Ouch! Hilleberg Keron 3 GT Fail!

[Swifty]

Well, not the tent, but the pole, second from the foot end, snapped on the second segment up off the ground on the slightly leeward side in winds gusting to 40 knots.
The guy ropes were secured to large rocks and everything looked OK. The tent had been up for a few hours and everything was going OK, bum pointed into the wind etc. There may have been some bounce at the bottom of the pole in the gusts, which I suppose was a major contributor to the breakage.

How do I know 40 knots? My anenometer was located about 30 meters away and recording at the time. I suspect the gust was higher than the recorded 40 knots.

Following the pole break, the tent was completely lifted off ground, guys pulled off rock moorings, fortunately the tent snagged on other obstacles 30 meters downwind and was retrieved. The tent was empty at the time.

My companion, also in a Keron 3 GT 20 meters upwind of me, had no such issues.

Still it was a concern to me, we were in a group with many tents so I wasn't in danger (freezing temperatures each night) but had I been by myself it might be a different story. I guess I will double up on the poles for such conditions in the future.

Anyone else had a pole break on a Hilleberg? Also, we were in a very dusty environment, I guess the tent has been used for 30 days total, and there are small perforations developing in the pole sleeves, quite noticeable.

[andrewa]

No, never had an aluminium tent pole break , regardless of whether Hilleberg or other. But obviously it happens, which is why there's a spare tent pole section in with the Hilleberg poles ( it's not just there to weigh down the stuff sack!!). I understand that they most commonly break near the ferrules if not joined tightly, but if it was mid shaft, then that is obviously irrelevant. I've had my Nallo in 80-90kmh wind, and, whilst noisy, there were no other issues. One last thing, when pegging a tent out, you only need enough tension to minimise pole movement - not so much that it distorts the poles.

A

[Franco]

Several reasons why I pole section can fail.
The commonest is not having the ferrule fully inserted but it can simply be that the wind force exceeded the flex they can handle. (tensile strength)
Other common reasons are poles that have been dropped or banged onto something hard (one may not be aware that it has happened) or that the wall of the pole section was a bit thinner in one spot.

[Chezza]

It would be good if you could post pictures of the failed pole segment, and pictures of the pitch if you have them. Video of the incident would be even better! It's hard to say why it failed without seeing the pitch and the broken pole segment.

I'll take a wild guess, though. You mention bouncing at the bottom of the poles. I imagine this means you did not have (big) rocks on top of the loops at the feet of the poles. If so, that would mean a lot of the sideways load on the poles was passing through the lateral guy-lines, and very little was being reacted through the pole arch structure into the ground at the feet of the poles (especially if the wind was lifting the tent off the ground a little and/or you did not have much lengthwise tension). If that's the case, the stresses around where the guy-lines meet the pole would be quite high. Combine that with any of the things Franco mentioned and you could easily have a failure.

[Mark F]

Often the most destructive winds for tent poles are vertical rather than horizontal. These can be from microbursts or eddies in the lee of rocks etc. Most tent guying isn't designed to work with vertical forces unless you have internal cross bracing.

[Franco]

Downdraught.
This is why, if possible, bushes are a better wind brake than large trees or rocks

downdraught.jpg (15.63 KiB) Viewed 3538 times