Tents for 6’4″
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Rex, re: It’s really no harder to design a bigger tent that won’t make shorter people less happy,…”
The list of seemingly insignificant things that go into total weight all add up. No one thing is much of a weight saver, but without regard for every item, the total can be prohibitive, or at least not competitive.
Take a solo tent for a six footer (max). That works for most of the buying public. But to achieve the least weight for that, everything must be limited to that. For me, adding enough space for a 6.6 footer is really hard. Tried that with the clamshell design, a side-entry tent linked above, but had to give up a self-supporting tent. And while sloping the tent down to two feet at the top of the head, so long as one can sit up and lie down, seemed OK, I hated to narrow the tent from roughly 3 feet to zero feet at both head and foot ends. No problem with sitting up or lying down, but hate it when feel hemmed in at the shoulders and lower legs. So set that one aside for more thought.
Sometimes there are surprise weight savers. Take the discontinued Kuiu Moutain Star 1P for example:
Note that the ridgepole extends forward and backward from the peaks of the crossed hoops. Because of that, the length of the hoop poles could be shortened. Because the carbon poles are a comparatively heavy item, this saved over half an oz of weight. Even more if Tee fittings did not have to be added to connect the ends of the ridge pole to the peaks of the hoops.Suppose the hoops were elbowed at their peaks to create gothic arches. The left and right sides of the tent would still bow outward, creating more space inside than a Trekking pole tent would provide, and still less pole length would be needed, so even less weight.
That is what I meant when referring to lowering ceilings over head and foot areas. With a number of small reductions in component weight, there comes a significant reduction in total weight. But that is just one example of many ways to pare weight; and for me, anyway, it takes much thought. In a company, the expense for product development with all that it entails can be considerable. Moreso than might be worth making a heavier tent for considerably taller folks, a small niche of the company’s market as was noted earlier.
For a shorter person, it is not so hard to find smaller tents on the market. All are competing for lighter tents, so I submit that the bigger tent might well make a shorter person less happy, because he/she would be carrying more weight than necessary. As I think most BPL trekkers know, the idea that every little bit of weight adds up applies to loaded pack weight as well.
So trying to come up with one design that satisfies everyone, let alone just myself, can be very difficult.
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