Whoopie Sling length ?

[Catavarie]

The general concensus is a base line length of 6ft whoopies with 6ft tree straps.

Personally I use 6ft whoopies with 8ft straps and I've yet to fully extend my whoopies.

[8Crow]

Hey guys, I'd like to restart this discussion if that's ok... I'm a complete newb--just got my HH Explorer Ultralite last Friday from their annual sale and tried it out Saturday night in the back yard. I had my own questions already and this thread has just generated more...

For context, I'm 6'5", 210 lbs.
I'm guessing the trees I used this weekend were 11-12' apart and that seemed too close. At that distance, I had the tree straps at about eye level, somewhere around 6'. Does that seem like too steep of an angle? It felt a little difficult to lay out in the hammock and the center of the hammock was stretched really tight on my left leg.

Also, I'm looking at making my own whoopie slings. My plan was to take the stock suspension line completely off, like I saw on a video here on HF, then my whoopies would have a fixed loop on one end that I would use to attach to the hammock like the video shows. I thought I could run the tree strap around the tree, then run one end of the tree strap through the other end of the tree strap so it snugged tight around the tree. Then put a 'biner in the tag end of the strap, clip the tree end of the whoopie into the 'biner too, and I'm done.

But I haven't really seen anyone talking about running the strap through itself, and a lot of people seem to be talking about tying all sorts of complex knots so they can attach a toggle instead of the simpler carabiner approach I'm talking about.

The fact that it seems so simple to me but no one seems to be talking about it makes me wonder if it's been tried and it didn't work well ...so that's my question to you guys--is there something wrong with what I have in mind?

[pullarius]

Hey guys, I'd like to restart this discussion if that's ok... I'm a complete newb--just got my HH Explorer Ultralite last Friday from their annual sale and tried it out Saturday night in the back yard. I had my own questions already and this thread has just generated more...

For context, I'm 6'5", 210 lbs.
I'm guessing the trees I used this weekend were 11-12' apart and that seemed too close. At that distance, I had the tree straps at about eye level, somewhere around 6'. Does that seem like too steep of an angle? It felt a little difficult to lay out in the hammock and the center of the hammock was stretched really tight on my left leg.

Also, I'm looking at making my own whoopie slings. My plan was to take the stock suspension line completely off, like I saw on a video here on HF, then my whoopies would have a fixed loop on one end that I would use to attach to the hammock like the video shows. I thought I could run the tree strap around the tree, then run one end of the tree strap through the other end of the tree strap so it snugged tight around the tree. Then put a 'biner in the tag end of the strap, clip the tree end of the whoopie into the 'biner too, and I'm done.

But I haven't really seen anyone talking about running the strap through itself, and a lot of people seem to be talking about tying all sorts of complex knots so they can attach a toggle instead of the simpler carabiner approach I'm talking about.

The fact that it seems so simple to me but no one seems to be talking about it makes me wonder if it's been tried and it didn't work well ...so that's my question to you guys--is there something wrong with what I have in mind?

I'm a complete newb myself, so I've been searching for a lot of this same info recently

Mostly it comes down to personal preference. Running the strap through itself will work just fine (that's what I do) - people use biners or Dutch clips for speed/convenience, or if the webbing is secured to the hammock.

As for biners vs. marline spike hitch and toggle, some people like to skip the biners to keep their weight down. However, what you suggest should work just fine. I myself just picked up a pair of Dutch buckles at MAHHA this past weekend

[8Crow]

Thanks Pullarious.

I guess something that confuses me about the toggle--you say people use it to save weight over a carabiner, but what are those toggles made out of? Seems like the weight difference between the two would be negligible.

[pullarius]

Some people just grab sticks (1" diameter should be plenty thick) - 0g in your pack. Whoopieslings.com sells some aluminum toggles. I got some short aluminum tubes in a cheap "tent repair kit" from walmart, that worked just fine.

The MSH is dead simple to tie - the most important thing to remember is that...

"The whoopie sling is on the knot, not the toggle."

If you haven't seen them already, definitely check out Grizz's primer on hammock suspension, and Shug's Hammock Hangin' How-To videos.