I'm hoping some of you experts may have some knowledgable tips about errecting tunel tents. Yesterday I bought an Attwoolls Fairford Deluxe tent, so that I can take my two children away on my own.
This morning I decided to practice putting it up on my own before before taking it away next weekend. It has the bendy poles to go across the top, and aluminium for the sides. I colour coded everything, threaded, bendy ones through at the top, strectched pin webbing at bottom, but no matter how hard I tried I could not bend the poles enough to put mental pins into the holes in bottom of the alumin poles. I phoned Attwoolls who were very helpful, they talked me through it, I was doing everything right, so went out and had another go and alas pushed so hard the the bendy pole split all the way down the side. I phoned Attwoolls who have told me it the easiest tent in the world to put up and they will kindly supply me with another bendy pole. Problem is I don't want to do the same again So any advice as to what I am doing wrong? I don't have any problems with my Harford XXL
I camped with my kids and erected the tent alone in the summer.
Its a 4 birth tunnel tent. At the ends where the pins go into the poles,I have little straps that I can let out and insert the pins before tightening them them up again.
The first time I put it up I didnt realise this and it was a struggle to say the least. Thankfully the fibreglass poles are very forgiving. Sorry I cant be much help but I'm sure there is plenty of advice on its way.
Did you peg the corners of the tent down before you strated ?
If you did, try doing it without pegging the tent down next time.
i have several tunnel tents , and I find its much easier to get the pins in the poles , if the tent is not pegged down , as there is more flex in the fabric. ie its not being stretched out , so your not fighting against it .
I do this with the poles lying on the ground, fix them all in , peg out back corners , then lift them all up together and walk the tent forward , and then peg out front corners.
we find theres hardly any resistance getting pins in using this method. when pegging out first , it was very hard work getting pins in. Ours are all fibreglaSS POLES .
one other thing to check is that you have the roof pole exactly central in the sleeve before attaching the leg poles.
Yep, beefysmum is right, pegging out all the corners makes fitting the poles difficult.
With the Ontario this year we just put 2 pegs in at the windward end of the tent, fitted the poles then let the wind help us lift the poles up before we pegged the other end, then poles and guys.
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Thanks for the replies so far, I had not pegged it down because it said not to. I had extended the webbing as far as it would go......I just don't know what I am doing wrong....feeling silly and annoyed at the same time.
Only good thing is that I have tried at home first otherwise it would have been "right kids in the car we are going home!!!"
Are your poles catching at the joins in the sleeves....only thing I can think of other than wrong poles, although I am sure you have probably checked already! With the webbing slackened off it should be a doddle to get the pins in so somethings going wrong somewhere ...! Or are the poles incorrectly coded, have you laid them all out to double check the lengths? Our vango poles are quite tricky to tell apart. The colour coding is not fantastic as one is dark grey, one is black (only one section in each pole and not imediatley obvious to tell apart !) .
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We have had an ontario 6 for the last 4 years and had always struggled to get the poles bent enough to get in the pins, but we watched this clip and this year we did it the way he did, it took 2 of us 10 mins to get the tent up all poles in place and pinned - we had no shouting, no sore fingers and a tent that was probably up the best it has ever been - there appears to be less tension on the poles when you do it this way. Definately the way to do tunnel tents.
Hi thanks for your replies. Checked all poles they are ok and correct. thank you for the links to the clips, but they are different to ours in the fact that they are just the flexi poles and ours are flexi and aluminium.
My husband helped me to put it up today and it did go up but he even struggled with it (and he is a burly farmer!) The problem is, is that the flexi poles slot in non flexi aluminium poles, and it is then a matter of brute force to bring them around to the right position to get the pins into the bottom of the aluminum poles. I am just not sure how I am going to manage on my own, which is annoying because that was the purpose of buying a smaller tent! Our outwell has the flexi poles and I have no problems with them at all, it is just too big for weekend camps!
Oh well onwards and upwards, I shall have another go on my own tomorrow...I refuse to be beaten!
It seems to me that our tent got a lot easier to pitch after it'd been up and down a few times. No idea if it's down to practice (remembering to slacken the straps) or if the fabric gives a little...
Can't give you any advice as we are new to camping in big tents and only just learning how to put ours up
However, if you were stuck I think you should be able to ask most women on the site for a helping hand - me and my tevor would be delighted to be asked
If you knew what you were doing in putting the tent up I would help and be an extra pair of hands
If not then I would send my hubby (he is also new to big tents) but better him than both of us!!! Then we would fall out!!!
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Topic: Tips for errecting tunnel tent.
So any advice as to what I am doing wrong? I don't have any problems with my Harford XXL
