How do I repair a broken tent pole?

A pole repair starts with one measurement: the outer diameter of the tube, because a splint has to slide over it. A kit built around 8.5 mm does nothing at all for an 11 mm pole, and that is the mistake that turns a fixable evening into a long one.

Measure the tube, not the joint

Pole diameters sit in a narrow band — 7.9, 8.5, 9.0, 9.5 and 11 mm are the sizes you meet — with no tolerance for guessing. Measure across the tube with callipers.

The trap is the ferrule, the sleeve that joins two sections. It is machined wider than the pole it joins, so a diameter read off a ferrule buys you a splint and a set of sections that will not connect. Measure a plain part of the tube, away from any joint.

Do this before you need it. Write the figure on a piece of tape inside the pole bag, and buy the repair kit that matches.

The field repair

A pole splint is a short sleeve, supplied in most tent repair kits, sized to slide over a pole of a stated diameter. Slide it over the break so the damage sits in the middle, and bind each end tightly with tape or cord so it cannot walk along the pole under load.

Where the break has left sharp splinters — common on fibreglass, which splinters rather than bending — dress them down before the splint goes on, or they will work through the pole sleeve and then through the fly.

A splint is a repair that gets the tent standing tonight and probably for the rest of the trip. It is stiffer than the pole around it, which moves the load to the ends of the sleeve, so it is not a permanent answer.

When there is no splint in the bag

Improvised options exist and they are all worse than a splint. A tent peg taped alongside the break works if the peg is long enough and the tape is strong enough. A short length of any rigid tube that will pass over the pole does the same job. In the last resort a broken section can be bound with cord and the affected pole point moved off the highest-load position by repitching.

None of these is a plan. They are what you do at ten at night, and they are the argument for carrying the correct splint, which weighs very little.

Ordering a replacement section

Three numbers, in order.

Outer diameter, measured as above. Section length, usually somewhere between 40 and 65 cm, which sets the folded size and how many sections you need. Total assembled length, which is what has to match the sleeve or clip run on your tent.

Then material. 7075 aluminium bends before it breaks and can often be straightened. Fibreglass is cheaper and splinters. Carbon is lightest and least forgiving. Replacing like with like keeps the pitch behaving as designed; mixing materials within one pole arch does not.

The shock cord, which is the usual real fault

A pole that will not stand up straight is more often a shock cord problem than a broken section. The internal cord stretches with age, and once it is slack the sections no longer seat fully in their ferrules — which is exactly how they crack.

Replacement cord is sold by diameter, and many repair kits include a length. Restringing is a slow job at a table and a miserable one on a hillside, so check the cord tension at home: held vertically, the sections should pull together firmly rather than hanging apart.

If the ferrules themselves are splitting, replace the section. A cracked ferrule under tension is what breaks the next pole along.

The manufacturer's own instructions come first, and this page does not stand in for them. Every weight, packed length, hydrostatic head, denier, micron rating, lumen figure and temperature on this page is reported from the manufacturer's own documentation, with its unit written as published, and named as such — none of it is measured here. A weight is reported as the maker counts it, and is never restated as another kind of weight, because the two are not the same figure.