Karsten Inflatable tent

[DCH109]

So when I was a kid (i am 51 this year) my Dad had a very unique family tent, or so I think it was unique. It was a Orange and Green Inflatable tent (looked like a pumpkin). The tent was canvas and from what I can tell the bladders were heavier canvas (maybe like a fire hose). It had a schrader valve to inflate it and once inflated it was large like 8'x8' with at least a 5.5' ceiling in the middle.

I had been looking for one for years after our was lost or stolen in a move years ago.

I had no luck until I saw something similar on EBay, I was up for a long time and I offered a ridiculous low amount (which included shipping) and it was accepted. It arrived last week and has been in my garage for about a week waiting for any contamination to die off. If it does not rain this weekend I plan to blow it up and set it up.

What is it yo ask? Well it is a Karsten canvas inflatable tent out of the Netherlands. While their page has a current issue with their cert. you can see it here https://www.karstententen.com/inflatable-tents/ or one that has a good cert http://www.campingtravelstore.co.uk/karsten-inflatable-tents

I have zero affiliation with either other than I bought a used tent.

What I have seen so far by laying it out in my garage.
1. The windows are marine clear vinyl/ plastic.
2. The material on the actual tent is very heavy duty and not light by any means.
3. The floor, carry bag etc is of a heavier marine type vinyl/ rubberized material. I have zero doubt it will fall apart.
4. Mine came with a little hammer and the foot pump. Plus a few extras I will figure out this weekend.

All in all from what I am seeing, outside of the color it is damn close to what the tent of my youth looked like, and built equally as well.

I plan to do a better review, one in my yard and then a second one once the Pandemic is subsided and we are aloud to go out again camping.

Pic from the ebay ad.

 

[TripLeader]

Thanks for sharing this. I've never heard of an inflatable tent before. I look forward to the updates.

I'm curious about how long the set-up time is. And how rigid it is in the wind.

 

[DCH109]

The old one was great in high wind. This one I will need to test.

Setup time i will time it this weekend. From un pack to up ans staked i am thinking under 15 minutes.

 

[DCH109]

Unfortunately I was unable to get this up over the weekend as my wife had other plans for me that involved taking down a larger tree behind our house. Putting up a "toy" had less priority for her so it has now been pushed to this coming weekend.

 

[Nonimouse]

I like these old Karsten tents. We had one years ago - my dad bought it off a dutch couple in France, when I was about 5

I use Quechua Airbeam Tents. Fantastic. So easy to put up quickly. Nicely sized and easy to stow...

 

[alia176]

what is used to inflate the tent?

 

[DCH109]

You can use a 12V pump or a standard foot pump. Took about 11 minutes of me fumbling and getting this setup.
Seems I was out of practice.

While the 2 tubes are not free standing so it seems, Once you have the corners out (in my picture it was not enough and I was on a slope) and the center of the tubed tied together (you do this inside) it is free standing. then add the the 4 upper or lower corner pegs and the whole tent is stable. You have 4 side lines to pull the sidewalls out and shed more water.
If you use all 4 lines on the corners the tent is going no where.
I could not put the pegs in very deep as I have an in-ground sprinkler system as I was not sure where this routed.
Just in 1/4 of the way and the whole tent felt stable enough. punch them in all the way and it would be fine. The pegs are galvanized steel and very tough.

Take down was less then 3 minutes. I pulled the schrader valves cores out of the stems and tent dropped.
This weekend I will be popping up the sprinklers to see where they are and then set the tent more secure. This past weekend we had a brutal storm roll though, and while this would have been a good test, timing was not ideal.

FYI i can stand up in the tent fully with about 3" left overhead. I am 6'1"