Designed for campers looking for a shelter for everday use or wanting to extend a tent porch area.
Composition PU-coated polyester and thermobonded seams.
Compact, slides easily into a 40 litre backpack and weighting 2.6 kg or 1kg without posts
Bag size size: 39 x 11cm cover.
Protection - Provides protection from the wind, sun and rain -- Polyurethane coated waterproof polyester -- Thermobonded central seam -- 2 steel 1.8m poles (diameter 16mm).
Options:
- With 2 poles a vast, effective umbrella/parasol (2 x 1.8m poles supplied and all pegs)
- With 2 hiking poles, nearly a tent (lightweight at 1kg!)
- With 1 pole and a small tent: a simple but practical living area
- With 4 hiking poles = a shelter for 2 to 4 people (1kg without poles).
Whilst on a recent weeks camp this summer, we decided to have a BBQ one evening. The weather looked changeable and I was slightly concerned, but went ahead with the BBQ anyway. Whilst cooking the food in a rushed fashion and keeping one eye on the weather, it occurred to me that the Tarp I had recently seen at Decathlon would have been a great piece of kit to have at that moment.
I considered that if I’d set the Tarp up as a stand-alone canopy away from the tent, I would have been happy to cook under it with confidence against the rain, whilst all 4 sides would be open to the elements to allow air to flow. It would have basically been a large umbrella. I did consider there was a very small risk of an ember getting onto the tarp and the tarp catching fire, but the risk is really small and it’s a simple case of move away and put out the fire with your extinguisher (shame on you, if you don’t have one) then replace, after all there only £24.99. Not really sure why I mention this risk as its really minimal.
On my next visit to Decathlon I brought one and it got tested last weekend.
We took our Carolina-3 tent and porch for a weekend away, setting the kitchen up in the porch, I decided to throw one end of the tarp over the canopy and use one of the poles on the opposite end. This gave us an extended porch for extra protection from the rain that was meant to be coming in the evening. We also found it was surprisingly roomy and happily sat under in the evening protected from the rain. The following day the wind got up a little and made it quite difficult to cook in the porch. I removed the pole from the tarp and fixed the edge to the floor to form a sort of door, as it was angled it allowed us access through triangular formed doors to each side. The Carolina Porch became quite cosy and well protected from the elements.
Having experienced the tarp in wind and rain I have to say that I am really happy with the quality and versatility of it and also compared to some other tarps on the market the price is very good.
I have scored it 5 out of 5 because it really can’t be any better in my opinion.