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I bought a Khyam Canopied 4-Pole Windbreak from Outdoor Megastore last week. At the same time there was a discussion going on as to the merits or otherwise of this on UKCS so I decided to give it a trail run in the garden (as you should will all new tenty things!) and write up a little review with pictures.

Disclaimer! I`m not connected with either Khyam or UKCS in any capacity other than a satisfied customer, and as such the opinions expressed here are purely my own, okay?

The windbreak is a standard 3 panel design. Each panel is 175cm across and 140cm high. There is a clear viewing strip in each panel at viewing height while you`re sitting down. The roof section is stitched to the top of the middle wall section and is 125cm square. There are four awning type poles, each 160cm approx long, that are made up of three standard slot together sections, with a pointed end on the bottom section and a guyline spike at the other. There are also two longer poles made up of four shorter sections for the roof canopy, eight guylines with sliders and eight pegs.

No instructions, but it`s all fairly obvious. You assemble the upright poles, slot them into the windbreak channels, put the eyelets at the top of the fabric sections over the spikes, loop the guylines over the spikes and guy out. If you were using this just as a windbreak I would recommend not trying to do this in a straight line but in an L or U shape instead, to give stability.

The clever part comes with the roof section. If you arrange the side panels into three sides of a square, you can put the eyelets on the front corners of the roof onto the two front windbreak poles and make a cube.....well, a cuboid.

Yes, it`s a bit low if you`re tall. I`m 5`4" and I`m scraping my head. It`s pretty sheltered though and would be a pretty good place to cook. There are little velcro tabs along the tops of the side walls and the roof which hold the edges together. I`m not sure how they`d fare in a howling gale, but they`re not bad.
Also, because the roof is low, I`m not sure how I`d feel cooking on a standard height kitchen unit. I have a three-tier beanstalk though so I`ll use two sections of that. Or you could use a cooker with short legs.


To get more height of course you can tilt the canopy up, to 175cm at the front.

I`m not sure I`d use this arrangement for cooking in the rain, but for cooking in a fine but windy day it would be very pleasant.

If you wanted to add a sheltered but roofless dining area...



Or you could open both sides up to form a shallow curve and use it as a normal windbreak with a bit of shade attached. Or even roll the canopy back and clip it to the top edge of the windbreak.


All in all, very versatile piece of kit.

Ah, but is it sturdy? Well yes, as much as any of these tall thin nylon windbreaks with thin poles are. It`s better than my old Khyam windbreak with the fold over knuckle joints, certainly. The poles are just standard awning pole-out poles, but they can be guyed out very firmly. There`s only six guylines for the main windbreak though...two for each end pole and one each for the centre poles. I would add another couple of guylines here in very windy weather. I`ll reserve overall judgement untill I`ve seen it out in a good wind.

Another bad point, if you`ll pardon the pun, is the spike point on top of every pole. Now apparently if you attempt to pound the pole into the ground by hitting this spike top with your mallet, the spike will vanish into the pole. I didn`t do this though as I had read an inspired suggestion by "chrisowen" of UKCS who suggested putting a wooden cotton reel over the spike section before you started hammering in the poles. This worked like the proverbial charm and allowed me to hammer the poles solidly into the ground. Incidentally, if like me you get dizzy trying to hammer in awning poles taller than yourself, take a section or two out, hammer the lower sections in then reconstruct the pole.

What else? Oh, pegs. L-shaped pegs. I hate L-shaped pegs because given half a chance ie soft ground or not hammered in properly they rotate and the guyline slips off. I threw them into the junk peg box and replaced them with some good workaday crooktop wire pegs. Or you could use Deltas, I suppose?

I bought this windbreak/canopy because the campsite I`m going to next weekend doesn`t allow auxilliary tents of any type hence I can`t take my kitchen tent. I don`t like cooking in my main tent and I also don`t like cooking outside in a howling gale and tipping rain either. So I wanted something to provide me with a bit of shelter. I could have used a tarp roof plus a windbreak, but this looked a more elegant solution. So far, it`s living up to this.

How does it compare to a kitchen tent like my Sunncamp? ? On the plus side, it`s considerably cheaper, it packs to about 1/5 the size and it takes about half the time to put up. And I wouldn`t expect to be charged for it on site either. On the minus side it`s not got a door, it`s smaller and much lower and it`s not going to be as weatherproof or sturdy as the Suncamp with its internal frame.

But as a cooking shelter I think it`s going to prove very useful. I can see me taking this with me for lighter weight camping...I could see it working very well with a couple of pup tents for an overnight or weekend stop, or with a smaller weekend tent. Not everyone has space for a kitchen tent and a big windbreak in their car, and this would be a useful compromise..

Final verdict? Well, I`ll wait till I`ve taken it out next weekend for that. But so far it looks well worth the £22 approx I paid for it.