Hacked discussion of tents? restored
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@rememberthelorax
@rememberthelorax
John,
Have sent you a PM regarding the circumstances.
Know what you mean with velcro, but i would really like some sort of way to fasten the middle part of the doors.
In high winds we found that they bellowed out, unfortunately this meant the rain came is with the wind.I feel that IF we had a way of fastening the middle of he doors together it would have made for a LOT more comfortable evening.
For the guyouts this is where i meant
I'm not sure how strong they would be though.
I know this is a lightweight 3 season tent, but if there was some way of fastening to doors (even if that's only in the middle) and some place to add a few guyouts higher up the tent (so the tent can be stable when dropped down low in high winds) then it would really extend the use of the tent for me.
Cheers
Mark
@rememberthelorax
John,
It was really a no brainer for us with the side pulled out, there was 2 of us so we had 3 poles.
Even on my own i would take a extra pole now, the headroom isn't a problem for me (i'm 5'8') but it does offer a LOT more stability in the wind.The only worry with using the door strap as guyouts is, will they be as strong as the bottom guyouts?
Pete,
Exactly my thoughts, am speaking with Joe about some possible mods, will let you know his thoughts.Drew,
The high pitch is great apart from the highest winds, it does mean the inside of the tent can be a bit drafty at around the 40mph mark.I've been trying to think of ideas for adding what would effectively be a skirt.
It wouldn't need to go 360 degrees round the tent, if it covers 2 sides it should be enough.
My idea is to use toggles to attach it to the tent and stake it out with very very short guylines.
Maybe even some eyelets so it could be pegged straight to the ground.For you guys doing long distance routes it probably seems a bit dumb, but for those of us that are out from 1 night to 5 nights if we get poor weather reports it might be worth taking something like this skirt as a "just-in-case"
Problem is no matter what you do it's never going to be a 4 season or a tent you'd want to use in very high winds, so where do you stop?
I'd happily add another 300g to the tent if it would make it a more comfortable place to be in during 50mph+ winds.
Ryan,
That looks like a great idea.
Only worry i'd have is will they hold?
On the MLD products it looks like they also have zips and a clip at the bottom of the door?
If that's the case i think it'd have to be a very very large and strong snap to hold the doors.To give you some idea of the forces put upon the doors in higher winds out carbinners were absolutely mangled.
Both carabineers bent within a few mins making the gate useless, we tried using just the top and bottom of the caribineers without the gate but they bent like rubber.So i'm not sure plastic snaps will hold.
I'm not a fan of velcro especially in the wet, but my idea is to have a double sided strip of the soft part of the velcro on one door and have 2 strips of the hook velcro on the other door.
The soft part would then be trapped inbetween the 2 layers of the hook section.
Like this
As both the hook sections will stick to each other (not tightly but enough not to be bothersome) when not in use you'll only have the soft section flapping which is not going to stick to clothing or abrade itself on the tent material.
I've used velcro in that layer type configuration before and even when wet it's and extremely strong bond so we wouldn't need large lengths of the stuff, 7cm or 8cm lengths should do.
The only other idea i can think of is a toggle in the middle of the door.
Problem there though is that because the door would need to overlapped the toggle would have to go through the fabric or a loop added on the inside.
You'll then have the area before the toggle that won't be tensioned by it, so flap city.Or we could just have zips ;)
Usually my boyfriend pitches the tent while I filter water and start cooking. However, I will be going out on my first solo trip in a week. So, I put up the tent in the yard to install some of the mods folks talk about. It took a little fiddling to get it looking right. The comments on this thread really helped.
Any suggestions?
I haven't found the doors that hard to close, but from the discussion, I think there are D-rings where there didn't use to be?
I did like the Prussik knot idea for the door clip, although I don't think the toggle is necessary.
I ordered my camo Duplex back on March 12, but I specified that I wanted the new hook closures on the storm doors. Their availability was delayed, so I didn’t receive the tent until early June. I think it may have been the first Duplex that Joe delivered with the hook closures.
I’m surprised that, now two months later, I can’t find any photos or comments on these hooks, even on the Zpacks website. I’ll toss out my comments here, and I’ll try to post a few photos of the hooks. My wife and I used the tent for 2 nights on Minnesota’s Superior Hiking Trail in June, and I recently used it for 4 nights while solo hiking on the Colorado Trail. I’m not an avid UL backpacker, but I’m an aging flatlander with a bad knee, hence the cuben fiber tent.
Overall, I’m quite pleased with the tent. I added micro line locs for pitching flexibility. On the SHT we pitched it lower than recommended to widen the bathtub floor to nearly 50 inches. That decreased ventilation, but we experienced only a small amount of condensation, even with the storm doors closed all night. I’d rate the Duplex as small, but OK, for couples, especially if only 5’5” like us. We’ve been backpacking with a Big Agnes Fly Creek UL3 until now, so we’re used to a wider tent.
The camo fabric is considerably darker and more opaque than the 0.74 green cuben. I recommend it; the weight and cost penalties are minimal compared to those benefits.
The Hooks: The storm door hooks come from Dutchware Gear. I’m not sure what they’re made of; somewhere I read they were going to be aluminum, but they seem to be stronger than that, so they might be titanium. They are quite small, possibly too small for easy use by large fingers, but they worked well for me. I quickly learned to unhook them with one hand, although hooking them to the plastic D-ring usually required two hands. I think I could use them while wearing light gloves, but probably two hands would be needed. Medium weight gloves likely won’t work well with these hooks. They didn’t accidentally slip off the D-rings on their own, as there a small amount of friction evident when hooking and unhooking them. They are nicely crafted, with no sharp edges and a rounded edge on the hook. I think they are a significant improvement over the mini-carabiner attachment method, which required two hands and more fiddling to unhook.
I hope this helps some folks with their Duplex purchase decision.
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