My offering for an emergency controlled recovery of a wind out awning. Cheap, lightweight, quick to deploy and easy to create and install.
Ingredients; one 5m cam buckle tie down strap, one length of same width webbing strap ideally 10m, x2 carabiner D-ring wire gate 80mm, x2 T-track bolt 6M thread , x2 lifting loop 6M female stainless, x2 6M stainless washers, one wire coat hanger.
Construction; undo the end caps from the awning rail and insert T-track bolts securing them with the lifting loop and washer ensuring they don’t snag the awning arms when fully wound in. Take the tie down strap and tie to make a loop at the free end. Make a loop at one end of the length of webbing. Attach a carabiner to each loop. With the wire coat hanger make a gently curved length about 30 cm then make a 2m hook at one end a bend on the other to give control handling it.
Deployment; (hopefully you have storm tie downs but this should work anyway without). Attach the carabiners to the installed loops at each end of the rail with the cam buckle strap at the front. Loop the straps around the spokes of the respective wheels with the coat hanger tool and thread the strap from the back through the cam buckle and pull to take up all the slack. You now have a degree of control and can wind in the awning while pulling in your new straps and loosening the tie downs incrementally. A helping hand would be very useful. Don’t forget to detach the carabiners while you can still reach them before fully stowing the awning. I chose the wire gate carabiners as they were the easiest to get on and off. They need to be strong, not the lightweight key ring type.
Refer to the photos before starting to see how it all goes together.
I confess I have not used this for real, but I nearly lost my awning on my first camping trip and think it would’ve saved me from disaster if the wind had been any stronger
Ingredients; one 5m cam buckle tie down strap, one length of same width webbing strap ideally 10m, x2 carabiner D-ring wire gate 80mm, x2 T-track bolt 6M thread , x2 lifting loop 6M female stainless, x2 6M stainless washers, one wire coat hanger.
Construction; undo the end caps from the awning rail and insert T-track bolts securing them with the lifting loop and washer ensuring they don’t snag the awning arms when fully wound in. Take the tie down strap and tie to make a loop at the free end. Make a loop at one end of the length of webbing. Attach a carabiner to each loop. With the wire coat hanger make a gently curved length about 30 cm then make a 2m hook at one end a bend on the other to give control handling it.
Deployment; (hopefully you have storm tie downs but this should work anyway without). Attach the carabiners to the installed loops at each end of the rail with the cam buckle strap at the front. Loop the straps around the spokes of the respective wheels with the coat hanger tool and thread the strap from the back through the cam buckle and pull to take up all the slack. You now have a degree of control and can wind in the awning while pulling in your new straps and loosening the tie downs incrementally. A helping hand would be very useful. Don’t forget to detach the carabiners while you can still reach them before fully stowing the awning. I chose the wire gate carabiners as they were the easiest to get on and off. They need to be strong, not the lightweight key ring type.
Refer to the photos before starting to see how it all goes together.
I confess I have not used this for real, but I nearly lost my awning on my first camping trip and think it would’ve saved me from disaster if the wind had been any stronger
