Vango Capri 500 Airbeam Tent.
The first thing I noticed about the Capri 500,
was that despite it being a spacious 5 man tent, it packs down to a good size,
it isn’t too heavy and it’s easy to carry. That being said, I was more
interested in discovering how long it would take to erect the tent. I had heard
impressive talk about the ease and speed at which these ‘Airbeam’ tents
went up, but I was keen to see for myself.
Upon taking out the tent it becomes clear just how
easy this should be. All of these tents have a sewn in ground sheet, which
means upon unpacking, everything is in on piece and ready to go. There are no
separate bedrooms that need to be put in later, simply a small bag of pegs and
a single, collapsible fibreglass pole for the front awning, along with the
included air pump.
The air pump feels robust and good quality. It comes complete with a pressure gauge, so you need not worry about over inflating your beams and it also comes with a deflator attachment, meaning that you can be sure that you will expel all of the air from your beams, ensuring a good tight package upon pack up.
I spread my
tent out and pegged it at the four main pegging points (two at the rear and two
at the front). The next step was to pump up the beams one by one. It was
pleasing to see that the air valves were very easily accessible. It’s simply a
case of twisting off the valve cap, ensuring that the air valve is set to
‘closed’ and twisting in the air pump. Upon this twist, the pump locks in
place, guaranteeing that there are no unexpected blow- outs mid inflation. The
pumps are double action, meaning that they are inflating the beam on both the
push down and pull up, coupled with the fact that the required pressure for
each beam is a mere 7psi, this makes for a super quick inflation. The Capri 500
has three Airbeams and I had these fully inflated in a matter of
minutes. It’s worth mentioning, that although 7psi doesn’t sound very much, the
beams are very firm and robust. Having inflated the main section of the tent
all that was required now was to assemble the single fibreglass pole and thread
it through the front awning. This, again, was a quick and easy process, which
left me with the final job of walking around the tent and pushing in the
remaining pegs, along with tightening the guy ropes. As I mentioned
previously, the bedroom comes ready attached inside, so once this tent is up,
you are all done. This whole process took an impressive 5 minutes.
Looking inside
the tent, there are a number of nice features. There is a clear window with a
zip up cover for night time, a large front door, a side door complete with zip
up fly sheet and the bedroom is made of a darker fabric, to limit the light
that comes through in the morning and it has a removable partition allowing for
one large room, as opposed to two slightly smaller. There is also a hanging
point for a lantern in the bedroom and in the living area of the tent. All of
the Airbeam tents come with the ‘Tension Band System’ and the Capri
500 is no different. This is a system that gives the tent extra strength,
should it need it, in adverse weather conditions. This can be constantly left
clipped in place, or put up and taken down as needed. The sewn in groundsheet
seems to be a great feature as it rules out any unwanted water creeping into your
tent and the awning feels like your own, private outdoor space that would be
great for cooking, or simply lounging.
I found the
pack down of this tent remarkably easy. Simply take out the one pole, unscrew
the valve caps and turn the valves to ‘open’. The tent deflates in seconds and
then it is just a case of pulling out the pegs and folding the tent up. I was
pleasantly surprised at the size of the bag, as previously with tents I have
found that after taking them out of the bag the first time, it is near
impossible to fold it back to a similar size, making it very difficult to
squash back into its case. There were no such problems here as the bag for the Capri
500 was nice and spacious, so although my folding was far from perfect, I
had no trouble whatsoever in packing it back in and zipping it up.
I was really
impressed with this tent. From the ease of set up, the pump, the tents space
and features, right through to the ease of pack down, it definitely comes
highly recommended.
Shop Vango Capri 500
Shop Vango Capri 500
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