UKC

Seems a vast amount of the market is this style, is it just a cost thing?
Or is there another positive I'm not seeing? (Marginal weight savings?)

Seems an inferior design in almost every aspect to the alternates, yet plenty of decent manufacturers seem to adopt it.

In reply to needvert:

I thought it gave you the maximum internal volume. The inner material is expanded to the pole dimensions whereas on outer first tents the inner hangs from the outer which is where the poles are.....if that makes sense??

The exo-skeleton idea of the Vaude's is a good solution but it has oversized (heavier) poles as a result.

In reply to needvert:

It means you can take the outer off and use the inner as a bug screen in hot weather or to dry the tent out. Not totally convinced about it myself though.

In reply to needvert:

You don't need the outer very often in hot countries.

Which companies were you referring too and were they British or from somewhere warmer?

In reply to needvert:

Structurally more bomb proof.The inner tent forms a solid structure and the outer reinforces it.

In reply to Chris Sansum:

What Chris said!

Old fly pitching first tents often had baggy slack innners which wasted space and made the tent less strong.

In reply to needvert:

As above, take a look at any fly first tent and it'll have loads of guylines that have to be used to give it any sort of stability as the fly has no 'floor'. An inner first tent is 'complete' (as in wall and floor) and when you put the poles in it becomes a fairly solid structure without pegging or guy lines.

The often heard argument that they're rubbish to put up in the rain has never been an issue in my experience.(My first inner first tent was a North Face Westwind in about 1986) The inner tent fabrics that are used are so light that the small amount of moisture they may absorb as you pitch them in rain is soon dispersed by body heat as soon as you get in the tent.

I'd take a more roomy, more stable inner first tent than a tent with loads of guylines and a 'saggy' inner tent every time.

In reply to needvert:

Inner pushes out, outer pushes in, creates a taught sandwich, they also pitch much quicker, my voyager goes up in a fraction of the time as my akto.

I once bet a chick I could get it up in under 3 mins at tbe Clachaig, resulting in a heads or tails as a famous jockey once said....

Ps 3 mins when half cut is a result.

In reply to needvert:

I should add, she was impressed with how tight it was.

In reply to Alex Slipchuk:



Not after a few pints or so, in both senses.

Interesting.

My tent ownership has been limited to hillebergs and a macpac tent. They've all been pitch inner and outer together, with the poles attaching to the fly. They've all been capable of pitching with just the inner.

It strikes me that a structure formed from the outer and poles has the advantage that the outer tends to be much stronger and less stretchy than the breathable inner.

The floor providing structure is interesting, my tents have all had a cord connecting the outer sides of the tent to partially compensate when pitched without an inner.

As for saggy insides, soulo and jannu certainly have tight inners, the microlight...Not so much owing to its design.


Was looking at MSR tents and noticed they were mostly inner first then fly over the top, which got me thinking.

In reply to needvert:

I used to have a great inner first tent, but it got too beaten up and all the zips broke (it wasn't very expensive but it had a really solid semi geodesic construction) but when it came time to get a new tent all i could find within my budget (£100-150 i think) were outer first tents.. and i'm not such a fan of them.. i ended up with some odd triangle shaped thing that just about does the job (not keen on tunnel tents)