Skeeter Beeter Modification

     As my kids have aged, the whole "family in the same tent" thing was jettisoned years ago in favor of individual tents for the children, with my wife and myself in a larger tent by ourselves. Now, with a college-age son and another kid closing in on the final year of his high school career, the outdoor trips are mostly backpacking with myself and the kids or with my friends, where everyone carries their own gear.  My better half has decided that she would prefer a well hewn log cabin these days to a tent, so most of our "couple trips" are day hikes with a nice bed and a bottle of wine at the end of the day. Not surprisingly, this has led to a transition into hammock camping on solo trips, which provides a multitude of pitching options and an increase in the comfort level of my overnights. I've become a connoisseur of different hammocks over the years, but I'll save that discussion for another post. This post concerns the Grand Trunk Skeeter Beeter Pro (SBP) and an easy modification that makes it much more enjoyable. If you can find one on sale, you really can't beat it, pun intended.
      I picked up my SBP for $40 and it's a great hammock. Big, roomy, well-made, and a great value for a hammock with a bug net. The problem? The bug netting doesn't have the best system for keeping it out of your face and off your body. There's no ridgeline but there are 4 tabs sewn on the outside of the netting designed to lift the net off of the hammock body with small diameter bungee cords. In theory, it's a great idea. The problem is that in real life you can't always find separate trees or branches to tie out those tabs. If you tie it to the tree with your hammock suspension, the extra netting between tabs ends up all over you.

That's where a ridgeline comes in to save the day on the SBP.  What follows is an explanation of how to insert an adjustable ridgeline into the Skeeter Beeter with no sewing and a minimum of fuss.

     I went to one end of the hammock and applied a circular piece of Flex Seal Tape to both the inside and outside of the hammock netting, sort of glued to each other near the center line. Then, I used a drill to put a hole through the center of the tape (I think I would use a soldering iron next time to burn it through, less difficult) and cleaned up the hole with a rubber grommet (1/8") as you can see in the picture.  I repeated this procedure on the other side of the hammock as well.

Then I simply ran my ridgeline through the grommet, around the gathered end of the hammock, and back through the grommet where I tied an adjustable hitch around itself on the inside of the netting. This allows the ridgeline to be adjusted as needed. The ridgeline from one side to the other was about 105 inches without the overlap on the inside. What you see below is the final product, hanging in the basement from eyelets in the wall (ignore the mess in the workout room). When laying diagonally, the netting is just about where it should be.