User Review: Eureka! Spitfire 1

Summary

More tent than I expected for the price. Redesigned 2012 Canadian model has good improvements.

I spent six months with the 2012 Spitfire (Canadian model), and liked it quite a lot. The new model has a dark green fly, with a rust orange panel, quite stealthy. Instead of an inside zip access to the roof vent, there are now two vents on the front panel, which can be closed only from outside. That zipper weight went instead to a 'rear vestibule', a drop-down panel for access to space beneath the fly on the opposite side from the door. Pretty handy little shoe closet/water cooler. Useful indeed when the main vestibule is just about pack-sized. You won't be cooking under cover unless you pack a tarp.

The two end pegs hold the whole thing up. The poles are just hoops, end-to-end tension is required. Tight sturdy pitch is not difficult. I did, however, notch a stick to put between the tent-body grommet and the fly grommet at the nose, because the fly has a tendency to sag into the netting there in heavy rain. Just drip prevention, never was a problem. (The included stakes were, as seems usual, unnecessarily heavy and replaced.)

Ventilation is excellent, and I camp in damp. The walls are mesh right to the bathtub floor, and the two high vents in the fly let all the moisture out. Downside: had I taken this winter camping, I'd have had to modify the walls by putting fabric over the lower mesh. Rain didn't blow under the fly, but snow would.

The Spitfire held up well to windy rainstorms, and was very pleasant to be stormbound in. The ceiling is 3'4" high, the sit-up space is about five feet long. The floor is measured at 9' long, but the pointy ends take up a couple of feet of that (good storage spots, though). Very easy entrance and exit, the door is pretty much the entire side of the tent.

It's a lot of comfortable living room, for just over $100, in a package that measures about 6" by 16" and weighs 2lbs 6oz!