Spunj, Sph2onge and Original German Shammy (Shamwow) compared

When hiking/hunting it can be helpful to have an absorbent towel or cloth for wiping moisture from the inside of the tent, drying the tent before packing, and possibly even drying yourself if you have a dip in the glacial fed stream...

We tested three sponges/cloths and found that the Original German Shammy (same as Shamwow I think) was by far the best choice.  Not only because it does absorb close to 10x its weight as advertised, but also because it dries much quicker and is nice and soft which would be good for using it as a towel even.

	Spunj	Sph2onge	Original German Shammy
link	ebay £5	amazon £5	ebay ~£5 ea
claimed absorption per weight	7x	10x	10x
measured absorption per dry weight	4.62x	4.87x	9.27x
squeezed weight per dry weight	1.61x	1.47x	2.71x
water squeezed out per dry weight	4.01x	4.41x	7.56x

Interestingly the shammy is harder to squeeze dry - you can only squeeze it to about 2.7x its dry weight, whereas the sponges can be squeezed to 1.47-1.61x their dry weight.  This is more than made up for by it's higher absorption (7.56x dry weight) and how quickly the shammy dries.  It dries to bone dry in about 7 hours whereas the sponges needed more than a day.

Method

We put a bowl full of water onto a kitchen scale and zeroed it, so that it would show the amount of water removed.

After squeezing as much water out of the sponge as possible, we dropped it in the bowl, and measured the increase in weight.  This is the squeezed weight of the sponge. Then, with it in the bowl we squeezed it underwater to get all air bubbles out and absorb the maximum amount of water.  We lifted it out and read how much lighter the bowl was, which gives the amount of water absorbed.

We did this three times and took the average result.

Then, after squeezing out the sponges one last time we put them on the window sill to let them dry, and measured their weight every few hours.  The shammy was hung out flat so we expected it to dry much quicker, which we definitely saw in the data.

Convert DOC NZTM2000 GPS Coordinates to WGS84 Degrees

The DOC website coordinates are in this form

Landing site: NZTM2000 E1348833-N5147579
(that's Arbor Rift)

To convert to WGS84 degrees which is what inReach uses, use this site

http://apps.linz.govt.nz/coordinate-conversion/index.aspx

And choose the following settings

Input coordinate system: New Zealand Transverse Mercator Projection
Coordinate order: East/North
Coordinate format: Degrees/minutes/seconds

Output coordinate system: World Geodetic System 1984
Coordinate order: North/East
Coordinate format: Decimal degrees

You can then convert - for the Arbor Rift site above the output coordinates are: 
-43.78221930, 169.87869307

These co-ordinates can be pasted into google maps too

https://goo.gl/maps/TMjz3hNxoRR2

Marmot PreCip Full Zip Pants

I have the 2014 edition Marmo PreCip Full Zip Pants

I wore these for a 25 minute bike ride through the rain in London

The light coloured cotton trousers I wore underneath were soaked at the outside of the knees and where the pockets are:

Basically the zips are not waterproof and there's no velcro to help seal them.  If you are doing anything active (like cycling) the water can dribble in through the zip.

Also the seat of the pants got damp where I was sitting on the seat (I did try to wipe as much moisture off as I could before I sat on it).  

Just another reminder that "Waterproof Breathable" is an industry accepted term for something that's quite waterproof, but will let water through when you have the combination of wetness + pressure.

That 10,000mm hydrostatic waterproof figure they always quote means that if the fabric was at the bottom of an unmoving column of water 10 metres high, it would start to leak.  My interpretation is that in the area where you sit on your bike seat, or where your pack sits against the jacket, you could be sandwiching water against the fabric at dynamic pressures that are sometimes higher than those lab conditions, and so the wetness ensues...

Now looking at the Marmot site in 2016 they do claim to have "bonded storm flaps" on the zips, so maybe there has been some improvement, but still

Conclusion / recommendation: 

Overall I'd consider non-zip PreCip pants because they are light, breathable and quite waterproof.  Just don't expect your bum to stay dry if you sit on wet ground etc.  

If you wanted the full zip because you wanted to put on without taking boots off... maybe you just want some really baggy PVC pants (i.e. actually waterproof but non-breathable). They can be had for as little as 4 quid.