Barry Bucknell Lives!

Nice New Guying System

When I had to go out to work for a living I was driven to seek promotion after promotion for one reason only.  I needed and wanted to earn enough money so that I never, ever had to open my car bonnet or to go into a branch of B and Q or the like again.  My intention was to be able to afford “to get a man in” to do it.  Or as Mrs Fellbound sometimes says, with that tone that appears to be suggesting something more than the actual words she uses, “get a real man in to do it”.  So my dizzy climb to the top of the greasy pole of public servantry was a result of nothing more than my inability to do anything practical under the bonnet of the car or at my non-existent work bench.

However, after studying the Yellow Pages I was unable to find any man or woman listed who could do for me in relation to some desired modifications to my Scarp 1.  I had thought of sending a train ticket and a wad of fivers to employ Robin, as he is the master of modifications when it comes to the Scarp 1. And he seems actually to enjoy doing these things.  But selfishly he had headed off to Dartmoor to have a final pre-TGO Challenge jaunt.  Thus, I was in the awful position of having to do it myself.

   The problems:       

• The Scarp has nowhere to hang your wet smelly socks to dry after a day walking through bog in trail shoes.

• The Scarp’s supplied guys appear to be extremely short, putting a strain on the pegs and limiting the choice where you can stick the peg – a potential problem in rocky ground.  Further, the hoop has no supplied guy lines.

I am not certain whether the short guys really are a problem. One assumes that Henry Shires at Tarptent knows what he is doing.  But my own doubts were heightened by the various sharp intakes of breath from fellow Pre-Walk Daunderers when they saw just how short the guys were.  They said little but their stolen glances to each other said it all.  One gust of Scottish wind and that tent will reach Montrose a week or so ahead of poor old Fellbound on the TGO Challenge.  Alan suggested I replace them with an Akto style guying system.  In the end I opted for something simpler.  This was because my poor little brain wouldn't have coped with that and also it might have mucked up the postioning of the crossover pole eyeletes which are attached to the standard guys.  In any case, for me these modifications were already as challenging as would have been undertaking open heart surgery.

The solution:

• I bought some Dyneema from Bob and Rose. “Dyneema” means expensive string but it is very good.

• I cut a piece off and tied it across the inner as a washing line for my smalls. This required me to know how to use a pair of scissors and tie a round turn and two half hitches. Thank goodness I had been in the Scouts.

• I removed the existing guys and replaced them like for like but over double the length.  This requires knowledge of how to tie an overhand knot and correctly thread a linelock.  It was quite technical but I Percy Veered and it seems to have worked.

• I added guys to both attachments on the hoop.

• I have also done this clever thingy with some guy line, linelocks and my trekking pole to help with stability and to give more clearance between inner and outer, which should help reduce condensation.  This wasn’t, of course, my idea.  Others do this.  I saw it on Steve's brilliant bloggy you tube thingy-me-bob of him putting the Scarp up on Hindscarth in the Lake District.  I would recommend you check this video out, not least for the catchy folky background music.  The photo below shows this set-up reasonably well.

I sealed the cut ends of the Dynamee with a lighted match. I decided this was best done straight after cutting and not once the cord was attached to the tent.  This was to avoid conflagration nightmare.

Trekking pole thingy guy

All in all this has added 80gr in weight.  And more pegs but I will not bother with spare pegs now as the two trekking pole thingeys are not strictly necessary so I will have pegs for those which could become replacements for crucial pegging points.  Also, I have ditched some of my blue pegs for grey as Martin has advised me that the blue paint is heavier.

The cleverest bit is that I replaced one guy at one end with different coloured Dynamee.  This shows me which side of the Scarp is the “head end” as the inner door is at one end of the tent.  This should help when putting it up. If I can remember “red is for head”.

That’s enough about modifications. It's doing my head in, as Phil Mitchell or Ian Beale might have said.

Now, which way is Scotland?