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Rocketman
04-05-2011, 09:34
I have been thinking about wanting to try a tent that allows fly first pitching, with the interior to be clipped onto the poles after the fly is up. Naturally, the idea is to be able to pitch the tent in the rain, and for the inner tent and inside floor to be dry.

Then I hauled out my old Sierra Designs Clip Flashlight 2 and recalled that the fly had velcro strips that would attach the poles to the fly. Yes, there are indeed four (4) such strips. One in the middle of the large front hoop pole and one in the middle of the small rear hoop pole. There are also two more on the front hoop pole bout midway between the peak and the edge of the fly.

It looks relatively easy to use a bit of hook and a bit of loop velcro to sew to the fly edge to temporarily tie the bottom of the fly to the tent hoops.

There aren't any tent stake loops where the hoop poles fit into the inner tent ground attachment straps, but they could be easily added to allow the rainfly to be pitched by itself over the poles as fly only ultralight (sorta) configuration, or as a Fly First pitching process for a dry tent in a rainstorm.

It actually sounds as if this process could be used to convert quite a few double wall tents from "Inner Shell First-Fly Last" pitching in the rain to the "Fly First-Clip In Inner Tent" pitching.

The extra weight involved appears to be that of mere feet or inches of Velcro and maybe a few feet or inches of material for tent stake loops. Plus some seam sealing over the stitches.

I'm going to give this a try. My intended use at first is for bicycle camping because medical conditions may prevent me from carrying a loaded backpack on the AT this summer.

camper10469
04-05-2011, 10:04
You might be able to design n make your own cutom footprint with gromets n spade buckles to accept the body after the fly is up?

But instead of all that, why not just bring a small 5x9 silny tarp n build your tent under that, then move it out? The extra 3 oz is not a big deal to carry plus you have a palce to sit n cook out of the rain in comfort in a heavy down pour instead of confined to your cramped tent.

Just a thought. :-?

mykl
04-05-2011, 16:04
I have the same thoughts and recently tried it with one of my TNF tents. It works, but is way more of a pain than I would expect/want. I found that after the fly was up, I had to adjust everything again and re-stake. I did it to know that I can in case of bad weather.

Rocketman
04-05-2011, 17:34
Thanks,

I can see the need to restake everything after you build the tent fly first. I can also see that getting inside the "fly" and hooking up the small rear end of the tent to the rear hoop pole will be something like climbing under a sink to do plumbing work.... not much space and difficulty seeing.

The 5' X 9" silnylon tarp first is a good idea. Since that particular tent isn't freestanding, moving the tarp away from the tent might be a better idea.