Anyone got a Sandstone XL 7m Bell Tent?

[nappyaddict]

Apparently Boutique Camping are getting some more in 9 weeks time and I'm hankering after one

No idea what that is. It I'd imagine it would be a beast to pitch/strike. Link please?

www.boutiquecamping.com/products/XL-7-Meter-Sandstone-Bell-Tent.html

50kgs! Looks like a normal bell tent on steriods! I wouldn't fancy trying to pitch it but if you have strong help and a large car it would probably be okay.

How will you dry it if it's raining when you're packing up to go home? Have you got a humongous garden?

Won't it be too big for most pitches? I should think alot of campsite owners would be a bit if you rocked up with that!

(can't say I've not been tempted myself, mind! )

Will it be that much bigger and heavier than the Emperor?

I thought the Emperor was smaller than 7m?

It's 6m x 4m I think?

Wow! I don't fancy getting the pole up in that!

We've just managed to dry our 5 metre canvas tent. It's taken 3 dry days to dry it out. Wet, it was impossible to move (blew over in a gale... Long story!)and took 2of us to drag it out of the puddle it was in to re-pitch it so it could dry out.

We used to have a 5m one like a soul pad, so heavy cotton , and upgraded to canvas. Only now seeing our big mistake...I just thought the 7m one might cause the same difficulty. There comes a point where the sheer bulk and weight if fabric is unmanageable.

Would you recommend cotton over canvas then?

I thought the soul pads were cotton canvas? Is there a difference between cotton canvas and canvas then?

The canvas of our new tent is really, really thick. Much thicker than our old one. It's supposed to be warmer, and I suppose there will be fewer draughts.

I couldn't really recommend one over the other, but I am beginning to wonder about the wisdom of buying the tent we've got. We were camping at my Mum's as a trial when the disaster struck, so it didn't matter that we had to drag the tent halfway across the lawn, and leave it up for half the week,

On a proper outing, if it was chucking down with rain, I don't think we'd be able to actually fold it up and get it packed into the trailer !

For comparison, the 7m Sandstone XL weighs 50kg. The 5m SoulPad Lite weighs 25kg. So when packing up, the 7m weighs twice as much (and probably takes up twice as much room!)