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Highlander ‘Forces 2 Geo-Dome’ Two-Berth Tent
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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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1
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4448
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31/8/06
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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Average Rating
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100% of reviewers
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£49.99
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7.0
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Description:
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An olive tent with dayglo high visibility guy ropes and yellow inner tent. This tent boasts a novel concave intersercting pole design which maximises space inside the inner tent.
The tent will comfortably sleep one person with kit, or two people.
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Keywords:
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Highlander 2 Two Forces Dome Tent
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Homepage/URL:
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www.highlander.1.com
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Author
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Marlowe
Comrade Pointy Cap
Registered: November 2004
Location: South Yorkshire
Posts: 304600
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Review Date: 31/8/06
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: £49.99
| Rating: 7
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Pros:
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Impressive, original design, with quick disassembly / repackaging.
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Cons:
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Slight Quality Control issue with missing peg hole & some loose threading..
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When Gordon of highlander got in touch offering to send some sample items over for review, I had no idea how impressive some of the kit he would send me could be. Third of several reviews of these products is Highlander's Forces 2 Dome Tent, retailing through Highlander's suppliers at the rrp of £34.99.
First Impressions:
Upon opening the green nylon bag in which the tent was stored, the first thing which struck me was how spacious the bag was. After having a string of tents where the packaged tent etc barely fits inside the bag, I was especially relieved to find this, as after a long weekend’s skirmishing the last thing I usually want is to have to struggle with forcing a tent into packaging which it can barely fit inside of. As a nice additional touch, there a piece of what appears to be off-cut nylon used to tie the contents of the bag together – perhaps nothing amazing, but it does save an awful lot of hassle when repacking the bag’s contents…
Opening up the contents reveals the standard things you’d expect: an inner tent (pale yellow), outer tent (green), a pole bag and peg / guy rope bag). As a nice bonus however, there is also a small repair kit enclosed in a pouch sewn into the bag – something that will be especially valued by anyone whose late night antics at a weekender results in them tripping over and tearing their tent. This basic kit is a nice touch, especially considered that at its recommended price in the mid forties, this is probably aimed at the casual camper (a category which I’m sure many of us would consider ourselves to fall under).
Setting up the tent was a bit of a novel experience for me. I have noticed that a lot of recent dome tent designs in this price-range appear to have returned to the traditional ‘inner-tent then outer tent’ approach to assembly, and this tent is no exception. After assembling the collapsible tent poles, which appear to be composed of plastic, steel connectors and some quite heavy duty elasticised nylon, it’s a straightforward job of sliding the poles through the sleeves (attached to the inner tent)…
It should however be mentioned at this point that I would highly recommend another individual helps you at this point. For while the sleeve fits through happily to a point, at the two points where the sleeves intersect the sleeves narrow considerably, and at these points I found the poles snagged quite easily. This is not a major issue, but could present problems due to the ‘inner tent first’ approach to assembly: the last thing you want is for a pole to snag whilst it’s throwing it down!
This however is the most difficult moment in construction. Afterwards, the poles fit happily into brass-eyelet holes, and form a novel dome shape based around two intersecting poles which form a convex ridge (more on this shortly). The inner tent then falls over the top as a second skin, and uses a straightforward and effective adjustable clip system which means the inner tent can be easily attached and then tightened before being pegged down. This is a very nice time-saving touch that I would like to see implemented on a lot more of tents which follow the inner then outer tent design approach.
After pegged up, with guide ropes attached, the tent’s all set and going nowhere. One area of concern which I encountered whilst pegging down the tent however was that, on the right side of the tent to the entrance, the central peg hole was missing. No indication of any frayed thread suggests that rather than being lost in transit / packaging, this item was never attached. Thankfully being on a central rather than corner hoop this was not a major problem, but I do confess to having my confidence in the tent’s long-term usage somewhat undermined as a result.
Well, all assembled now, so now we can get inside! The benefit of this design is only made obvious when inside the inner tent: the result is a tent which uses a minimum of ground-coverage whilst maintaining an impressive internal area. This makes the tent fairly compact whilst avoiding the sense of claustrophobia that can befall anyone who uses bivvy-tents or one-berth tents.
Space inside is comfortable, with adequate space for two occupants or good space for one occupant plus kit. I prefer to usually buy smaller tents a berth up from what will be required in order to allow the luxury of space for kit, clothes, supplies, etc, and so in this respect, the Forces 2 tent makes for an excellent one-man tent. It should be noted however that the tent does also have a small porch area just inside the entrance in which you can leave boots, etc.
Overall then, my first impressions are that this is a uniquely styled tent ideal for one to two occupants. There are some minor concerns in terms of build quality, and whilst ideally these shouldn’t be a concern, these could easily be overcome by visiting the store in person and checking the product before purchase.
Post-Skirmish Evaluation
The tent was tested out at Arniegeddon 06, based at Special Combat Services in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. The site was based in considerably long grass (two – three feet in height) in a hill with a mild For the basis of the test I avoided using groundsheets etc to test the resilience of the tent’s own built in groundsheet against any stones / small debris. The weather offered an excellent test of the tent, ranging from rain through to humid then hot and sunny conditions.
Assembly again took somewhat longer than expected, due to the snagging of the poles on the tent sleeves. Thankfully however my neighbour, ‘BB_Magnet’ offered a generous hand, and proved that two people really do make the tent easy to assemble – what had taken me thirty minutes of struggling was solved in under ten! After assembly the tent garnered a considerable amount of attention due to its rather unique design. Unlike the standard ‘X’ intersecting of poles from opposite corners, the concave design and small stature meant that it was one of the smaller tents there, and definitely the smallest two-berth. I think many were quite surprised to learn that it was at two berth, as within the long grass its small stature yet spacier interior took on an almost Tardis-like effect!
The first evening was humid and warm, and I admit I was concerned that we would see no rain to test the tent’s resilience. My concerns were however ungrounded – the next morning I awoke in the early hours for my post-pub constitutionals and discovered that throughout the night it had been lightly raining. The tent had no issues with this level of rain, nor indeed the heavy ground dew that followed the morning after.
During the event the heat escalated a fair amount, and I found the tent warm yet not unbearable due to the porch’s inbuilt ventilation hoop. Due to the tent’s size I would probably have not wished to spend too great a deal of time during the day within it, but were it necessary the tent’s porch and flysheet door would have meant that the tent could be kept well-ventilated and sufficiently comfortable for occupation.
Packing away again was easy and surprisingly quick – much quicker than the older three-berth tent I usually use. This reiterated my first impressions of the tent.
Due to the lack of heavy rain, at home I rebuilt the tent and used a variety of strengths of water ranging from a watering can to a concentrated blast from above with a hose-pipe to test the tent’s water proofing. I am pleased to note that not even with the concentrated blast did any suggestion of water leaking through the outer tent occur, so I think this demonstrates that the tent has the potential to be quite hard-wearing!
Conclusion
After writing this review I contacted Gordon at Highlander to ask for his feedback on the minor problems relating to the missing peg-hoop and unstitched / frayed thread along one pole strut. Gordon quickly responded with the following frank comment, which I feel says a lot about the honesty of Highlander:
Quote: 'We have a lot of confidence in the Forces 2 and Forces 3 tents as this is the first report of a faulty tent out of hundreds sold over the last two years. This certainly sounds like a manufacturing fault that has slipped through our quality control, and although we do our utmost to
ensure that your goods reach you in perfect condition we do have procedures in place in case of this eventuality.
We would recommend that anyone who finds a manufacturing problem with a Highlander tent return it to their retailer for assessment and replacement. We also recommend that all campers do a test erection of the tent at home if at all possible, so that any problems can be resolved before you are stuck in a field miles from home.'
So there you have it. As I stated earlier in the review the safest bet when buying ANY tent is to go buy it from a shop where you can inspect it before purchase. The small amount of money you might have to pay extra doing so will rest assured be more than justified by sleeping soundly at night knowing the tent you’re in is top quality.
The tent is a strikingly designed shelter which is ideal for up to two people. It’s well ventilated, and as a result is habitable even during hot day-time weather, whilst also having a good level of water-proofing. As a result, despite the unfortunate issues in relation to build quality of this particular tent, I think that the tent would be ideal for anyone seeking accommodation for a weekend event or a short period’s camping. |
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