​Tripping Truck Tarp Solution

[Guest]

Since I always have at least one boat on the roof racks my current awning thought is this; a tarp over the canoe(s), long enough to stake out /------\ angled off the sides, with a couple feet of guy line at each corner so the tarp sides are a few feet off the ground, to allow breeze in along the sides.


So, a simple urethane coated nylon tarp seems a minimalist KISS truck tarp solution; one tarp with corner guylines and four stakes, done and done. If it was a light color for heat reflection the truck bed shade might help on high summer sun days as well.

Back to the drawing board. I need to pull out some flat tarps to check size and etc, and if that solution seems viable find one in white or silver or light tan.

I didn’t like any of our flat tarps, not the blue poly ones (bug blue, and too big in storage) and not the old dark green coated nylon 9x9 (dark green, poorly made cloth tie outs and getting kinda small for sufficient side window coverage). The big sil-nylon Tundra Tarp would work, but I’d really like something a bit smaller and reversible reflective.

I found this, light green on one side, reflective silver on the other:





https://www.amazon.com/YUEDGE-Porta...sr=8-19-spons&keywords=nylon+tarp+12x12&psc=1

I was loath to spend $30 on yet another tarp, but when it went on sale and I hadn’t found a better alternative, I ordered one. It packs small, and weighs 2 lbs, 2 oz including the guy lines and stakes. I added two bigger Groundhog stakes for a total of 6, and a bigger stuff bag for storage easy with nestled poles inside the bag.

It arrived just in time for a perfect couple days of test weather, starting with a full day of 85F and blazingly sunny.





The Day 1 test results:
Rainfly “awning” over windows? Check, I’ll know in the blowy rain.
Rainfly extended out past tailgate/cap door end for dry entry/exit or cap door screen use? Check.
Sun reflective material? CheckFreakingPlus. That was the unexpected biggie in effectiveness. It was, if I may, “Yuge”. Or Yuedge. Or bigly heat reflective.

That “portable carport” had been on for a few sunny 85F hours with the tailgate & cap door closed and just the side windows open, and when I crawled inside it was already noticeably cooler inside than usual on summer sun days.

8 hours baking in the no shade sun and the cap interior was still at tolerable temps. A reflective truck tarp is the way to go, even more so if you have a dark colored truck and cap.

Hikers carry Sunbrellas on desert treks to good effect; I would have loved a sunbrella truck tarp in Escalante or atop Muley Point, rather than move the chair every 30 minutes as that minimal shade shifted and disappeared.



Or, in the other weather guise, a quickly deployed rainfly while hunkered down under suddenly ominous skies in Onion Creek. I really like the no-pole guise for quick setup, and the stern overhang of the canoes is near perfect for tailgate tarp coverage.



With boats on the racks the reflective tarp is held well away from the roof, allowing a shaded breezeway void, and the hulls make for a helluva solid “centerline”.

I have never had a polyester tarp before and have no idea how well it will hold up. At least it is reflecting the UV, which can only help with tarp longevity. 10x10 is big enough to cover the side windows and tailgate end, but 12x12 would be better. (I would have ordered a 12x12, but couldn’t find one that size/packability in a light or reflective color)

Six tie points, which the Yuedge has, turned out to be far better than just four corners; guying out the sides in the middle prevented the truck tarp from flapping in the breeze and kept the fly further from the windows. Yes, I set it up in the wrong orientation the first time with the center guylines at the bumper ends, and had to unstake it and pivot it 90 degrees.

Good practice, and I think with a short learning curve I could deploy that over-boat carport tarp in minutes.

The guy lines are long enough to pull the tarp across into approximate coverage positionon the far side, so the set up is actually pretty easy, even solo in a gusty breeze. I just wrapped the corner guy lines around the crossbars so the tarp was loosely held in place, and then adjusted the lines angled out and staked in.

Having the crossbars available to loosely secure the guy lines was a considerable help solo, since none of the corners could flapfly loose in the wind while I staked out the tarp. With a partner staking out the other side that over-boat carport would go up in 3 minutes.

I like the six stakes/no poles guise, but I found two old tarp poles that nestle Russian Doll style, so if I wanted to offset the tarp to one side of the truck for some shady chair sitting and beer drinki……I mean journal writing entries. . . . .I could easily make a 10 foot sunbrella off one side. Just guy line off to the far side crossbars with 4 feet of loose line and stretch that reflective tarp out for 8 or 9 feet of shade along the side of the truck. And wish I’d bought more ice, or a better pen.



Day 2 was the rain test; near record highs with wind and thunderstorms. I camped out in the front yard for a few hours with the side windows open in the swirling rain.

It didn’t blow as hard as I would have liked (words you seldom hear from a paddler), but with the truck exposed to the wind and rain everything worked. Side windows open, dry. Cap door open, dry. Tailgate down was blowy wet on the outside edges, but the middle was still butt scooting exit dry.

That thing is coming on every truck trip, side poles in the stuff bag too. The reflective side might even be helpful in the cold if installed reflective side facing down.

If you have a dark colored truck/cap and sometimes beach/desert/etc camp a sun reflective tarp is absolutely the way to go. And a 12x12 would be better.



Coming on every trip, rain or shine.

 

[Guest]

I left the truck tarp up for an extra day. The forecast called for gusts to 35. We got that and then some; it blew an upstairs house screen out of the window.

A couple of the “one-star” reviews on that tarp complained of tie down failure. They look well stitched to me and so far, so good, even with some high wind tarp flappage abuse, which was quickly no-pole re-stake remedied.

The tapered/rockered stern of the canoes centerline makes getting a taut edge, or at least a directionally windproof edge, staked out specific. Fortunately in that simple no-pole set up it is fast and easy to unstake, adjust and restake as the front moves through.

What worked, with high wind orientation from the front quarters of the truck, was to snug the sides down a bit closer to the ground and make a two re-stake narrower tunnel boat tail entrance at the tailgate end.

I didn’t think to take photos, but with truck facing the wind and the side windows and cap door open, there was a fascinating exhaust vortex at the tunnel entrance. In the name of full experimentation I sat in the bed, make some smoke rings and pondered the meaning of life and the swirling pass-though ventilation suck.

Most fun I’ve had in the cap bed in months. I was happy and comfy back there, kinda didn’t want to leave.

The overboat tarp should be fun to continue experimenting with in sundry directional wind and rain.

“Is this the best you got? BWAHAHAHA!”

 

[latremorej]

I love it! At least I'm not the only one drawing the "wierdo" stares from the neighbors or wife while testing stuff out in the yard!

I'm gonna have to order that tarp!

Jason

 

[Bothwell Voyageur]

You can't buy that much fabric for that price. Get it now before the Donald tries to put an import tax on "made in China!"

Polyester doesn't stretch in the wet and is more UV stable than nylon so should be good.

Silver side up as a groundsheet in the cold may help to stop radiant heat going down same as you are doing with the sun! We have found that covering the floor in our canvas winter tent definitely makes things warmer.

 

[Guest]

Polyester doesn't stretch in the wet and is more UV stable than nylon so should be good.

Silver side up as a groundsheet in the cold may help to stop radiant heat going down same as you are doing with the sun! We have found that covering the floor in our canvas winter tent definitely makes things warmer.

Thanks for those words of encouragement on that frugal polyester truck tarp selection.

I searched far and wide for a 10x10 or 12x12 with a light colored or reflective side. I could easily find poly plastic in white, and even reflective silver, but having test installed a couple of blue poly basement junkers for a trial fit knew I wanted something that packed smaller and lighter.

That Yuedge was the only suitable candidate I found, and a reflective side out now seems the way to go for that summer shade heat reduction purposes when installed as a raised carport atop the boats.

I am not overly concerned with heat retention. I like it cold, at least nighttime sleepwise; although I will eventually try setting it up green side exposed in winter sun. In that guise a darker green would be better. Can’t have everything, and light green is at least better than bug-blue.

I have no idea where it was made, there is no country of origin on the mgf tag; Youedge seems defunct as a company, so China, Viet Nam, Micronesia, Marianas, who knows? If they are leftovers from a failed venture that might explain the

You can't buy that much fabric for that price.

If that’s the case I’m glad I (somewhat reluctantly, sight unseen) pulled the trigger on it. In the futurestance possibility that I be hard pressed to replace it I may, despite my hatred of sewing, hand stitching some additional thread into the tie down loops/tarp edging. Better prophylacticly at home than in-the-field bustedas the rain and wind swirl.

I am very impressed with how much cooler the under cap living space was with a reflective tarp cover over the boats, I presume the reflective silver makes it cooler than using a white or light tan tarp. Looking at those noonday sun photos almost all of truck bed is shaded, but using a 12x12 would provide even more shade awning in that over-boat guise, especially when the sun is not almost directly overhead.

Staked out sans poles the 10x10 was big enough to provide sufficient rainfly over the tailgate end and was just wide enough to shade the sidebody of the bed down to the underside. Another foot or so of reflective tarp on each side would be handy with a lower sun angles.

And another couple feet longer would be handy as well. A 12x12 would reach all the way forward to the cab doors, providing a better rainfly loggia when wandering truck side to fetch or move things from cab to bed and, most importantly, span the entire cap roofline and then some.



I had some water running down the inclined cap roof from front to back in the breezy rain, and used a minicel yoga block between the cap door and canoe stems to hold the door angled downwards for drip direction. Tailgate closed that worked fairly well, but I’d rather have no rain drops running down the cap roof.

(I have tried bungees and strap hooks to hold that cap door downward angle, but I finally found a use for one of those cheap minicel yoga blocks. Poke a hole in it, add a piece of line and clip it to one of the canoes so it doesn’t blow away when dangling cap door closed free. Much easier than using straps or bungees. And I was never gonna add purple minicel to any canoe outfitting)
(Never say never)

Any longer than 12x12 would start to center “ridgeline” rest across the bow rocker of the canoes, which might present irresolvable flapping issues up front.

Depending on truck model, cap height and canoe dimensions YMMV.

 

[Guest]

If anyone is interested in that reflective Yuedge tarp it is 10% off again on Amazon.

 

[Odyssey]

Yesterday I saw an ad for a pop-up truck camper tent type of thing, all motorized of course for simplicity and ease of operation. I immediately thought of Mike and this thread, but with my fingers hovering above the cut and paste buttons suddenly realized "where do the canoes go?" Alas, there was no room for those essentials anywhere. But what I did take away from that expensive contraption ( it did look nice TBH) was the idea of a roll- out awning. Or two. Or three; one in rear and one on each side? The flip up cap windowed door ( let's call it a cap flap ) might interfere with the awning, so adjustments to that configuration are needed. Remember those pull down maps at school? The ones tightly rolled up above the blackboard, and would jam and cause the teacher frustration trying to tug and recoil the world back up again? Maybe I just talked ourselves out of the idea. Anyway, a "retractible back porch awning" is my humble idea for this inventive work in progress. And if it has a map on it ( ours had the Commonwealth countries of the world ) way cool and way better. The cap flap is the problem here. Maybe replace the opening with velcro-ed and zippered screen and fly fabrics? The flap would need to be easily removed and re-installed for some kind of security. From the inside of course. Simple hinges held with lock pins? The retractible awnings must be portable as well. Hmmm, thinking you might need a bigger truck.