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Hi Sawbo!  Welcome to UKCS!

We had to take our canvas ridge tent down in torrential rain many years ago, and the footwells of our Morris Marina were like twin paddling-pools.  I'm afraid it was autumn, and the rain continued for weeks, so the poor car and tent were never the same again.  My best bit of advice would be to line your boot with big plastic sheets before you set off camping... or stow some rolled-up plastic under the seats or somewhere.  We use the mattress bag which came with a new bed ten years ago.  It's intact, so no water leaks out even if the tent is soaked.  We just pile the whole flysheet and SIG into that, and the car at least is safe.

Drying is also a problem here, as our rooms are too small to dry a tent properly.  If all else fails, I would put the tent up in the garden and just wait for the rain to stop.  It might take a few days, but you have air around the tent, so it shouldn't go mouldy.

If no good weather is expected in the near future, then you have to resort to other methods, and some of those already described are good.  Here's where a good fan heater and a dehumidifier can be really useful!  I believe your Monty 6 flysheet is made of Outtex, which I think is a man-made fabric, so it should dry out quickly.  This is one of the reasons a lot of people (myself included) go for poly fabrics rather than heavy canvas.

Nice tent!  Have fun camping!

FoO

Interesting reading.......paused the tv to tell OH about the tip to line boot with protection first before heading off on tripm (thank you FriendofOwls).  This has been concerning me as it is inevitable it will be raining for our first camping trip cos it is August Bank Holiday. 

Apparently I pause the tv alot to tell OH stuff from the site - so am very grateful to all the members that have given advice/hints/tips and above all made me laugh with their humour and dry comments. 

Jewels

We did some touring recently with a lot of wet pitching and packing away. We didn't have a lot of space so needed the tent to go back in its bag. We've also brought our large tents home wet quite a few times. Its certainly worth finding some very large strong bin bags/rubble bags/similar as you can pack your tent up in one of these, separate out the dry inners from the wet flysheet and also pack away the wet poles. Our tips would be:

• put on full waterproofs or strip down and change in the shower block before you leave
• shake the tent firmly several times as you unpeg and take it down to shed off the worst of the water
• keep the doors shut as much as possible
• if its a tent you pack away by folding inwards, don't, as moisture from the outside of the flysheet gets trapped in the middle of the roll and will seep through the doorways to the inside of the flysheet getting the whole tent wet. Fold the tent so that the doors are on the outside of the roll - i.e. in half and half again keeping the doors on the outside
• if you can, its worth tipping the tent to the side after each fold and shaking it to get as much moisture off as you can (with door openings downwards)
• roll the tent as quickly as possible and put into its bag (either into a plastic bag first) or encase the whole tent bag in a plastic bag. If too big then make a plastic craddle underneath the tent to stop everything else getting wet.
• Give the footprint groundsheet a good shake too before and as you fold it. This can go in a plastic bag too.

As said - you need to dry the tent as soon as possible. If touring we pitch it as soon as possible to let it dry. If we have a wet overnight tent from stopping off on the way to a main campsite, we pitch the big tent and spread it out to dry inside whilst we are out (which is very effective). At home we pitch the tent outside if we can the next day to reduce the moisture levels before finishing it off in the conservatory over several days turning it regularly. If its too wet for this, it goes in the bath and gets turned to drain and air until we can pitch it or its dry enough to go on a tarp in the conservatory to dry properly. Groundsheets are treated the same way or laid over the shower or a ladder in the garage to dry.

Poles and inner tents are also given an airing to make sure they are dry.

Its worth remembering that you need to dry both the inside and outside of the tent given rain and condensation. Putting chairs inside or turning the tent inside out will help if you can't pitch it to allow airflow through it.