eVENT tents were shaking the market back in 2005 and Backpacking Light was on top of it. We tested several single-wall alpine four-season ("bomber") tents made of eVENT, and gave them rave reviews. We were flying high on the excitement of emerging technologies like ultra-breathable fabrics and Easton FX carbon fiber poles advancing the performance and reducing the weight of single wall tents.
Just when eVENT began to gain critical mass attention as a superior fabric for single wall tents, with the introduction of the NEMO Tenshi, Exped Polaris, and a full tent suite from Integral Designs... POOF! - eVENT tents were gone from the market. What happened? New tent fabrics are now on the market that claim eVENT-like properties. How good are they?
ARTICLE OUTLINE
- What's So Great About eVENT?
- It Was Here, Then it Was Gone
- Is eVENT Really the Gold Standard?
- Will eVENT Tents Come Back?
- Is an eVENT Replacement in Our Future?
- What are these fabrics?
- How well do they perform?
- Table 1: Moisture Vapor Transmission Rate and weight of various waterproof/breathable tent fabrics in comparison to eVENT.
- The State of the Breathable Fabric Tent Market
- Conclusion
# WORDS: 3400
# PHOTOS: 6
# TABLES: 1
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Discussion
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PJ:
You're welcome. Hey, your Chinese ain't bad either. You are a good multi-linguist yourself. :)
Ben, you're too kind. I do remember that you've had to correct my Chinese – for which I sincerely thank you.
Ok, I read the article and discussion to this point with some interest.
I had a first-generation gore-tex tent that was my only tent for 20 some years. It was light, for the time, expensive, durable, and performed well for me from Hawaii to New England to the American Southwest to the Rocky Mountains. I have never been able to find a replacement that works as well for me.
The BD and Montbell tents I've read about and/or looked at are too short.
I haven't been able to find, in the US market, a light tent of breathable fabric. I see in the article the reasoning for eVent dropping out; but surely there is a market here.
The article title to paraphrase is “what's next in single wall breathable fabric tents”, but comes up short in actually stating what is next. It focuses a lot on the technical details of the fabrics and less, in my interpretation, on the practical matter of available tents.
Does anyone expect to see more single wall breathable tents for the American market anytime soon? I would “kill for”, an American expression meaning “pay a lot”, an identical or similar tent made of modern materials to replace my worn out old tent. Where is it?
Thanks Ben for the link.
PJ, you're just to kind. My English is OK (it helps that have to use it a lot in my professional live).
In 1975 I bought a somewhat expensive, breathable car cover that I now recall looks very similar to the Bibler tent material. The same cover is still available as an Evolution Car Cover. I'm just wondering if this was perhaps the start of the breathable tent material, and perhaps some smart individual picked up on the use of this fabric?
http://tinyurl.com/2h8b3f
A gore-tex timeline.
Great info and discussions, but unlike other subjects, this one just has me depressed.
I've been looking forward to ultra-lite, cheap, very breathable and very waterproof fabrics for so long, and now we seem to have taken a real step backwards…..
Nm
Is there any recent news on eVENT or similar fabric for tents?
Willem
Nm
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