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 Topic: Feeling frustrated with new tent
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03/8/2015 at 9:15pm
Location: Leicestershire
Outfit: Karsten 380 Veranda
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Joined: 06/8/2013 Diamond Member 
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Betematty, I think it would be very unlikely for the actual tent fly sheet to have been made to the wrong size, and as you say you pulled it all tight and pegged the 4 corners first using the footprint as a template, so everything will be square on the ground. Assuming you are on a flat pitch and the air pressure in the beams is correct, the only cause I can see is the beams in their sleeves.
The Vango airbeams are not perfect semi circles when blown up (looking at the tent front on), they are shaped to be more vertical on the sides with a noticeable kink at head height before they curve into the middle. If they are not fully unrolled and sitting straight in their sleeves, they will pull the tent all out of shape. Not only will they be too short, but all the curved parts of the beam will not be sitting in their intended position.
The way the beams are constructed is that you have an outer sleeve, which is part of the Polycotton tent fabric and essentially this is holding the beam to the tent. Unzipping this is totally safe as long as you have let the beam down to be pretty soft for the reason mentioned above. You then have the inner beam sleeve. If you totally removed the beam from the tent it would be zipped into this sleeve still. This is normally grey polyester, like groundsheet material. It should have a plastic tag holding the zip shut so you cannot unzip it by mistake. That should only ever be unzipped with the beam out of the tent and fully deflated. Inside that sleeve is the plastic air bladder itself.
Totally understand your concern at attempting this in the field, and abroad to boot. I had a wonky beam in our Outwell Harrier and had to unzip the outer sleeve fully and man handle the beam into the correct shape so it was sitting happily in the sleeve. I was in our garden but did it with great trepidation! You could always just unzip 30 cm at the bottom of the beam and peep in and see if there are obvious folds at the bottom of it. You will then know you have found the cause and can fix at home if you can live with it for the rest of the trip.
As to quality, our Harrier XL was, like your tent, the best part of £2000 and for that price I needed to feel like it was going to last 10 years plus. I didn't get that feeling at all, and so sold it after a years use and bought a Karsten. It's full canvas and inflatable still. In terms of quality it really is a case of night and day.
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