Reviews > Shelters > Tarps and Bivys > Gossamer Gear Spinnshelter > Mark Verber > Initial Report

Gossamer Gear Spinnshelter Initial Review

Name: Mark Verber
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Height: 5'10" (1.8 m)
Weight: 180 lb (81 kg)
Email:
Region: San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Date: November 5, 2004

Item

Review Item: Gossamer Gear Spinnshelter
Manufacturer URL: http://www.gossamergear.com/
Manufacture Year: 2004
Listed weight: Tarp before seam sealing 8.7oz + Stuff Sack 0.2 oz
Weight as delivered: tarp 8.9oz (255g) + stuff sack .4oz (12g) + guylines .1oz (3g)
MSRP: US$174.95

Description

I received a USPS priority mail package Nov 1, 2004 containing the spinnshelter in a small stuff sack, a three page manual, spectra cord and four small plastic clips in a plastic bag.

Tarp

The spinnshelter is a shaped tarp designed for a solo user made from a Germany originated spinnaker cloth. The spinnaker clothing is a dull translucent white which seems noisier than Tyvek if I crinkle it.  The measurements from the manufacturer are accurate. When the tarp is setup in its locked down mode the foot the tarp is 38" wide and 23" high (96 cm wide 59 cm high). The tarp gently expands to 55" wide and 40" high (140 cm wide 101 cm high) at the head of the tarp. There are vestibules for both the foot and head ends of the tarp. The front vestibule extends 40" (101 cm), and the rear vestibule extends 22" (55 cm). Baseline to baseline the tarp is 86" (218 cm) long. The ridgeline extended beyond the base of the tarp measuring 100" (254 cm) ridgeline pullout to pullout. On paper this is not a large tarp, but I was a bit surprised how long this tarp seemed to be with the vestibules deployed.

The tarp has four corner ties which are shaped like an L attached both to the vertical and horizontal seams. This keeps good tension without putting stress on the corner. The corner lays flush to the ground and covers the stakes. I am a bit concerned that there is only single stitching attaching the pullouts. Time will tell if this is adequate for long-term durability. Along the edge of the tarp are an additional 3 ties which face downward separated by approximately 20" (50 cm).  The ties are double stitched to the tarp.  The middle most pullout is a double loop.  The bottom loop is for staking out, the top loop is to attach the back of the bug canopy. There are ties on either side of the foot and head of the tarp 3" (8 cm) from the bottom edge facing inward. I was told that the front two ties are used by Gossamer Gear Bug Canopy, but the pictures on the Gossamer Gear website didn't show this clearly.  The four ties could also be used to secure a bathtub style floor for those people who are tarping in areas prone to flooding.  There are also two ties along the ridge line. These can be used for a drying line, to suspend a flashlight, or to support the pullout from a bivy or bug netting. I am planning to use the tie point over my head to pull the top of my sil-nylon / quantum bivy away from my face.

Most seams are single stitched with the edge of the cloth exposed. The coating on the cloth seems to prevent the edge from unraveling. When I do my long-term review, I will examine the edges to verify that they continue to resist unraveling. The ridgeline is double stitched as are the attachments for the ridgeline pullouts. The ridgeline pullouts have a brass grommet for attaching the guylines and possibility inserting poles.

The vestibule has two sections of hook and loop ties which let the vestibule seal when the poles placed directly into the grommets, or placed further out to give more room. I notice that there is a tendency for the space between the hook and loop ties to have a small gap. I don't expect this will normally be a problem, but with a hard, driving rain this may result in some spray entering the main body of the tarp.

There are hook and loop ties tabs on both sides of the tarp to tie back the foot and head end vestibules. A nice attention to detail is that the left side has the hook part of the tie on the inside, and the right side has the loop side of the tie. This means that if you have a small item that has either type of attachment, you can hang it from one of these ties. For example, a Photon light with a loop dot.

The seams are not sealed.

Stuff Sack

Also included in the package was a spinnaker cloth bag with a draw-string to close the bag. The bag is -14"x10" when laid flat, 9" long x 6" diameter when stuffed. The bag proves plenty of room for the tarp. It is very easy to get the tarp into the bag, even if you just stuff it in.

Manual

A three page manual is included in the package. This manual is available for download on the Gossamer Gear website. The instructions were stapled in wrong order. I will go into more detailed feedback about the manual later in this review.

Spectra Cord

53ft (16 m) of a spectra cord was included. The cord is approximately the same width and around twice the thickness to Glide® brand dental floss. The cord is somewhat difficult to work with because it is so slippery. With such a thin guyline which is white, I am concerned that it will be easy to trip over the guylines. I have grown use to triptease with its bright yellow color and its reflective material. There are four small plastic clips included to make it easy to add and remove the baseline guide.

Stakes

Setting up this tarp in lockdown mode requires 8 stakes which are not included. If the vestibule is rolled up you need at least 6 stakes.  Initially I will be using 6 Vargo Outdoors shepard's hook stakes which are 6.5" (16.5 cm) long, and 2 nail stakes which at 6" (16 cm) long.

First Setup Experience

The instructions for the tarp start by recommending that you make two guylines for the foot and head pullouts, and cut two sections of the guyline to be used as baseline to know how far to stake the foot and head corners. It took around 15 minutes to cut and finish (melt the ends with a lighter) the guidelines, and attach them to the tarp. I used the recommended bowline hitch since the instructions noted the spectra cord is too slippery for the more traditional tautline hitch. Rather than using dedicate tarp poles, I am using Leki's Nordic Walking Sticks. These poles are two piece which luckily collapse to a minimum length of 32 inches, the recommended height for the foot pole.

My first attempt to setup the tarp was in its most weather protective form. It took me almost thirty minutes for me to get it setup. To start, I clipped in the baseline guides. Next I pulled the foot baseline guide tight and staked out the corners, wrapped the guyline around one fully collapsed pole and staked out the foot ridgeline.  I had troubles keeping the pole where I wanted it.  If I tensioned the line the pole would slipping to a different location on the line forcing me to start the guyline over repeatedly.  Once I got the rear guyline secured to my satisfaction I staked out the vestibule.  I found that this makes a very taut triangle.  I then staked out the head corners with the line between them taut, wrapped the guyline around the head end pole and staked out the guyline.  All of this took around 20 minutes. Of that 20 minutes, nearly half came from the guylines slipping on the poles and me needing to redo the guideline, even though I used a clove hitch to try and keep them in one place. Once the tarp was basically set up, it took another 10 minutes to get it taut. This was done by re-staking the corners are a bit more, and drawing the front pole closer to the tarp.  I unclipped the baseline guides from one side because I wanted to pull the rear corners out further than my initial setup and felt uncomfortable with the baseline guide be extremely taut. If you use the recommended baseline guys and then pull them taut the foot tarp will be 38" (56 cm) wide because the clips slide to the narrowest part of the "L" tie points, and the stakes are at the outer edge gaining an additional 3 inches. After my adjustments I managed to have a very taut pitch except for the front vestibule which was flapping a bit.

Twelve hours after the tarp was setup it was nearly as taut as when I pitched it. This is a much better experience than sil-nylon which would have stretch enough to require re-staking in the same time period.

Additional Experience

Work was a bit crazy so the tarp stayed up during a rain storm the next day. From what I could tell after the fact, the tarp kept the ground under it dry. Twenty-four hours after setting up the tarp for the first time there was some minor sagging which was corrected by pulling the poles in a bit which raised the ridgeline slightly. It is not clear if this was because the stakes were loosening up in wet ground, or if getting the spinnaker cloth increased the stretchiness. So far, I don't have enough data to determine the cause.

I found that the tarp does not seem to absorb water and therefore dries very quickly. After the rain I was able to shake the tarp out and set it in the sun. It was dry to the touch in ten minutes.

The second time I set up this tarp it took me five minutes to do the initial setup and another two minutes of tightening. This time I left the vestibule closed so I knew were the gap between the hook and loop ties were. This seemed to make it easier to get the back adjusted quickly. I could pull on the far end of the vestibule and see if everything was taut. I still didn't get the front vestibule tight enough as far as I am concerned. Hopefully three is the charm. I believe I have the head of the ridgeline a bit too high, and the head corners not pulled out quite enough. My concern about the guylines has already been justified. I tripped over the front guyline. The stake was pulled up, and the line snapped by the grommet. No damage seemed to be done to the tarp.

The third time I set up the tarp it took four minutes to set up the tent, and one more minute to get it tightened. Some of the time saving was putting the front pole into the grommet rather than having the pole extended further forward with the guyline wrapped around the tip. While this resulted in the pole being a bit closer to the door, I didn't find this to make it more difficult to enter and exit the tarp. Nearly all the "fiddle time" was spent getting the front vestibule tight. I think the problem the last two times was that I have the front set slightly too high to get a totally locked down pitch. Once the tarp was set-up I tried a hose test. My daughter got in the tarp and then I sprayed the tarp with a hose fitted with an adjustable nozzle set on jet which is a very concentrated high pressure spray against one of the sides. After two minutes there was no sign of water leaking through. When I attempt the same test with 1.3oz silnylon I get a light mist where the jet of water is hitting the fabric. Next I switched my nozzle to "shower" mode and "rained" on the tarp for five minutes. I followed this with a jet aimed at the ridgeline for a minute. There was no signs of leaking through the ridgeline seams. After a longer rain I will decide if I will spend the time seam sealing the ridgeline or make a go without sealing. I was pleased to note that the largest side deflection I could cause left plenty of clearance between the tarp wall and my quilt.  I also noted once the spinnaker cloth was taut that it seemed less noisy than my sil-nylon tarp... I assume because there was less give and therefore less room to flap.

I think I prefer setting the tarp up with the head end slightly higher than the specific lock-down. This gives me a bit more headroom and some ventilation under the from vestibule. To keep the vestibule taut I will attach as short guyline to the vestibule pullouts. This will allow me to hold the vestibule taut while at the same time having an air gap. I found with a slightly higher pitch I am able to still up without hitting my head, and am able to be on all fours without my back hitting the roof.

The Manual

The manual is extremely minimalist and assumes a fair amount of knowledge and experience of the spinnshelter user. Given that the spinnshelter is a fairly specialized piece of gear, I can understand this assumption, but I think that even with expert users, providing step by step pictures are useful since some people are visual learners and have trouble following textual descriptions. To make the manual more clear I would suggest the following changes.

Right now the manual instructs you to cut four lengths of guyline. A number of paragraphs later it instructs how to construct the baseline guides. I believe the instructions for the baseline guides should be integrated. If I would have followed the first set of instructions, I would have ended up wasting several inches of the guyline.

The manual should have a diagram of the tarp showing the ties and indicating what they are intended for. I was able to guess the uses of the ties, but felt compelled to check with Gossamer Gear to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong. They could avoid email from nervous folks like me with a bit more documentation.

It is also assumed that people know how to tie a few knots. I knew all the knots mentioned, but newbies might not. It might be useful to include a description of the knots needed to tied. There are a number of great websites which have animated jpegs which show how to tie knots.

I would also suggest that the description of using poles be broken into two sections. The first section would be for poles that can fit into the grommets. The second description should be for when the poles are too tall (or people want the poles further out). Given the slipperiness of the guylines, I think using the grommets is a bit easier for beginning users. I think a close-up view of the guyline / pole would be useful.

Finally, it would have been good for the manual to explicitly say that the ridgeline isn't seam sealed, recommend (or not recommend) sealing the seam, and then a description of the appropriate materials to seal the seam if that is called for.

Customer Service

So far very good. I have sent in a number of questions and have gotten back very quick responses via email.

Test Plan

In the next couple of weeks I am going to take a few day trip in the California coastal range hoping to find some rain.  I would like to see how the spinnaker cloth does in an extended rain shower.  The first time I use the tarp I plan to pitch it in its locked down form, with the front slightly elevated.  If required I will shut the vestibules, but I am hoping that I will be able to keep the vestibule open since the top of the tarp overhangs the space I am using.  If the rain / wind require me, I will shut the vestibules.

On later trips I am looking forward to trying a lean-to pitch, as well as pitching the tarp off the ground for better ventilation and more room to move around in.  I will try different various door configurations to gauge how these changes effects moisture accumulation within the shelter, and if it is possible to configure the shelter so that in a moderate rain it is possible to stay dry while at the same time avoid condensation which drips.

I am starting to plan a trip to the Lost Coast hoping to catch both high winds and extended rain showers. Hopefully I will be more successful this time, this past spring I had perfect weather on the Lost Coast.  I will be very interested to see how the tarp handles high winds and how much the sides will deflect.

I am wondering if I can get a second use of the baseline guides as a way to keep my bivy stretched out.  I am going to try and figure out if this can be done without putting undo stress on all the components.

I would love to determine how much this spinnaker cloth stretches. The answer might be not at all. The only way I can see doing this is finding a place / manner to stake out the tarp when I am sure the ground won't loosen up. I will try to figure out an easy way to do this in the next six months.

I plan to assess how easy it is to transition between various pitches to adapt to changing conditions and how using a number of fixed length guylines works.  I am also very interested in seeing how livable the different pitches are. I want to see  how easy it is to change clothing without getting wet during a rain shower.

Finally, I am looking forward to examining the Spinnshelter to assess the long term durability of this item. In particular, I want to find out if the corner single stitching is adequate, and the fabric coating keeps the edges from unravel.

Summary

I really like the Spinnshelter so far.  The size seems perfect for solo use.  The tarp has really pretty lines.  The spinnaker cloth seems great: waterproof, little or no stretch, not as noisy as sil-nylon (though this might be because I have a tauter pitch), and light.  While I found getting a good pitch took slightly longer than my Tarptent Squall, set-up was quick and easy compared to a traditional flat tarp for what seems to be a very storm worthy pitch.  The only thing I am not sure about right now is the spectra cords.  I will try them for a few outings, but might switch to a cord that is most visible and a bit easier to work with.

Backpacking Background

I did a lot of backpacking from 1972 until the mid '80s. During this time I hiked sections of the AT (approximately 1/3 completed), spent a significant amount of time backpacking in the Rockies (Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, Tetons, Glacier National Parks), and frequented Red River Gorge and various destinations in Canada. In the '90s my outdoor activities slowed down to make room for other aspects of life. Nearly all my backpacking was heavy-weight style. In 2001 I started seriously backpacking again... mostly in the Sierras. Over the next three years I switch from a heavyweight to ultralight to lightweight style. My three season base weight is now 8-13 lb (3.5-5 kg). Full carry weight including food and water is typically 15-30 lb (7-13 kg) depending on the length of the trip. Winter trips are more like 18 lb (8 kg) base weight.

Reviews > Shelters > Tarps and Bivys > Gossamer Gear Spinnshelter > Mark Verber > Initial Report