The Dutch Buckle

I had the pleasure of getting acquainted with Thom “Dutch” Ressler back in 2011 when I was putting together my first draft of The Ultimate Hang. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to help Dutch illustrate and design some marketing materials for his very popular hammock related products sold through DutchWare. If you haven’t been introduced to DutchWare, you’re about to discover the king of hammock widgets. In a very short time, Dutch has created, tweaked, and innovated several tiny devices to help hangers pitch tarps, attach under quilt insulation, and secure tree webbing straps, to name a few.

They key word with Dutch is tiny. He excels in creating hardware that is so small and light it has “gram weenies” in a spin. Several of Dutch’s rigging options are cast in aluminum, but he’s a Titan with titanium. The Dutch Hook, for example, weighs only 0.4 grams and is only 1.6 centimeters long, yet is durable enough to replace larger rigging options used for pitching a tarp (please note that the Dutch Hook is designed for rigging a tarp but is not strong enough for a hammock, unfortunately).

In the next few posts I wanted to share some of the flyers I created with Dutch. I hope you enjoy them!

First in this series is the Dutch Buckle. This is one of many rigging options Dutch sells aimed at simplifying the rigging of a hammock to an anchor. The Dutch Buckle is used with a one inch (2.5 cm) wide webbing strap and functions much in the same way as a Marlinspike Hitch, but is more fool-proof for those averse to knot tying. After threading and adjusting the webbing through the Dutch Buckle, you simply place the end rope from the hammock around the buckle.

The Dutch Buckle comes with a small length of elastic that is looped and secured to the buckle. This is used to add security to the buckle when deployed, but is also used to wrap the webbing strap when storing and packing.

My scale puts the Dutch Buckle at a measly 10 grams. It is cast out of aluminum and is a great addition to most hammock kits, especially if you’re a gear junkie like me.