Mid panel tie outs and stakes

I’m not a big fan of these mid panel guyouts in general. You can add volume, but because pulling the tent out like this isn’t part of the core shape of the tent, it tends to do weird things to the pitch. If you pull out one side, it tends to pull in or lift up somewhere else. With a standard mid (e.g. MLD DuoMid) if you pull out the mid panel guyout on the long side, it’ll pull inwards on the centers of the corner seams on the edges of that panel, so you lose space there.

I’m not saying that you can’t gain volume, but rather than you often end up with a wonky shape which might have other problems. I find that my pitches get weird when if I substantially pull these out, and the tent tends to do worse in high winds (versus staking these guyouts with the line taut but not pulling out on the material).

So I occasionally use them to minimize deflection inwards during storms, but I don’t use them to pull outwards for volume. If you desire to use them for volume, it would be better to buy a shelter that is a bit bigger in the first place. I also don’t think they do much for stormworthyness because they’re not directly connected to the structure or the major lines of tension in the shape. They help a little bit if you end up with a strong wind against the long side of the mid.

Yeah I suppose I could’ve put minimising deflection as a third function, though it’s kind of a combo of the first two.

I also wonder how much they really add in terms of keeping a shelter up. I suppose in really extreme wind they could help reduce the sail effect and keep it on the ground longer.

Do tie outs halfway up seam lines make any sense? I’ve seen some shelters with 6-10 extra mid panel and seam tie outs, and wondering how often they’re actually useful..!

I’m with Dan, mid panel tie outs distort the shape of the tent.  I’ve experimented a bit

More stakes along the edge are good.  It keeps the edge from blowing inward, keeps the side more taut.

But I;m not sure

I generally use the mid-panel tie outs on my Solomid and Duplex and have not had stability or set-up problems.  The Zpacks trekking pole cup allows you to pull the panel straight out rather than down toward the ground.I’ve used the cup in the pictured configuration and also attached farther away from the shelter by putting line between the tie out and the cup which allows for a more straight out configuration.

http://zpacks.com/accessories/pole_cups.shtml

Interesting. I’m curious as to how much of a real-world difference they make for storm worthiness.

Agree with @mr_squishy, at least as it relates to ZPacks shelters. I find the mid-panel tie-outs very useful when deployed as he shows.  Staking them as below is pretty useless and causes all the problems Dan listed…and it makes the shelter ugly!

Edit: Isn’t it interesting that the photo of perhaps the worst Duplex pitch I’ve ever seen (above) is found on the ZPacks website?

I use a stick to prop up the line on the tie outs to be more horizontal.

On my Six Moon Deschutes I use the pole technique shown above to pull fabric up and away from my face.  I’m 6’3 using a thick pad so am pushing the limits of the tent so extra head volume is worth the distortion.

I too started out using found sticks to prop up the panel tie outs, but rummaging around the forest floor in the rain for appropriate sticks quickly got old.  I DIY’d some thin, light collapsable CF poles and now always have the perfect length.  At 2.5g each, the ZPacks pole cups were a no brainer…setup is quick, easy and repeatable.

I have tried tying to ground like JCH picture.  That doesn’t work so well.

I’ll have to try propping up – force on tent is outward, not angled to the ground.

You could use a tree or boulder or whatever.

You could make your tent a little smaller if you pulled the tent away from your face.  Maybe save more weight than the weight of the pole.

So aside from the space downsides, pulling the mid panels to the same ground tie outs doesn’t make much sense? Causing more problems for stabilisation than it solves?

I’m curious as I see shelters – mids particularly – with tie outs halfway up the shelter all around for “stormy weather” – but if you can’t use the same stakes, then you need to double the amount of stakes you do use. As well as 300% more guy line, since they obviously need to be longer here.

If the guyline is longer you can have the stake farther out so the pull on the side of the mid is more outward, but it’s not angled outward nearly as much as if there was a pole.

Normally I have 1 stake in each corner + 1 on each side = 8 total

If I put stakes in between, so another 8 stakes, then it keeps the side of the mid from blowing inward so it keeps the side more taut.  For windiest conditions.

I need to compare that to having a pole and a guyline.  I wonder if you need 8 poles total, or are 4 total good.  I wonder where the best place to attach to the mid, maybe in the center of the area of the panel, which would be about 2/3 of the way down from the peak.

When the wind is howling guy lines are your friends!

Yes but which ones? It pays to keep a select company;)

So aside from the space downsides, pulling the mid panels to the same ground tie outs doesn’t make much sense? Causing more problems for stabilisation than it solves?
No I don’t think it does much of anything if it’s to the same stakes. It doesn’t spread the load over more stakes, and usually it doesn’t improve the angles because the canopy fabric already connects these two points. If these two points are not connected already by a relatively direct line of fabric, then adding a guyline as basically a hypotenuse could help a bit.

If we think about the Duplex as an example, if you pull downwards on the midpanel guyouts it noticably pulls down on the tent above that (the ridgeline). Notice how in that Zpacks photos the ridgeline is being pulled down. Conversely, if you pull the mid-panel guyout out perpendicularly, it still pulls other areas of the fabric, but this pull is spread out over all the neighbouring seems evenly, so it still distorts the shape but in a more widespread but subtle way. It’s slightly pulls the tent into a more spherical shape which I can see being desirable because the basic shape is low in the head/foot area.

The effect of pulling out the mid-panel guyouts perpendicularly with a single peak shelter (e.g. DuoMid) is to pull the shelter into more of a cone rather than a rectangle shape. If you had a whole bunch of mid panel guyouts all around the tent and pulled them all out, eventually you could pull it into a cone, although the bottom edge would be uneven (hard to explain). But single or double peak aside, fundamentally you’re not gaining any extra fabric, so if you pull it out somewhere it’ll have to pull in somewhere else. It tends to pull in the middles of the neighbouring seams and the middle of the ridgeline. This is not a good approach to gaining volume or making the shape of the tent more ideal. Much better would be to change the fundamental shape, rather than distort it post hoc. The Duplex in particular has a low roof at the ends, so I understand why folks lift it up, but better would be if the basic design just wasn’t low here.

I had mid-panel guyouts on the first prototype of my X-Mid tent, but I abandoned them because most folks are just going to mis-use them and get a wonky pitch.

Isn’t it interesting that the photo of perhaps the worst Duplex pitch I’ve ever seen (above) is found on the ZPacks website?
There should be a contest for worst duplex pitch. I submit this pitch (not done by me):

There should be a contest for worst duplex pitch. I submit this pitch (not done by me)

That’s just painfull.

Your whole post makes a lot of sense. This was the part that resonated the most and cuts to the core of what I was asking. What is the “correct” way of using them? Adding them to the side wind is coming from as needed and staking (with a pole for a more horizontal angle?) them firmly staking them to minimise deflection – but not so tight as to distort the fabric?

I would think another stake helps spread the load further, but I’ve never been in a situation where I couldn’t find some anchors (rocks) to reinforce things in higher winds.

Interesting MLD has the duomid pictures with the mid panel lines going to the same stake

Hard to argue tho with the quality of the pitch in the MLD photos…

I think the main take away from that MLD photo is that while the mid-panel guyouts are being used, they aren’t being used to substantially pull outwards on the fabric. It’s just pulled out a tiny bit – not a huge pull to boost room. The main function is to prevent the wall from deflecting in (under wind or snow presumably), which is the proper use for mid-panel guyouts.

+1 on Dan’s explanation.  The other issue is to maximise the angle between the panel and the guy to minimise any deflection.  For this longer guys or intermediate props between the guy point and the peg are often necessary to achieve this. This is the same for mid height guy points on curved poles – you don’t want to distort the pole arc but rather stop deflection under load.

Thanks. Makes sense. Kind of what I had thought but I see folks using them in all kinds of ways.

“I see folks using them in all kinds of ways.”

Yeah that’s the problem with them – so easy to mis-use and do weird things to the pitch. With the mid-panel guyouts on the longer sides of the MLD mids, folks think they can yank out the back one for more space, but end up pulling the whole peak that way, and really getting a sketchy pitch. I did that back in the day and was confused at what I was doing wrong.

How many guylines do you need?

One on each side so a total of 4?

Or two on each side?

This is also my main interest.

If I bring all the guylines (and for even better weather restance, stakes), then it’s 7 extra.

This is a lightweight forum, after all.