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Hey, during the indoor season, the tarp and mat covers at my school got ripped. It started with a tear in the tarp, but grew. I used duck tape to repair it, but there was a lot of wind the next day, which then tore the tarp completely in half. We used tires to keep the tarp down, but after I broke my foot and stopped coming to practice, my teammates became lazy and stopped connecting every hook on the tarp to the mat.

Eventually there was another windy day, and the tarp, which was then connected to the mats with only a few hooks, ripped off many of these hooks from the pole vaulting mats. This also ripped a part of the mat covers as well.

Now our mats are pretty much uncovered with a part of ripped up tarp over it. I have a feeling that my coach will never really get around to doing that much about it, and he'll probably blame me and assign me with the task of fixing it. I don't know how much I can do; I think I'll need to talk to the administrators or something.

But say they did buy a new tarp and mat cover, how can I connect them to the mats with so a bunch of the hooks missing? Is there anyway I can fix the hooks?


I just wanted your opinions on this and any advice you guys may have.

Thanks!

Here is a simple but effective way to cover and protect your pit. Get an oversize tarp (heavy duty blue one - maybe Home Depot). Over sized enough to place tires all around the pit. Used enough tires to completely surround the pit - tires touching each other all the way around. That should be enough weight to hold the tarp in place even in a heavy wind. Good luck.

Dan

We lost 2 sets of mats to high wind and a tornado. After the 2nd damage I purchased and installed 3 large straps over the mats (similar to what truckers use to bind down their loads). I had the vaulters screw in 6 ground anchors - 3 on each side of the mats - evenly spaced - slightly under the edges of the outside of the mats. After we secure the mats and the top cover we bind down "lightly" with the large straps. If you were to purchase a new cover this "fix" will keep from loosing the cover again.

1yeldud1 wrote:We lost 2 sets of mats to high wind and a tornado. After the 2nd damage I purchased and installed 3 large straps over the mats (similar to what truckers use to bind down their loads). I had the vaulters screw in 6 ground anchors - 3 on each side of the mats - evenly spaced - slightly under the edges of the outside of the mats. After we secure the mats and the top cover we bind down "lightly" with the large straps. If you were to purchase a new cover this "fix" will keep from loosing the cover again.

This is exactly what I had planned to do in the spring because the winds beat up my cover pretty badly this season and I lost almost all of my clips.

We had tried the "tire" approach the previous year - borrowing about 15 tires from a local tire shop for the spring season. We have found that the tie down straps are a lot easier method once they are installed. We did purchase what they call "chain repair links" to attach the binder straps to the ground anchors on one end only. These links will help keep the straps from being stolen as it takes a wrench to remove them from the anchors. We also used ground anchors that are about 36 inches in length.

Ooh good thread, we get a LOT of high wind where I live now and the pits get blown over sometimes.