How wide is too wide, how long is too long for a hammock?

[hppyfngy]

I am just over 6' tall and just barely shy of 200 pounds. Hammocks that are near 11' long feel much more comfortable to me than hammocks near 10' long. YMMV.

I'm with Mike in that it has a lot to do with your personal geometry in a gathered end hammock. I'm 6'1" and 180 or so and I also like my narrower and longer hammock best. It's about 56" x 11'.

Now if you're adding some sort of spreader bar, wide can be good, but that's a whole different animal.

[SilvrSurfr]

Here are my thoughts on hammock width. If you cut a hammock in half cross-wise, while someone is laying in it (just use your imagination, don't actually try this at home!), you will get a "U" shape. The depth of the "U" is detemined by the ratio between the hammock and ridgeline. The width determines how far up the sides of the "U" the edges of the hammock will be.

On super wide hammocks, your head and feet are going to. E climbing up the "U" shape and you are going to be doing the banana! A narrow hammock will have a shallow "U" and your head and feet won't be much higher than your bottom.

I have hammocks that range from 54" wide to 68" wide. My flattest lay is in the 54" wide ones.

I am just over 6' tall and just barely shy of 200 pounds. Hammocks that are near 11' long feel much more comfortable to me than hammocks near 10' long. YMMV.

I'm also a big fan of 11' hammocks - it's the best sleep I ever had in a hammock. However, I'm not sure the "U" analogy is correct. A hammock shouldn't hang in a "U" until weighted. Even then, when you lay out on the diagonal, there is fabric that takes your shape. The rest is just floppy excess, which will just flop, rather than conforming to the "U."

In a 90" hammock, there must be a lot of floppy excess.

[Rolloff]

I like a 60" wide hammock. My DIY hammock is 12'X70" and the sides are too floppy, but it's a end channel hammock. I'm afraid that if rewhip it'll become a bath tub.

Knotty Mods! They will gather the loose material around your head, and form a make shift foot box at your feet.

True the longer the hammock, the shorter the suspension. Still an 11' hammock should fit nicely under most tarps with an 11' RL. Even better AHE sells the Toxaway for 95 bucks, that has a 12' RL, and provides great coverage. So the cost penalty on the tarp at that point is not too severe.

Probably the biggest disadvantage to longer hammocks is that you do begin to lose a few good hangs, because more trees will now be a bit too close. Others should come into play, however, that you could not comfortably reach with shorter lengths. So it probably trades off.