Kayaking

Feathercraft Kayaks joined together with hammocks mounted on deck in Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Canada

The Hennessy Hammock is a versatile piece of gear, and its compact size makes it reasonable to carry on a paddling trip. If you get stuck you will have a comfortable bivouac or place to retreat from insects and nasty weather.

The Hennessy Hammock weighs only 2.25 pounds (about 1 kg) and packs into a bag about the size of a loaf of bread. Tucked into a dry bag, it is very easy to pack, and cries out to be carried as standard equipment. It sets up so quickly that I find myself looking for excuses to set it up and crawl in.

It's easy to store in a gear hatch so that it will always be ready for an emergency shelter, a snap decision to spend the night out in the bush or a quickly set-up dry spot for a rest. When you're ready to continue on your journey "Snake Skins" make it quick and easy to take down and pack.

Because our hammocks do not require a flat spot, finding a site becomes much easier. On kayaking trips, you never know what kind of beach you'll be landing on that night because shorelines are often steep and rocky and sometimes covered with dense underbrush. With Hennessy Hammmocks, it's very simple to tie off to two trees above this dense ground cover with minimal damage to the local environment. No more paddling long after you're ready to set up camp because no suitable sites can been found!

Our hammocks can be used anywhere there are two trees or, in an emergency, even pitched as a tent on the ground with the use of two kayak paddles and some extra cord! The stealthy, low impact profile of the hammock disappears into the landscape in keeping with "Leave No Trace" objectives. No one will expect to see a shelter in an area which can't be used for tents.

In camp, you can use your fly alone as a dry or shady area. The hammock alone can also be used as a chair or lounger. And when it's time to sleep, the hammock provides a very comfortable and well-earned rest after a day of strenuous exercise.

Jungle, grassland, mountain, swamp... anywhere

In the Swamp in Louisiana

hammock over the swamp Zeuss, the Canoeing Canuck from Canada, on his expedition into the bayoux of Louisiana. He paddled over to a cypress tree and tied one rope to it. Then he paddled over to another tree and tied the second rope to it. Then he paddled under the hammock, lifted himself up straight up into the entrance, sat down in the hammock with the feet in the boat, tied off the bowline of the canoe to the inside of the hammock and took a snooze!

This works somewhat better than trying to find a place to spread out your foamy when there's no dry land to be had.

Letters from Kayak Campers

"By the way, I got my Hennessy Hammock. I was a bit leery about it when I opened the package, but I took it along. Put it up (just for fun) at my daughter's place. I loved it, and slept in it for the rest of the trip, even all the way down the Duck!!! I never set up my tent after that. I owe you one for that tip, Chuck! Best $89 I ever spent. Thanks!

The Hammock worked great. It took up virtually no room in the Kayak and was a breeze to set-up. I even dug two posts into the sand on the beach of Hand Island (Broken Island Group) and slept on the beach, under the stars, with no bugs one night—it was awesome."

Hi Tom,

After speaking to you on the phone the other week and telling you about how I found out about Hennessy Hammocks, I thought other people should hear about this as well!

In the summer of 2006 a friend and I took a 2-week long certification course down the Madawaska River in Northeastern Ontario. It was about day five as our crew of 10 canoed down the river and we met a lot of paddlers along the route. On this particular day we saw a couple guys on shore and we couldn't make out what they had strung up between the trees. We shouted to the shore to ask them and they said it was the best thing since sliced bread, it was a hammock! "You guys gotta get one of these - it's called Hennessy Hammocks!!" he paused and then shouted, "Hennessy Hammock DOUBLE 'N', DOUBLE 'S'!!!". We all laughed and thought the guy was nuts. After about the 10th night laying on the ground, my 6'4", 240lb body was aching and I remembered the guy from the shoreline earlier in the trip. I thought to myself, "when I get home, I'm looking this Hennessy thing up and trying it out. Anything is better than this at this point.".

I searched several camping stores in and around the Toronto area and finally found my Explorer Ultralite A-Sym. It's a god-send! My back has never felt a better night's rest and as I lead my outdoor education classes up north each year, Hennessy picks up more and more fans. And now with the introduction of the under and over cover it has allowed me to be nice and snug in sub zero temperatures and my tent hasn't breathed the northern air in years.

Now I'm the crazy guy shouting out, "Hennessy Hammocks- DOUBLE 'N' DOUBLE 'S'!!"

Thanks for a fantastic product!!

Mark Freeman
Oakville, ON

REVIEW Sea Kayaker Magazine - October 2000

One of the main advantages of a hammock is that you can sleep comfortably without a sleeping pad, and you can site it in places where there is not enough level or smooth ground to pitch a tent. As long as there are trees, even steep, rocky shores provide a viable campsite for the night. In other regions, a hammock would also provide shelter above ground that is muddy or swampy. A hammock not only turned out to be the best solution to easy-to-carry bivouac gear, it was so comfortable that it is now my first choice for nights on which I plan to camp out.

The Hennessy Hammock

The Hennessy Hammock is very quick to set up; it takes about two minutes to tie the suspension lines to two trees, and to tie the four lines that hold the sides of the hammock and the rain fly out to a pair of stakes. The hammock has a clever feature, a slit from the center of the hammock to one end. You slip headfirst up through the slit, sit down in the center of the hammock, and draw your legs in. The tension on the hammock brings the edges of the slit together, and Velcro finishes the seal. It is a very stable way of getting into a hammock.

Once you are in the hammock you can arrange yourself on a diagonal and find a position that is very nearly flat from head to toe. I experienced some difficulty sleeping in the Hennessy Hammock because of the slipperiness of my nylon sleeping bag against the nylon hammock. There was so little friction that I felt that the bag and I were pooling in the center of the hammock. Rolling over was like doing a space walk; without friction, you can move easily.In wet weather, the rain fly keeps you dry while you take off boots and rain gear and pull your sleeping bag out of its dry bag and into the hammock. Two light bungies pull the sides of the hammock out, providing more space inside and dampening the swinging that comes from shifting your position in the hammock. The ends of the rain fly are connected to the lines that you tie the hammock up with, and there are two lines on each side of the rain fly, to stretch it out onto cover the hammock. You can set one or both sides of the rain fly low, for inclement weather, or high, to take advantage of the view.On one of the Hennessy Hammocks we tested, the fabric pulled through a bit of stitching. It didn't compromise the function of the hammock, and Hennessy promptly sent a replacement in the mail. For a weight test, I loaded a second hammock with my nine-year-old son and two of his friends, then I crawled into the hammock. Our combined weight was about 435 pounds, 185 pounds over the recommended load. Though we sagged deeper, there was no damage to the hammock, and it was crowded but comfortable. In a pinch, two adults could take refuge in it.