The end flaps close off the ends of the HouseFly, sealing the the cockpit against cold or wet weather.Photographs by the author

The end flaps close off the ends of the HouseFly, sealing the cockpit against cold and wet weather.

When Kyle and I built SOLVI, a 20′ open sail-and-oar boat to take down the Mississippi River, we had plans for an elaborate boom tent, but, as many boat projects seem to go, we ran low on time and money and we had to scale back. I spent hours looking online for an affordable product that would work as a boom tent. When I came across the ENO HouseFly rain tarp, I decided it was worth a try. It exceeded our expectations and was so versatile that we took the custom-made boom tent off our to-do list.The HouseFly is made of 30-denier silicone-impregnated nylon with a completely waterproof polyurethane coating—we took shelter under the tarp in many torrential downpours during our three-month voyage and we didn’t experience any drips. It is 10′8″ x 8′10″ inches when opened, but packs down into a 5.5″ x 11″ stuff sack that’s easy to store in our boat’s lockers. Designed as a rain fly for hammocks, it has a feature a simple tarp does not: overlapping doors on both ends. They provide both privacy and complete coverage from the elements, and in warm weather they can be rolled up and secured with the attached straps and buckles to let cooling breezes flow through. All the corners and the tops have lines attached with LineLoc brand fasteners for fast and secure tensioning, allowing us to quickly set up the tarp in a variety of situations.

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