Moment DW Stakedown Integrity

If your Moment looks somewhat like this :

it will fail in very moderate winds.
on the other hand if it looks like this :



it will take strong winds without budging.
The first shot is a slightly exaggerated version of some of the set-ups I have seen but not by much.
Think of a tent canopy as you would of a sail. Keep it taut and it will perform, let it loose and it will fall apart.
So how does a Moment stand up to winds with 4 pegs only ?
The shape mostly allows that but also the tension that can be applied at the Pitch Lock corners is crucial in keeping the tent taut and therefore stable.
Of course you need to be able to set them up correctly otherwise obviously they will not work.
This is how they should look :

Note also the very strong anchoring points I use, so on snow poles and snowshoes otherwise I add rocks/sand bags to the ends and attach the side guylines to shrubs/rocks/logs/sand bags.
BTW, plenty of photos of correctly set up Tarptents in the Tarptent gallery

http://www.tarptent.com/gallery.html

Thanks so much, Franco. I was having trouble reconciling the DW's stake count and wind suitability. Your explanation about tent shape and quality of anchors is most helpful. And looking at some of those pictures reinforces the need for a taut pitch and quality anchors. It seems like it isn't necessarily the number of stakes that is most important, but how well they are secured in the ground, snow, etc.

> It seems like it isn't necessarily the number of stakes that is most important,
> but how well they are secured in the ground, snow, etc.
Absolutely!

Cheers