Cuben fiber failure? Any updates since 2008?

Kevin stated:
If you're in a bad storm and your tarp fails it could mean your death (hypothermia)
…
Hypothermia isn't a joke.

So you really want to sit here and attribute a hiker getting hypothermia to cuben fiber?

I do not even know how to respond to such an statement.

Thermoregulation is not based on one singular aspect of your gear. ref

[David Olsen]

"My First generation Refuge-X tore very neatly around the stitching lines attaching the side guyouts. I would say that construction is crucial to good reliability in cuben design, at least designs such as shelters where the seams can be prone to a lot of stress."

Didn't you post some photos of this?

[Luke Schmidt]

If you look at Ryan Jordan's article "Storm Reistance of Ultralight Shelters Part 1" he has some info.
For example there is a picture of a a cuban tarp that has seams begining to rip the cuben after 12 hours of 15-25 mph winds. Now it may be there are better ways to make a cuben tarp but still I don't consider 15-25 mph that hard. In my opinion any tarp should handle that. I definitely camped in much worse and I'm not a mountaineer. Before I spend an extra $100 or so on a cuben tarp I'd need to know that wasn't going to happen to me.

[Ryan Smith]

David,

Here is a pic from Lynn's Refuge X tear.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=17612&skip_to_post=134609

Ryan

[David Olsen]

Ryan's photo was pretty limited as to showing what was happening to that tie out and tho
the stitching job was pretty basic and the holes stretching, it hadn't failed yet. It
appeared the direction of force was not taken into account when attaching that tie point.

In Suluk's testing, the difference in lbs to failure between the construction methods he tried came to around 20%, and all were over 150 lbs. His reinforcements were very small
and his stitch pattern not optimal on the reinforcement.

I haven't seen any failures of cuben or silnylon shelters due to wind forces personally,
and would be very interested to see any that others have come across.

If silnylon is considered acceptable strength wise, my limited tests show that .51
cuben is equal in strength when stitched.

Here is an interesting video that got posted to youtube a week ago. It shows a CF shelter (in this instance, a ZPacks Hexamid, made from 0.51 cuben fiber) getting nailed from some rather large size hail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUgaFCvF2KM

Bounce forward to around the 4 minute mark to really see it.

I am not implying that SilNylon or SpinnUL or anything else could not handle this – rather the fact that any shelter can take this kind of a beating from hail of this size is pretty sweet!!

From my experience, the quality of manufacturing plays a large part in how well the durability of a shelter is going to be — and specifically I am talking about the bonding (taping) aspect over the thread lines.

Companies such as MLD have set the bar for how to properly build a CF shelter. Companies such as HMG sort of go above-and-beyond (overbuilding) their CF shelters IMO. Companies such as ZPacks and SMD and LHG (and others) that have started to bond their seams are moving forward with the shelter durability issue.

Without a doubt I would put a HMG Echo (I owned a Echo I and an Echo II) up against any shelter in the UL hiking world when it comes to abuse it could take. Other shelters such as my 0.34 tarp and other 0.34 tarps that have been made by guys such as Steve from Suluk46, well they obviously have some serious weaknesses – but we are the few amongst the already few and are not out there being stupid using them in conditions such as what the video above shows, they are strictly summer-time shelters, I think I pushed mine into shoulder season once and worrying about it was all I thought about the entire hike, so I have never done it again. I would put the 0.74 CF tarps that MLD make up against any equivalent SilNylon tarp that is out there as well. Likewise, since ZPacks has made the move to seam-bonding they have made leaps and bounce in durability – initially they did not thread bond to save weight.

Anyway, yes, there is more than enough hikers around the world using CF to more than prove that CF is a viable shelter/backpack material. More than one business exists today that make nothing but CF gear – and these are businesses that employee a fair number of employees. They would not continue to exist if hikers had discovered CF was a failure.

'Nough said.

[Jason Elsworth]

The first wave of CF Trailstars had to be returned to have one of the tie outs strengthened, so I guess there are still some lessons to be learnt about construction.

[Jeffs Eleven]

Has no one been in a wind storm in a Cuben shelter? Surely the HMG guys tested one in a Colo storm, right?

You people speak up!
;)

[Greg F]

["If you're in a bad storm and your tarp fails it could mean your death (hypothermia)."

if you will die from the failure of any one piece of gear I woud argue you are taking to big of risk to be using UL components.

So dont break into hyperbole, it distracts from your question.

[Luke Schmidt]

I'll agree that shelter Ryan showed might not be the best example, it definitely could have been reinforced more. Also we don't know the weight of the cuban fiber being tested. I wonder if it was not just the wind but the fact that the shelter was in the wind for 12 hours that caused the problem (yes I call it a problem, any shelter that costs that much should be able to handle 25 mph winds).

I'm not a structural engineer but I think we have two factors to consider here.

1. The amount of force. In other words your tarp can handle 45 pounds of force. That means if a big storm comes through and exerts 55 pounds of force on your tarp you'd expect a failure. That is pretty easy to test.

2. The duration of the force. I'm going to suggest that a smaller amount of force over a long period of time may do just as much damage. In other words your tarp might fail at 45 pounds but it might also fail if it was subjected to 30 pounds over a long enough period of time. This is going to be harder to test.

[Kevin Burton]

If you're in a storm and your tarp fails and that was your main protection from rain and severe weather the chance of hypothermia is very high… I thought this goes without saying.

[Franco Darioli]

Providing your shelter hasn't blown to the next county, you could just wrap yourself up with it…
Franco

[michael levi]

I think OP is from Florida and is worried about that big storm…

[James holden]

I have utterly nothing to add to this flamefest

Just wanted to say that there are certain items that are quite sensitive, cuben being one of them ;)

Just like macs …

[Greg F]

>>>If you're in a storm and your tarp fails and that was your main protection from rain and severe weather the chance of hypothermia is very high… I thought this goes without saying.<<<

And you should prepare for this. There is always a storm that can destroy your tent so unless you are going to bring expedition tents you should have a plan for tent failure. My usual thought is burrito style the tarp or move to a more sheltered location.

So either you have a higher tolerance for personal risk or your statement is hyperbole.

>>> the HMG guys tested one in a Colo storm, right?

Ok, so maybe not a shelter, but how's this:

Brad Miller up at the top of Denali with the HMG Stuff Sack. (a as-generic-as-it-gets 1.14 cuben fiber backpack – I own one, it is pretty sweet. almost replaced my ZPacks Zero X-Small)

edit: ok, it appears that the URL to the photograph is too long and it breaks the BPL website… so, here ya go… copy-n-paste time lol

http://blog.hyperlitemountaingear.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Brad-Miller-atop-Denali-credit-Clayton-Kimmi_patagonia-super-pluma-hardshell.jpg

Now where did the popcorn and my Apple Air go…. hmmm.

[Jason Elsworth]

Eric – I have utterly nothing to add

No change there then :)

I have read a report (on an Aus form) of a Hexamid performing well in 40mph winds.

[Nathan Stuart]

No official reports or testing ?? Oh well. There are a few Aussies now using cuben shelters, I'm one of them !! (mines a 0.51 sewn hexamid solo plus) I had a night of bad weather last January in the Australian Alps with 75km wind gusts. No issue with the shelter at all. My friends MH tent faired a lot worse, no breakage but it sure was sagged.

If you think a cuben tent will fail, You WILL die….That's fine. Don't use one. Why post a scare thread when so many are happy with them ??

I'll gladely use mine and have a lighter pack (and wallet).
Yes, Cuben has it's limits and the lighter stuff would be a poor choice in a summit tent. The equivilant weight cuben is a heck of a lot stronger than silnylon.
It's just we can use lighter cuben fabric for a similar strength to Silnylon.

Cubens not everyone cup of tea ?? That's fine, don't use it. But until you have don't trash it either !!

[Warren Greer]

Nate.

Well said and taken.

[Devon Cloud]

This is getting too funny. You guys wanting to see reports on how they hold up in wind, and all this other stuff (and the wierd hypothermia scare tactic)… This is pretty simple stuff here. First, you are on the site that (when dealing with the use of Cuben Fiber for backpacking) is the (or close to it anyway)most knowledgeable site on earth right now in terms of it's usability. You have a huge amount of real time users that can attest to the stuff.
That being said, prior to my hammock tarp purchase, it was very easy to find the necessary tests and articles concerning cuben fiber for me to be confident in my purchase. It seems like you guys are wanting this site to do your research for you. You are posting, so I know your fingers work and can search this stuff for yourself and don't need us to hold your hand.
In regards to your concerns about wind, all you really need to know about that is that the material was designed to make wind sails, and is what the wind sail race boats use as their sails due to how light they are and how well they can take a very forceful wind and pull a boat through water while men jerk the sail around as quickly as possible to win a race. If you need more proof than that that cuben fiber can take a large amount of wind you have a few screws loose.

[Kenneth Houseal]

I'm a cuben junkie, figured I'd start off by stating that. I've been on peaks 7000ft up in Mongolia and have taken some unreal winds, enough to blow my motorcycle over and my helmet away. My Cuben LHG Solong has performed admirably for over 40 nights in Mongolia, had I been in my old contrail I would have been worried out of my mind(apples to oranges I guess). Major Sandstorms, 50+mph wind, Snow storms, Terrential downpours, and hungry cows….my cuben equipment has taken it all. Not to mention my HMG windrider spent 50ft sliding on its side during a motorcycle wreck with no serious abrasion damage(no wear through), I can't say the same about my side..haha!

Happy Trails!

HB

Edit:

Just wanted to add that the only cuben gear of mine that has sustained real damage is my bush buddy stuff sack, but that was my fault sine I had duct taped the bb pot stand to the stove and the tape did a serious number on my zpacks stuff sack.

[David Ure]

What's too funny is that you haven't helped to answer the OP's question without first verbally degrading him. you had an opportunity to educate him.

Questions have still not been answered.

[michael levi]

I would say better than sil nylon, plus it's lighter.

People say that cubebs downfall is abrasion. But perform he same tests with sil nylon and I bet cubeb will still be stronger.

Cuben is great because it's light not only in itself, but makes your wallet lighter too so it's like killing 2 birds with one stone.

[Devon Cloud]

actually David most have answered him… they are wanting to know sustainability in wind and real tests of the material unless I am mistaken? it has been answered time and time again, in not just this post, but a bunch of other posts that they can search. Do we need to search for them what they can search for themselves? the info is out there I found it… must I find it again for them? Sorry, but I have better things to do, especially after these questions have been answered even in this thread at least five times already, some with links to the info they are looking for. They are the ones that are saying that the answers are not good enough.. fine, then go find the answers they are looking for. The material is proven, has been for a couple of years now and the info is out there for them to find.

[Larry De La Briandais]

http://www.cubictechnology.com/CTF3%20PRODUCT%20INFO%20PACK%2007192010_4c.pdf

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