjustable side pulls. They allow the tarp to "give" against the harder gusts of wind, then return to the original tension when the wind eases.

    This seems to deflect the load on the tie-outs and stakes preventing pull outs and tears somewhat. The cordage used on tie-outs and tarp RLs have a lot to do with it as well. We use a lot of lash-it and zing-it on our tarps. It's light and isn't as prone to tangles and some others, but it's breaking strength is way beyond the limits of tarp materials and even some terminal hardware. I use it too, but on tie-outs I run it through a prussik made out of braided mason line larksheaded to my D-rings. The prussik should in theory fail before the D-ring or tarp material. It will certainly fail before the Dyneema will.

    Cordage repairs are always preferred over rips and tears to the body of the tarp.
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  3. #3

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    "on tie-outs I run it through a prussik made out of braided mason line larksheaded to my D-rings"
    if i understand you correctly, you're saying the tie-out is only held by being prussiked, and the prussik loop is larksheaded to the d-ring?

  4. #4

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    and by "Tato's adjustable side pulls" do you mean these, from dutch?
    https://dutchwaregear.com/product/tato-tarp-connectors/

  5. #5
    Senior Member Rolloff's Avatar
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    Pretty much. Mason line bites well into the Zing-it and having the adjustment at the D-ring also lets you adjust tension from under your tarp. Simple no hardware required other than the stake.

    Tato's Adjustable side pulls. Those are the ones. They are really nice, don't damage your tarp, and the price points are pretty sweet. You can even double up and use them on the same side of the tarp when needed. Helps to open things up even when the other side is in full porch mode.
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  6. #6
    cougarmeat's Avatar
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    turtlefeet, at the risk of sounding giib - what is life without risk - if you don’t want to wind blowing in the side of your tarp, don’t rig your tarp sideways to the wind. I had that situation. I figured I wanted the side of the tarp to block the wind. In a strong wind, it was pushed against the hammock most the night and any water that collected on the tarp was dumped at the foot of the hammock, on my shoes.

    The next day, I switch the setup so the tarp was parallel with the wind. The trees the suspension line was attached to provided some wind block and the mini doors on the ThunderFly gave a minimum surface area for the wind to push on. In addition, the aerodynamics across the tarp fabric caused it to lift away from the hammock rather than be pushed into it. So I had to check my ground stakes to make sure they would hold against a the upward lift.

    Though I might change, at this point I don’t use “just bungee” on my guylines. I made sets of guylines that have bungee at the tarp end, but the stretch of the bungee is limited, by cord, to about 80% of its maximum stretch distance.
    In order to see what few have seen, you must go where few have gone. And DO what few have done.

  7. #7
    Senior Member Pennsy Camp and Canoe's Avatar
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    I found my internal pole mod helps keep the sides from blowing in. Keeps the snow from building up too

  8. #8
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    there are a few reasons why the tarp flaps and blows in, in high winds. let's look at the reasons/factors first, i think it might help:

    - aerodynamics; as cougarmeat pointed out, if you setup the ridgeline perpendicular to the wind, the typical tarp design will endup catching a lot of wind (the wind doesn't flow around it; this also means it creates turbulence on the lee side, along with pushing the tarp in on the windward side)
    - oscillatory effects: any tarp fabric will have some elasticity (even dcf), when the wind pushes against it, along with the aerodynamics which cause turbulence (see above), it will deform elastically, store some of the energy, and then release it by going the opposite way. as it reaches resonance, the frequency depends on conditions (wind), setup (aerodynamics), and tarp material and guylines. this is what is causing the annoying flapping, even when the wind is not gusty, and it also increases the risk of tears (because the peaks of these oscillations are higher than a "steady" regime would produce, with the same wind -- this is how elastic structures, like bridges, will fail under seemingly non-extreme loads)
    - tarp construction and rigging: a tarp which is designed or executed poorly, or setup carelesly, will have unnecessary slack in parts of the material, this will cause more sever flapping (lower frequency, higher amplitude), and increase the risk of damage; for instance cat cuts help with this, by tensioning the fabric more evenly (because of how woven materials are constructed, a rectangular piece of fabric can never be tensioned evenly by the corners, without doing some tricks, or cat cutting it; i've been meaning to write something about the "tricks" which i've been using, as it seems nobody else appears to know about them/use them, but didn't find time yet); setup problems include improper use of ridgeline (for instance nearly horizontal ridgeline, which unfortunately is very common), guylines at improper angle to the ridgeline (guyline perpendicular to the ridgeline is bad, for instance, aim roughly towards the opposite corner, along the guyline -- this is not exact, but a good starting point), improper tensioning of guylines (uneven tension, or unreliable tensioning systems that will creep at trivial loads); tarp constructions flaws which are common, especially with cheap tarps, are grommets (one of the worse things, rips guaranteed), improper reinforcement of tieouts (like with grommets, improperly reinforcing the tieout can make it more likely to rip than having no reinforcement at all, because of creating "hotspots")


    so what can you do, practically:

    - setup either paralel to the wind, or, probably even better, at an angle (like 30 degrees between wind and ridgeline, or so); this will drasdically change the aerodynamics, for the better. doors, or some makeshift door(s) from a poncho for instance, can help a lot on the windward side. consider playing around with the mentioned poncho idea, and see if you find a way to use it that works for you/is practical, so you have it handy "in case"

    - oscillations: if you find yourself in high winds a lot, consider cattenary cuts. although it limits the versatility of the tarp, compared to a simple rectangular tarp, for hammock camping this versatility is not that important (as we tend to be less creative in our use of tarps, than ground camping typically allows and requires), so i think it's worth the sacrifice; use guylines which have some reasonable ammount of stretch to them (so not dyneema or such), ideally the elasticity of the guyline should be comparable to that of the tarp fabric; this will also help avoid tears and snatched ground stakes; shock cord won't help much imho, but if you have to, well, it's something (must be careful to size it properly, so it's in the right range of elasticity to match the tarp, and has enough elongation to be able to absorb some of the oscillations); remove some of the linear elasticity, by weighing some of the corners at least, with a water bottle or such, the weight will provide a nearly constant force, added to the tension of the guyline/fabric, so when it is blown around, the tension will not increase linearly with the movement of the tarp, this will spoil the resonance of the system, and make it less prone to "resonance failure" (of course, the problem is, if you try to weigh down a guyline/corner tensioned at 20kg of force, using 200g of weight, that won't do much); btw, make sure to not use objects which could become.. entertaining projectiles, for this purpose (so i'd suggest no rocks or such)

    -construction and rigging: consider cat cuts if possible, as mentioned above; avoid crappy badly built tarps (usually the cheap stuff), unless you're willing to modify it to fix the problems they have out of the box (i often do that, simply because i can't buy fabric for the price some of these tarps sell for); setup the ridgeline for physics, not for instagram : as i explained in several threads here before, basically the ridgeline should be attached at the same height as the hammock suspension, or higher, not lower (so aim for the same 30 degree angle); use guylines and ridgeline which is suitable (hint: some stretch is not a bad thing, dyneema is in most cases not just overkill, but too static to be suitable, at least this is my opinion so far, experiment and see); test your tensioning systems to make sure they are suitable (there's lots of crap out there, and lots of the hardware which is actually good has limitations in terms of what cordage it works well with), and be ready to use some simple, but reliable knots, in case some hardware should fail (some of us just go for the knots "full time", but i understand that might not be for everybody); have spare guylines handy, know how to use them, and know how to create temporary attachement points on the tarp when needed (the pebble/acorn in a handckerchief method is one of the best, and better than most reinforced tieouts, or hardware tarp clips, or such). this last point will helps with at least two things: being ready to add more support to the tarp in high winds (which you might not need usually, so wouldn't bother), and having a method ready to rescue a torn tieout or such.

    one more thing: the concept that it is better for the guyline to break before the tarp/tieout rips, sounds very reasonable at first glance, but is something i have more and more doubt about. i only got tears when i thought to be "open minded" and give the grommets the tarp came with a chance, otherwise even my crappy cheap tarps, after modfications and with proper rigging, are bulletproof, but if you think about the physics, and aerodynamics -- which i go into a bit above -- it becomes apparent that, if the attachement point fails, and a tieout becomes free (be it because the guyline snaps, the shock cord snaps, the stake pulls out, or the tieout rips, it doesn't matter), the aerodynamics will change instantly, and will overload that part of the tarp, and very likely cause more damage; of course, riped tarp or tieout is worse in this case as well, but with a decent tarp, setup reasonably, this will be unlikely even in high winds, in my experience. if we aim for the rest of the system to fail before the tarp, it will have to do so much before, because nobody calculates and test this exactly (so, imho, it will create more problems than it solves, in the sense it will fail "preemptively", and cause the potential for the tarp to tear under conditions where otherwise nothing would have happened, most of the time)

    if you're still awake, i hope you're not thinking "to hell with this, i just wanted to have some fun in the woods, not get into aircraft design", but well, you asked

  9. #9
    Senior Member Big Sweets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by turtlefeet View Post
    and by "Tato's adjustable side pulls" do you mean these, from dutch?
    https://dutchwaregear.com/product/tato-tarp-connectors/
    Those are actually for a continuous ridge line, they replace the prussiks used to center the tarp over your hammock. I am unfamiliar with any side pull system they had.

    Tato gear is pretty hard to find now as they seem to not be making this kind of stuff anymore, I can't even get anything Tato Stand related, either the DIY stand or their camping stand. It's as if they just disappeared, like The Bearded Hanger Hammocks.
    Last edited by Big Sweets; 04-26-2022 at 05:16.
    Formerly McBlaster
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  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by McBlaster View Post
    Those are actually for a continuous ridge line, they replace the prussiks used to center the tarp over your hammock. I am unfamiliar with any side pull system they had.

    Tato gear is pretty hard to find now as they seem to not be making this kind of stuff anymore, I can't even get anything Tato Stand related, either the DIY stand or their camping stand. It's as if they just disappeared, like The Bearded Hanger Hammocks.
    i suppose it's more likely these were meant: (basically one of the nicer tarp clip designs, a variant of the peble/acorn method)

    https://dutchwaregear.com/product/cl...arp-pull-outs/

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