So I picked up two Skeeter Beater Pros back when the Chief Hammock Officer announced a 2-for-1 special; FishinFinn is getting the other one when he, me, and my sons go on a float-and-hang this weekend. I'm not part of the review gang for the Travel Hammocks, so I mostly won't comment on the hammock itself, except where it intersects my own personal preferences.
The SBP is wide and long. It is like an Eno double, but longer, and with a bugnet. The bugnet also is wide, I suspect as wide as the hammock itself, although I have not measured it. Like a Claytor or (I think) Clark the netting has two tabs sewn in, about a foot and a half apart, at the head and the foot. The designer's intention is to lift the netting by the tabs, using extra cords that tie to the tree.
I've never been fond of that design, even with my DIY dual mode (which has such tabs) I find that I tend to pull up the netting at the center and (in the case of my DIY bag) attach to a ridgeline.
After trying different styles of hanging in the SBP, I figured in the end that the way I wanted to make use of the hammock's wideness was in the Eno style of hanging with lots of sag, to enable a big diagonal.
But there was that net. How was I going to keep it out of the way doing that? So I did a very minor mod to sneak in an internal ridgeline. The SBP has channel ends, the netting is sewn into the fabric that forms the channel. At each end I took short (1"-1.5" long) tabs of grosgrain, centered them at the ends such that
- about 0.25" was on the hammock fabric where the seam of the channel is made
- one tab was on the inside of the hammock, the other on the outside
- the two tabs were aligned with each other, sandwiching the netting between them.
I then sewed the tabs together, and used a hot knife to burn a hole through to allow passage for a ridgeline.
Through the passage I put a short piece of 2.8mm Spyderline, and tied a bowline on the inside part.
I swapped out the given cord and hook, replacing with a short length of 3.8mm Spyderline that puts a Prusik on a pair of SMC rings, and has the ends tied off with an overhand knot. Put the knot end through the channel, then put the rings through the loop which serves to cinch up the channel under tension. I then with the outside end of the cord that passes into the SPB I tied a bowline around the stem of this arrangement. The internal ridgeline is a bit of 1.5mm spectra, with a fixed attachment at the foot end, comes up and loops through the head-end's cord-of-passage, then is tied down on the ridgeline using a taut-hitch.
For connecting the hammock to suspension line I tinkered with a number of things, but for grins I thought I'd try the
Garda Hitch I've seen mentioned here. I gotta tell you, that works slick with the Vectran I'm using on the suspension line. I guess I'm going gram-weenie 'cause I cringe now at the thought of the weight of those four rings when I have other ways of tieing things up, but wow is it fast, and convenient.
Did someone here say they'd wish I'd posted pictures? The ridgeline here is 105 inches.
Outside view
sbp-1.jpg
Note the red Spyderline tied around the lines holding the rings, on the outside, passing through the grosgrain tabs into the inside, where the orange ridgeline is attached.
sbp-2.jpg
The ridgeline is at finger-tip level. Lots of room inside, the netting is mostly pulled away from the inside of the hammock.
sbp-3.jpg sbp-4.jpg
Grizz
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