Alway's Stake Your Tents
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Senior User
Joined: Jul 2004
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From: ct.
Alway's Stake Your Tents
Learned a valuable lesson on Friday. A couple of months ago I was given a 24x12 heavy duty dome tent by a friend of mine who was moving. I set it up. DID NOT STAKE IT. Had the intention of moving it before winter for storage. It was very windy in the northeast on Friday. I sat down at my dining room table, for some reason I looked up and there was the tent airborn in my backyard. For it to get out of the drive way where it was, it needed to go straight up and clear a 6' wall with a 3' fence on top of it. It then turned and floated about 50' out into the backyard. Luckily there were no kid's or people around because it could have been a disaster. The tent also survived with only 1 bent pole which can be easily fixed. If I didn't see this happen I never, never would have believed it. So my advice to anyone getting one of these, follow the directions, and secure it as good as possible.
Posting Legend
Joined: Sep 2001
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Any tent or awning will "fly" like that. What do you think makes an airplane wing work??? Those portable garages will also take off in very little wind. ALWAYS stake a tent. Staking a tent will remove some of the stress put on the fabric by the poles. I have seen dome tents rip the corner seams out because they were not staked properly.
Post Fiend
Joined: Oct 2002
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Years ago had a backyard metal shed get folded over a fence when the doors blew open and the wind treated it like a parachute and just picked it up and folded it right over the 6 foot fence benind it !!!
Had been meaning to get the bottom of those doors anchored for a while b4 that.....
Had been meaning to get the bottom of those doors anchored for a while b4 that.....
Freshman User
Joined: Apr 2004
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From: Euless, Texas
I think more important advice would be to always set up, and stake your tent BEFORE you start drinking (learned that lesson the hard way a few years back). This is especially true with a new tent (which it was). I ended up sleeping on top of that brand new tent!
Super Moderator
Joined: Apr 2004
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Back in '76 I was working at Kmart in El Centro, CA. The wind was going pretty good, and I looked out the front window and there was our 8x10 metal storage building, which was on a 2x4 frame with casters, rolling down the street like someone was driving it. We recovered it, but it was a bit freaky.
Postmaster
Joined: Aug 2003
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From: South Texas
Last week we got a cold front and it got pretty windy. I had my truck under my portable canopy and started getting worried as I heard the tarp whipping in the wind. Good thing I staked it down with plenty of rope and long steel stakes, but I'll be taking it down soon as the temps are going down.
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Apr 10, 2010 01:10 AM
