Making Your Rain Fly do Tricks....

[le Voyageur 72]

Here's a trick to teach your rain fly....

 

You'll need of course a rain fly (mines a 9 x 12 light weight tarp); four 3 foot lengths of 8 or 9mm line (rope), three 10 to 12 foot lengths of 8 or 9mm line, three spars about 6 to 7 feet in height, three solid stakes, and a buddy.

 

Now to hopefully explain the set up of the fly (using mine as an example) locate a corner gromet, form a bight with one of the short sections of line slipping it through the gromet, tying in using a lark's head. Then bring the ends around a good tree, securing the ends with a grapevine knot. This is a fix pivot point with the tree serving as an axle, and the loop as a bearing, a strong knot is most important. Be to sure to push it up the tree to a fair height, say about 6 feet or so.

 

Now, working along the short end of the fly (the 9 foot side)repeat the same procedure as you did with the pivot point, but don't tie off to the any trees. Slip a spar into the loop and tie one of the long lines above the loop using two half hitches and pull it out at a 45 degree angle from the groment, block the bottom of the spar with a foot, and lean it out about 45 degrees, and have your buddy secure it to a stake using a taught line hitch. This is your first lever. Repeat the procedure at each of the corners. Be sure to keep the far end of tarp a little lower then the top, around 8 or 10 inches lower than the fix pivot point side to add a wee bit of slope to the fly along's it's long axis...afterwards, snug up all the taught line hitches.

 

Now, when it rains, water will pool in the middle, and soon the weight of the water will pull the lower spars inward and dump the water, Once the weight is off, the spars will spring back to their original positions to dump the next around of water....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kenk 11]

Oh man! My brain hurts from trying to picture what you're doing. Maybe its just that it is Firday, but ouch.

[FireKat 10]

I am trying to think why you would want to do this.

I once saw this in action (purly accidental setup). I found it highly amusing as it was doing its thing at a time I had broken my leg (long story) and a person who came to help stood in the wrong (or right, depending on your point of view) spot. We warned him to move but he did not get the idea untill....        The laughter helped get my mind off the pain.

[Eamonn 61]

OK,I'll ask when was the last time anyone went anywhere with three spars about 6 to 7 feet in height?

Unless of course you have spent the day Pig Sticking and you used the spars to carry the dead pig back to camp.

Eamonn

[LongHaul 10]

We used this system at Philmont on several occasions. Lashed walking sticks together using boot laces for the staves but had to triple stake the pivot point because you can't tie off to live trees at Philmont. Kept the cooks dry.

LongHaul

 

[le Voyageur 72]

OK,I'll ask when was the last time anyone went anywhere with three spars about 6 to 7 feet in height?

Unless of course you have spent the day Pig Sticking and you used the spars to carry the dead pig back to camp.

Eamonn

 

Pig sticking...hey. Reminds of the time when BP and I had had enough of the hobnobbing with the local gentry in Mombassa. Says to ourselves, enough is enough and time to man up. Decided a bit of boar hunting would be the ticket. More so, because we had been invited to a Young Maiden Fesitval and Jitterbug contest (Lady Kimberly's Debutant Ball and Social Mixer) and wild pig on the spit seemed to be the ideal fare for the occasion. So, BP and I jumped on the Lunatic line and railed up with our ponies, and a fair collection of pig sticking lances to Ngomongo on the backside of the Tsavo.

After several days of wearing out our ponies in the equatorial heat, and with the scent of lion hunging heavy in the dry air, we had ventured within the shadows of Mt. Kenya wherein was a small waddi from which was coming one heck of a lot angry boar like grunting sounds, and carrying on's. BP, seeing the dust rising from the waddi like an avenging angel gives me the grin, and then.....

 

oooops...sorry. Off topic. Ehhh us canoe types carry spars to pole up river. Often times we find them cleverly hidden in the woods...

[Fuzzy Bear 12]

Pig sticking is fun and easy when compared to tricking our flies with spars and all.

 

Me last experiment with a plastic fly to keep the rain off of me noggin' was several years ago during a big gully washer. I lay me down upon it and rolled meself into it like a burrito. Dry as a bone.

FB

[Eamonn 61]

Fuzzy,

If you do this in the Alps you might be a Swiss Fuzzy Bear Roll or maybe a Vienna sausage wrap.

Eamonn.

[Fuzzy Bear 12]

I learned the hard way that water runs downhill, lightening is to be respected and that trees are not always to be trusted.