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Heya just walked out this morning after leaving my X-mid fly up all night and was surprised how taught the material was after a long, cold, damp evening in Auckland.
No adjustments were made since the initial setup about 20 hours ago. It’s winter down here which means daily rain and long nights, I’m quite impressed.
First 3 pics are before, second 3 after...
Oh well...I tried to keep them in order, basically the ones with the sun coming from behind bushes are bone dry, the ones with sun coming from in front are soaking wet, but whatever hopefully this helps someone
Silpoly is hydrophobic which means it repels/doesn't absorb water like nylon does, and thus not a huge surprise to see a taught tent still
If I understand right, Silpoly is Silicone-impregnated Polyester, which is the perfect material for a rainfly:
Polyester by itself doesn't absorb any water, and impregnation by Silicone gives it a hydrophobic surface, too.
Polyester is slightly heavier than Nylon, and has a little less strength - but still its the perfect material for a tarp or rainfly. I never understood why most tents' rainfly nowadays are made from Silnylon?
Because Sil-poly doesn't have a high hydrostatic head rating, it's usually only around 1000-1500hh, while it's common for quality silnylon to reach 3000+, but for the X-mid at least, the have silicone on one side and PU coating on the other, so it's far more waterproof, also with the PU coating you can seam tape it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo L.
Your words do make sense, and would make perfect sense if we were talking about tent floors.
My 35yrs old Salewa tent has a Polyester rainfly (w/o sil-coating) and it had been perfectly waterproof for 20+yrs.
Polyester for decades has been the optimum material for rainflys, and they stopped using it maybe 15-20yrs ago with some (IMHO lame) wording like, production of Polyester would be less envoironment-friendly.
I'm still a bit wondering...
Your tent in the pics above is Silpoly, or Silnylon?
The XMid is silpoly. I'm still waiting on the release of the 2PQuote:
Originally Posted by Leo L.
Yes, I agree the water pressure rating is more relevant with floors, 1500 is plenty for a fly, as DuneElliot said it's Silpoly, although from my understanding coatings start to fail around the 10 year mark, regardless of materials or fabric, so it's good to hear how long your polyester has lasted because I love this tent and want to use it for a long timeQuote:
Originally Posted by Leo L.
When i did my first AT hike in 1995 I carried a Jack Wolfskin Soloist, it was a really nice bivy style tent that used a polyester fly and nylon floor, I loved that tent, was basically a smaller version of the classic Sierra Designs Light Year