I have had my tarp get wet to the touch but never "misted" on me..
Good point! And as I recall a number of times I have pitched my hammocks on State Park campground manicured lawns and experienced under-tarp condensation.
Jim
Doh!
What you are describing sounds like condensation. Be thankful you were under a tarp and not buttoned up inside a single walled tent. Condensation is always an issue when you are breathing under a barrier. Even netting raises the humidity level quite a bit. That's why I only use mosquito netting in the summer and not the finer Noseeum netting. That said, I can tell you first hand that misting does happen with some grades of fabric. I have never had any issue with spinnaker misting through but sil-nylon is another story. I got some 2nds from Noah Lamport a while back and made a beautiful dark, forest green tarp. The only problem was that you could actually watch the rain drops push their way through the fabric and transform into an aerosol mist. Now, if there was enough wind, the moisture did not settle much at all and just kind of floated around until it was swept from under the tarp. This is misting. Not drops of condensation being knocked lose from the tarp by raindrops but a fog that forms in the air. During my testing of this tarp it was set up immediately before a storm (Honey, there goes our crazy neighbor again running outside into a thunderstorm) and was observed from under an umbrella so that I would not be breathing warm air onto the cool fabric. In contrast, and set up right next to this tarp was my OES tarp. There was NO misting going on in there. I later made doors for the OES out of the same NL green fabric and the misting appeared at the ends of that tarp too. My Speer Winter Tarp never misted through even though I put it through 40 straight days of rain on the AT.
Several tent and tarp manufacturers as well as fabric suppliers have addressed this issue over the years either by stating that the misting is not enough to cause your sleeping bag to get wet or to definitely state that their supplier of fabric has come up with a treatment method that guarantees there will be no misting. A simple Google search will turn up many discussions on this very matter.
I believe that the QC on most of the sil fabric used for shelters has gotten better and might be where it needs to be to meet our wants and desires with the cream of the crop possibly being MLD's "Shield Sil".
The old sil was perfectly good for what it was designed for, stopping me from hitting the ground too hard after I jumped from an aircraft. However, zero air porosity just can't be compared to the force generated by a dense drop of rain falling at terminal velocity. Its hard for a few threads of lightweight fabric to try and fully stop a bullet like that.
I think it's up to the manufacturers to insist on high quality sil from their suppliers and I think this is happening more and more even leading up to a shortage of Spinnaker fabric throughout the industry due to quality concerns.
My hat is off to all who have fought through the years to make the Sil-nylon manufacturers understand our needs, as outdoorsmen (and women), and get them to start producing a product that we can trust our lives to when the going gets tough.
Brian
...and there came to be a day, all too soon, that I became aware that I could travel no more on my long journey. Though I did not arrive where I had planned, I believe that here is exactly where I am supposed to be...
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