Group Shelter

I spent a very pleasant day with Adi, Steve and his wife at Binsted. We had a go at building a 3 person group shelter. I am sure Adi will post some pics. The first task was to gather 4 decent sized Y shaped sticks and four strong cross members. The size of the shelter was determined by Steve being the tallest. We measured from his feet to his shoulder as the distance between the 4 uprights. We then gathered a shed load of 6ft sticks to use to lean against the cross beams at approx a 45 degree angle. In this shelter design the top is left open for use with a fire and the happy campers sleep between the uprights and the eves. The majority of the wood was deceptively rotten that was scattered about so it took a fair amount of searching to find a reasonable amount of wood to use. We had a coffee and then the fun began trying to balance 4 uprights and crossbeams whil$st steadily adding the sticks to the outside. We had a few nervous moments when the structure nearly collapsed only myself and Steve using brute force kept the thing upright. After an hour of Adi and sarah adding sticks the structure had enough weight to be self supporting. We had lunch and coffee before continuing to add more material. By 430 are enthusiasm was depleted. I am now the proud owner of an almost finished frame for a group shelter. Day 2 will involve adding more smaller diameter sticks to the frame to hold the leaf litter. The adding tons of leaves to the outside. Ideally you should be looking at an arms thickness of material to properly thatch a debris shelter. Judging by the amount of material there this may not be possible. The moral of the story is it took 4 people the best part of the day to almost complete the frame without any attempt at thatching. Whereas we could have completed 3 one man shelters in a day. Good fun though if you like spending your day walking back and forth with sticks.