TGO Challenge 2014: Taming Trinnie Trailstar

Being a Trailstar Virgin, it seemed sensible to get to know Trinnie more intimately. A rain and gale-swept hillside isn’t the best place for panicky fumblings with a girl in a flap.

A couple of sunny walks in the Great Park allowed me to try two pitching heights. The first, at 120cm looked like this:

TRINNIE SET AT 120CM – CLICK TO ENLARGE

 

TRINNIE SET AT 120CM – CLICK TO ENLARGE

It’s not a brilliant pitch, and it took me about fifteen minutes to get her this bad. I was trying for a high pitch assuming normal poor (not horrid) weather, so Trinnie is staked close to the ground. It seems pitched like this the doorway tunnel stands up proud from the flank, so I think it will catch the wind and we’ll be buffeted. However the doorway is quite tall, if a touch narrow.

So, on my next stroll through the Park I decided to try her at 110cm. This is how she looked:

TRINNIE SET AT 110CM – CLICK TO ENLARGE

 

TRINNIE SET AT 110CM – CLICK TO ENLARGE

 

TRINNIE SET AT 110CM – CLICK TO ENLARGE

Again, I’ve set her quite close to the ground assuming poor weather. This time she looks quite a bit better, with fewer wrinkles, and from emptying her from my pack it took nine minutes to get her to this state, which is better, but certainly not quick enough if it’s peeing down with rain.

At this height the doorway tunnel is virtually flush with the her flanks which should make for a quieter night. Even thought the doorway is very slightly lower it’s more useable because of the increased width. Trinnie looks to be considerably more aerodynamic at this height with quite shallow angles, whilst still giving decent headroom inside.

I was interested to see how much load the central pole was taking, and trying to lift it when pitched showed that it was quite considerable. This led me to wonder if the pole will sink into peaty soils in stormy weather and so I’ve come up with a solution to that; I’ve punched a hole in the centre of an aluminium Jameson whiskey carton top so that the pole basket sits snugly on top. This lid is 92mm in diameter and has quite a deep rim so is very stiff. It has a surface area of 6645 sq.mm. My Leki pole basket has a diameter of 50mm, so an area of 1964 sq.mm. So using the whisky top gives well over three times the surface area, so hopefully more chance of resisting being shoved down into a peaty soil. It weighs 19 grams.

JAMESON WHISKEY LID SPREADER

Robin has come up with another neat idea – tying a nylon loop of cord to the apex grosgrain loop to help packing in high winds; it will give me something positive to hang onto so Trinnie won’t end up in the North Sea two weeks before I do:

ROBIN EVANS’ PICTURE – THANKS ROBIN

My next experiment will be to move the door position when Trinnie’s pitched with Oook installed – which will be pretty useful should the wind direction veer through 180 in the middle of the night. The theory’s fine… and I need to get Trinnie up in good order in two or three minutes.

Getting there.