Bushwalk Australia

I'm just curious- does anyone here use or know someone who uses a hammock in Tassie?

I have never seen it myself but I definitely thought about it a few times. Especially along the Overland track it would be a treat as you could hang it around the huts somewhere. The problem is that we get fairly cold nights in Tassie even in summer and a hammock will give you virtually NO insulation along the bacl as the down of your sleeping bag will get crushed under your own weight. So you would either need to fit your hammock with a thermarest or similar to provide insulation or at least fit it with an emergency blanket or similar - which would get noisy and sweaty. So at the end of the day I dont think it'll end up saving you any weight if you want the same comfort - but it would be pretty sweet

tomberli wrote:I have never seen it myself but I definitely thought about it a few times. Especially along the Overland track it would be a treat as you could hang it around the huts somewhere. The problem is that we get fairly cold nights in Tassie even in summer and a hammock will give you virtually NO insulation along the bacl as the down of your sleeping bag will get crushed under your own weight. So you would either need to fit your hammock with a thermarest or similar to provide insulation or at least fit it with an emergency blanket or similar - which would get noisy and sweaty. So at the end of the day I dont think it'll end up saving you any weight if you want the same comfort - but it would be pretty sweet

I've been looking at some of the US cottage-manufacturers, Jacks R Best in particular, and they seem to have a system worked out for cold- I'd just worry about finding a) appropriate trees and b) driving rain/horizontal rain/snow/sleet/mist

Drifting wrote:I'm just curious- does anyone here use or know someone who uses a hammock in Tassie?

I have been using a light weight hammock in Tassie for a few years, but mainly as a camp/lunch break DRY armchair I replaced the original chromed steel rings with minature aluminium alloy karabiners and got the weight down to 220 grams. I first used it on a ten day circuit around the SW (Melaleuca>Spain Bay>SW Cape>Melaleuca) and enjoyed relaxing in it at the end of each day's walk - always managed to find two trees the right distance apart at the beach campsites. Missed out only for one camp up on the range where there were no trees within cooee! Here are a few links to a previous thread on hammocks and some photos of how I use mine.

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viewtopic.php?f=25&t=810

I hadn't thought of using it as a chair- what an awesome idea!

check out hennesy hammocks, made in the US, they seem to have worked out the cold factor. i have wanted to get one for a couple of years now but just havnt been able to find the spare cash...

Ian,

Great pics and info. Can you tell us what brand of hammock you have? I think this would be a great thing to carry on extended trips for lunch breaks and as comfy seat at night. 220g is impressively light!

Cheers,
Alliecat

Another vote for the Hennesy, a mate uses one for all of his cycle touring and swears by it. Gotta be lucky with the trees though...

alliecat wrote:Ian,

Great pics and info. Can you tell us what brand of hammock you have? I think this would be a great thing to carry on extended trips for lunch breaks and as comfy seat at night. 220g is impressively light!

Cheers,
Alliecat

The hammock is a basic "el cheapo" nylon mesh one that is sold in army disposal stores - got this one at Allgoods in Launceston. They come with chromed steel rings that weigh as much as the hammock, so when I was looking at taking it on a SW circuit walk a few years back and trimming grams, I looked at ways of replacing the steel rings with a cord loop, or as now, with some 14gram alloy snaplinks that are rated at 150kg. If you go this way, you need to get the climbing grade ones which have their load rating embossed on them, and with a locking gate, as the loads on the tie lines if pitched too flat will cause them to fail (done that once ). I did a load calculation that gave a minimum angle of about 30 degrees when 85kgs (me) was seated in the hammock to not exceed the 150kg load rating on the snap links. To explain further here are some close up photos of the "upgrade". Note the locking mechanism on the snaplink gate. There are lots of cheap "no name" snaplinks in the outdoor shops which are only suitable for key rings or pack hauling, that would certainly "let you down" in this situation.

Thank you for the details and the pics. I discovered the comfort of a hammock over the xmas break on the deck at home, so this topic is great timing. My home hammock is a really heavy thing though so I'll definitely be checking out the disposal store here for these lightweight beasties.

Useful tip about the load calcs too - hopefully I'll avoid a sudden descent to earth

Cheers,
Alliecat

alliecat wrote:<SNIP>
Useful tip about the load calcs too - hopefully I'll avoid a sudden descent to earth

Cheers,
Alliecat

Here's a vector drawing of the loads on the hammock for those with an engineering bent. As the load on the hammock increases, the tie rope angle needs to increase so that the strain (tension/load) on the snaplink does not exceed its rating of 150kg. In other words, any attempt to stretch out flat on a hammock is bound to get you earth bound