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Blacks Octane 2

blacks-octane-2It was raining and dark when I put up the Octane, but all looked hopeful. There were clear instructions and two colour-coded tent poles. But things soon went wrong. The poles are pushed through narrow sheaths in the outer tent. Pushing the first pole, the fabric ripped. Then the poles kept coming apart. Finally, 20 minutes and much swearing later, I had the flysheet up… inside out. Start again. Finally, flysheet up correctly, I crawled inside to hook on the inner. Once up, it’s a comfortable tent with a large-ish porch, semi-flyscreen door and OK headroom at the front. There’s good air circulation – important when dealing with smelly walkers. Putting it down was even more difficult – extracting poles from their sheaths was like trying to push uncooked spaghetti through without it breaking. Length 220cm (plus 90cm for porch), width 140cm tapering to 95cm, height 100cm tapering to 90cm.

Reviewed: Spring 2007 by Paul Miles

Weight 2.3kg. Pack size 47x15cm £149.99

✆ 0800 665410 or www.blacks.co.uk

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  2 Responses to “Blacks Octane 2”

      At 4:27 pm on November 12th, 2009 Ken Brownless wrote:

    Was Paul Miles, erstwhile reviewer, putting up the same Blacks Octane 2 tent as me? Pole slide easily in the sheaths if you push the tent onto the poles. You have to do this with ANY outer first sheath tent, even the £500 + ones. Same goes for when you take them out. You push the tent off the poles, not vice versa.
    It only takes 5 mins max to put up this tent – even first time.
    He seems to have rated the tent on his ability to put up a tent. This tent is an excellent tent – easy to put up – plenty of room for 2 rucksacks in the awning – extremely waterproof and stable in high winds with plenty of ventilation. It is a dry and warm tent and very well made at a brilliant price
    The only things I don’t like are personal, ie the window and the colour.
    Some people will love them. 4and a half /5

      At 11:32 pm on February 20th, 2010 peter condorine wrote:

    Is there something outdoors people have against Blacks’ equipment? I have found that this tent is an excellent shelter and living space. Stuck for two days in foul weather in december 2009 on the west highland way, this piece of equipment proved itself worthy of the titile “canny piece o’ gear” because of its ability to stand up and keep the wind rain sleet and snow out. The four guylines at the back of the tent prevented us being blown to the end of the walk.
    Best tunnel tent ever.

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