Terra Nova Laser Competition mod, The hood

Today i spent some time thinking about a good solution for the hood of the Laser Competition.
This piece has caused a lot of frustration, and I’m not alone.

The basics are:
You need the hood if you want to use the side guy lines for stability.
You need the hood if you expecting wet weather.
To tie the hood to the fly you have to put the very short pieces of black rope trough two very small loops attached to the fly on both sides of the pole sleeve.
To put tension on the hood you have to put one side of the rope coming out of the sleeve trough a loop near the pole ring and tie it to the other rope coming out of the hood.

In bad weather, in bad light conditions, when tired of a long day hike, this is almost impossible. Strange because the tent is marketed as an adventure race shelter. Well even in good weather i find it frustrating and time consuming to get it right.

Every time I used the tent i thought of ways to get it fixed, but when home the tent disappeared quickly in the gear closet. But today I find time to experiment with some setups.
I found that:
Leaving the hood attached in the original way can be dangerous, when putting the pole in the sleeve. The pole gets stuck against the loop and rope and presses against the fabric. When the mushroom shaped pole end has some scratches on it from standing on a hard surface this can happen easily.

Attaching the guy lines directly to the loops on the fly, will make the tent stand firm, but the hood can’t run down totally.

Some options I’ve read on internet suggested using small carabiners for quick fixation at the pole end loop. But this is no solution for the small ropes and loop connection.
Some options I’ve read suggest a combination of both, and seamseal everything. The way the pole sleeve is attached to the fly however this means seamseling 4 sides on the outer and 2 on the inside. Because the zipper is attached to the these seams, only sealing and testing it in the garden will tell if it will be adequate.


I would like the following things;
Quickly put the hood on or off.
Leave the hood on the tent without the risk of ripping the fabric.
All connections must be possible wearing gloves.
A direct connection between guy line and tent.
And longer guy lines.

First I experimented with the lower near the pole end attachment of the hood. And after some tries I came up with the use of shock cord. This attaches to loops made in the end ropes from the hood. On both sides this will give enough tension to put it firmly in place, and enough stretch to easily pull it over the pole end. It’s not attached to the therefore made loop.

Secondly I experimented with different configurations of the guy lines. As I wrote the most steady result came from directly attaching the guy lines to the small loops.
I was surprised to see that is was so much more steady compared to the original setup. This has to do with the slack from the hood attachment and the hood to the guy line. I could not see another solution than to remove the small attachment ropes near the guy line attachment. This removal was done by cutting it out with a scissors, leaving a nice hole through which a guy line can run. Because this hole is tucked away under an extra layer there’s no change for water to get in.

With this setup the tent is steady and direct connected and the hood takes care for the weather. I have to find a good way to leave the middle of the hood attached. And / or when removing the hood, a way to simply connect and reconnect the guy lines, instead of pulling them all the way through the holes.
Further, the guy lines were mainly used to pull through the hood the tent down, and not so to withstand a wind force from the side. With the use of longer guy lines the forces used on the hood connecting loops are far bigger. So new, stronger guy lines attachments have to be made.

I also going to check in the next days if the original cord that is in the hood is still necessary or that the shock cord can be attached directly to the hood material itself. It would be nice to trow something’s of which balance the added weight, a bit.

Light

Today I went for a small hike. just for a couple of hours through the woods near Nijmegen, my home town. What fascinates me always in the woods when the sun is shining, is the ever changing light and colors.

While some plants have had their spring green and getting ready for the summer with darker colors others are just bursting with green in the bright light. And so gets an otherwise not so interesting subject an extra dimension.

Terra Nova Laser Competition Ventilation Mod

First of all, I hate this tent

Like many of you I’ve bought it because of its weight. Having an akto there is certainly a weight gain, but also a big frustration gain.

Every time I pitch it I wonder what is wrong. Even on a straight grass field the fly isn’t straight.
There’s no ventilation at all, which is warm when it’s cold but also results in a lot of condensation in the morning.
Every tent has more or less condensationproblems but with the Akto it’s easy to take the inner out and keep it dry. This I do often when it’s raining and I have to break up camp. The dry inner in the backpack, the wet fly rolled up on the outside of my pack.
Because the inner and outer are attached by the small poles it’s difficult to detach these with the Laser Comp. Mostly ending up with a wet back and a wet innertent.
Then there is the polehood…..the tension on the doorzipper, the inner and fly guylines etc.

There are exellent Terra Nova Modifications. See also the blog of blogpackinglight.

http://blogpackinglight.wordpress.com/laser-comp-mods/ But the venting option can be improved.

Of all the problems I’ve started and fixed the ventilation. And even better than an Akto. I can now fully adjust the ventilation while in my sleeping bag it on both sides with just some guyline and a stake. It's basicly the same as on the normal laser.

You will be able to a lot more ventilation than many other seen solutions.

Here the setup when closed.

It could be wise to use an extra peg because the tension aplied can be big due to the use of the shock cord.

When the peg fails it does not endanger the integrity of the outer fly.

Here the setup when halfclosed

The cord to open runs from the attachementpoint through the shockcord and on the inside backup again through the loop where the shock cord from the pole is attached.

From there you can run it through a loop down at the pole or straight to a pag in the ground. The latter gives less friction and is what I use.

The closing rope

This is attached on to the shock cord and runs through a loop. This is made from a small piece of rope. And attached to the pegloop of the guyrope that runs to the bottompole attachement.

A detail of the rope that opens the fly.

A simple peg secures one of the rope.

The use of different colors and different thickness is advised. So even when light is bad you can find the right rope.

Making loops in the rope can help to fix the line to Open, Halfway and Cosed.

Better than a peg, a problem when using a goundsheet with front cover, would be to create a line on which the pulling ropes grap with a prussikknot.

What would be the best way to do this i still have to figure that out.

For now i'm happy my Laser Comp vents, or it should be a topvent....... :-)

Born

At leat some time ago:-)
I start this blog to contribute to the world of bloggers that also share their thoughts and experiences on the net of which i learned a lot and made my life a bit more colorfull.
I have no intention to write or comment on a daily basis, but it will depend on what will happen.
Since i will write about the outdoors, and this community is worldwide, i'll try my best to write in english. And please do correct me, since we're all hanging around on the net to learn.

Colorable Life is about the things that make my life more colorfull, and hopefully yours a bit to.

So, thanks for reading,

Luc