Aaargh! Disaster! Help for a numpty please!

[chipmonkey]

But at least it was only in the back garden. We pitched our new tent in the garden overnight to practice before bringing it anywhere else. Ds1, ds2 and ds3 camped in it overnight but we left the back door of the house open so they could come in if need be.
Ds3 appeared at my bedside in the small hours saying that part of the tent had collapsed! We told them all to come back indoors and that we would sort the tent out in the morning.
But this morning it had totally collapsed!
Now I know I didn't peg it properly. But the instructions that came with it were woefully bad and seemed to assume that you actually knew something about pitching a tent which I really don't, the only other tent we own is a Quechua pop-up which is not really like pitching a tent at all.
It's a tunnel tent, Skandika Saturn 6 which as far as I can see is a copy of the Outwell Montana 6.
So for example the instructions say to make sure the guylines are taut but don't tell you how to make them taut. It also didn't mention that the base of the SIG needs to be pegged down, obviously that should be a no-brainer and I did put some pegs in some loops at the edges but a lot of them came back up again.
I have a bunch of pegs, some small ones like <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=www.surplusandoutdoors.com/images/product/main/ALLOY-7-PEG-PAK10.jpg&imgrefurl=www.surplusandoutdoors.com/shop/camping-equipment/spares-accessories/lightweight-7-inch-alloy-tent-534550.html&h=375&w=450&sz=25&tbnid=Te9tsBcJLBYaQM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=108&zoom=1&docid=l4sFE8-x4Um9YM&sa=X&ei=r-GnT_OlCsO7hAfSsozHAg&ved=0CHgQ9QEwAA&dur=188" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this and some flatter ones with a hole in them but I don't know which are for where, IYKWIM.
Can anyone direct me to some videos or manuals which assume that you are a numpty or at least give me an idea of what to look for?

Haven't got this kind of tent myself but I would have thought that the SIG should be pegged down so it lies flat Use all the loops on it or it will move. Peg it down but pushing the pegs in vertically and use a rubber or wooden mallet.
Guy ropes need to be secured by pegs pushed in at an angle and again using a mallet to get them well in. Pull the guys taught by pushing the metal clip up the guy and then twist the guy over it so it is secured.
Not certain which pegs are for which job for your tent but in general, the larger ones are for guys.
Usually guys are pulled out in line with the seam they come off , if there is only one, as an angle can put tension on the seam. If there are two on a corner for example, pull them out at approx 45 degrees.

Outwell I think are one of the companies that supply a 'how-to' video online, might be worth trawling their website, the Montana design has been copied by quite a few other companies as it's really rather good.

Did you get a 'footprint' groundsheet as well? Well worth the extra £30, if skandica supply it.

No, no footprint, I will look into seeing if they do one but I seem to remember looking for one before I bought the tent and not being able to find one. We have put it back up again so will see if it stays standing this time! The thing is, I am a stickler for instructions and can normally follow them well enough but these were far from adequate. As was the youtube video which makes it look as if the whole thing goes up in five minutes and totally skips the important details. Lots of lovely rolling up windows but nothing on pegging the thing down!

Looks like trial and error in the back garden is your only way ahead if the only video you can find is such rubbish. At least there's plenty of bad weather for testing it against at the moment

Very true! It's still up now and ds1 asked to sleep in it again ( glutton for punishment!) but I have said if it's still standing by Wednesday, I might consider letting them sleep in it.

Not saying your kids aren't angels or anything, but is it possible that they were playing a bit rough in there and that 'helped' the collapse? :o

Normal guyropes these days have fancy plastic things on them that you pull higher up the guyrope until the rope is taut, then you kind of flip them to lock them into place. It may be that you pulled them taut, but didn't lock them, so they gradually loosened through the night due to boisterous behaviour high winds and so collapsed.

Flubba, the only one of my dc's who is an angel is dd but she's in Heaven so that's her job!
The boys are far from angels so it's possible that they could have been a bit boisterous, I wouldn't put it past them but I really think if the tent had started to sway a bit, ds1 hopefully would have had the common sense to calm everyone down ( he's 15)

I remember reading about your little baby girl :( Maybe she sent high winds to her brothers to test their resilience?

Another thing to check is that the ends of the poles were firmly in their sockets? - if they slipped out at all, that would definitely lead to a collapse.

no, when we put it back up, the poles were all connected correctly, so it looks like just an issue with it not being secured down.
Flubba, the pegs for the guylines ( or at least I think they're the ones for the guylines are kind of flat with a little hole in them. Are you supposed to knot the guyling and put the string through the hole?

Do they look anything like this ?

I'm itching to pop round and have a look at your tent, I cannot visualise 'kind of flat with a little hole'. Where are you... or more sensibly send some photos?

These ones sound like they fit the description better. The other ones I showed a pic of are the kind I was talking about that kind of 'flip' to lock.

If you've got the flat kind, it might be worth looking at this guide which has this description further down the page;

" ^The guy rope goes through the two holes as shown in the left hand picture. Note that the 'tent' cord comes out on the same side of the toggle as the 'peg' cord. This is critical. In practice this gives about one and a half turns of distributed friction.

In use, the loop at the end of the 'peg' end is hooked over the peg in the ground and the 'free' end is pulled to tighten the guy rope. It may help to pull the guy rope anchor point on the tent out by hand a bit while doing this, to minimise tension on the toggle. When the guy rope is tight enough the 'free' end is 'wound around the toggle': it is passed between the toggle and the 'tent' cord and then between the toggle and the 'peg' cord. A single turn around the toggle is shown in the right hand picture. The tension in the guy rope will pull the 'tent' cord and the 'peg' cords against the toggle, and this will grab the 'free' end where it goes between those cords and the toggle. This puts an initial holding force in the 'free' end.

This initial holding force is quite low, so by itself it can impart only a low initial tension to the guy rope. However, this low initial holding force is then multiplied up by the distributed friction in the wrap around the two holes in the toggle, in the standard 'rope around a bollard' manner. The multiplying factor is a function of the total angle of wrap, which is about 1.5 revolutions here. This is a fair bit of wrap, and the multiplication factor is high. It should also be noted that as the tension in the guy rope goes up, so does the force between the 'tent' end and the toggle (ditto for the 'peg' end'). In a way, the arrangement increases its own holding power as the load increases.^ "

Sorry, Flubba, I was talking about the metal pegs which go into the ground that the guy-ropes attach to. which are long but flatter with a small hook on the top and a little hole just underneath the hook part.

fuss I would love to invite you round but I'm in Ireland so you might have a bit of a journey!

And Flubby, UKcampsite is actually where I should be looking for all this info, isn't it!

No, no - MN has all the answers (or not, in this case!) ). My pegs don't have a hole in them, so don't think that's necessary although it couldn't hurt. Are you making sure the hooks are facing outwards (away from the tent) so that the ropes can't slip off?

(Sorry if my comment about your baby girl was inappropriate earlier).

insensitive, rather.

no, not inappropriate at all. Funny enough, I think she does play little tricks on us but I worry that if I say that, people will think I've lost it, slightly! Ds1 is fairly sure she messes with his radio and guitar amp.

I had been hoping that it would go up easily this weekend and that we could go away on the June bank holiday but it looks like we'll need a lot more practice.

Still standing this morning, yay!

Yay! :)