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Hi I hope someone in here can help me. I am looking into buying a canvas tent but love my Tunnel therefore a combination of the two would be great could anyone advise on any good 6-8 berth canvas tunnel tents....

Also when the specs state polycotton is this basically canvas or is this some kind of hybrid cotton/polyester material. I was under the impression (please correct me if i have this wrong) that a canvas tent was 100% cotton.......

I am a bit confused, as you can probably tell.

Hope you can help.......

Khyam do the Indianna 8 tunnel tent in Poly cotton. I think its canvas coated in Polyester on the inside. The exterior would have to be reproofed every few years like an all canvas tent.

Carol

Magicaly

This is the one I have loked at, Are all canvas tents polyester coated inside then??

Dont know Melpa. I only know about this one because we saw it up at our local supplier late last year and we are considering replacing our 6 berth Yale and our canvas frame tent with one. We only use the frame tent in France because it is cooler than a poly tent. It would be nice to have the one tent we could use here and abroad which would also give us many years of camping. The dealer said that although the inside is coated it is still breathable so it would be just as cool in a hot climate. I dont know if all polycotton tents are the same though. We love tunnel tents and our Yale has been a good buy. I would happily buy another Khyam again. We saw it up at Outdoor World in Bootle.

Carol

hi

im joining this discussion rather late.  i think polycotton is a (usually) 70%polyester 30%cotton blend.  supposed to be breathable but i'd guess not as good as pure cotton.  www.outwell.co.uk explains its outtex airtech fabric on its site under outwell details.  says it has a water repellent coating on outside, and then fibres swell up when wet like cotton to plug holes and make it waterproof.

hope this helps.

anyone know of any other polycotton family tents apart from khyam indiana 8 TC and outwell classic range?

thanks

thanks Pager

I'll just go and look at that now.

We had a Khyam Indianna 8 TC which we bought recently and I wouldn't recommend it.  We took it on one holiday and one of the poles split the second time we put it up and the other poles on close inspection looked like they would go the same way.  I can't see any advantage to polycotton over the canvas, the canvas seems like a much better product and isn't any heavier.

It wasn't coated with anything obvious like a layer of polyester, it just looked like cotton but was mixed fibres I suppose.  It seemed to absorb the rain but did not leak so this was not a problem. 

Hi Pager

Youre right.  I spoke to them and they've all gone.  Who would have thought buying a tent would be so difficult.  I had pretty much made my mind up to get a cabanon frame athena/ aruba type, but after one camping trip in the summer, I am going away the next day (not camping) and am worried about it being ruined if it was wet when taking down.  I will have nowhere to dry it then as leaving from a flat, no garden.  If I was at home would be ok as I have a garden, but just this once I wouldnt. I don't want to risk ruining a lovely (and v. expensive) new tent.  I think I probably need 2 tents, but I really don't want to have to get 2, and I don't want to buy something that doesn't really suit me, just for the sake of that one trip.  I thought that with a  polycotton one, I could just spread it out in the room if wet and it would dry eventually and wouldn't have to worry about shrinkage.  Dilemma.

Happycamper36,

We recently took our Bear Lake for its first pitch on the weekend where it rained cats and dogs on the last day. We had to take the tent down in the rain and pack it up soaking wet. As our garden isn't big enough to pitch it in we just spread it out the best we could over a stepladder. Within half an hour it was dry. This is the big advantage over canvas as drying would have taken ages with a proper canvas tent.

Hi StevieE

Thats great to hear.  I think I will go and buy one now.  Going camping in 2 weeks, so I can't afford to dither any more.  It still feels like such a big decision though.  What did you think about the time to pitch for a weekend?  Most of our camping would be 2/3 nights.  How long did it take you the first time, and do you think you would get quicker.  Thanks.