As Tucas Sestrals Quilt - First Review

I got the chance at the weekend to test my new As Tucas quilt, and it was good!

I promised in a previous post that I would let you know how I got on with my my new As Tucas quilt, and at the weekend I had a chance to try it out while camping on Exmoor as part of a Duke of Edinburgh Award training weekend. Here are my first thoughts.

Background

Back in March I ordered a custom made quilt from As Tucas. Marco had been a great help in discussing options, and it was a pleasure to deal with him.  I was looking for something small and lightweight but warm enough for 2-3 season bivvying in the UK.

Bottom of quilt - Open

As Tucas Sestrals Quilt 

The standard Sestrals Quilt from As Tucas uses Climashield® APEX insulation and has a closed footbox and a wide, open top section for the main body, with two "wings" that can be tucked underneath your body/mat or left to lie on the ground like a normal bed quilt. If you want to use them, the quilt comes with a couple of pairs of press-stud attachments to help keep the wings together underneath you.

It comes in four different sizes (S, M, L, XL) and three different insulation weights (APEX 133, 167 and 200). The website notes that it is hard to assign comfort ratings accurately for a quilt, but based on field testing, As Tucas suggest the following:

APEX 133: +5° C
APEX 167:  0° C
APEX 200: -5° C 


The website provides lots of information on sizing, and for me, a Medium APEX 167 quilt looked good. The 167 weight would meet my warmth requirements, and the medium size would let me pull it up over my head if required. (I am 5'5" (1.65m) tall.)

However, the quilt still seemed a little bigger and heavier than I'd hoped. Marco and I exchanged a few more emails, and he suggested that he could make up a custom quilt with APEX 167 for the main top insulation and footbox, and the lighter APEX 133 for the bottom, where insulation is less important. This seemed an excellent compromise to me, and I placed an order and waited with great anticipation for the quilt to arrive.

The cost was €170 plus €28 shipping to the UK.

Initial Impressions

When it came, my first reaction was how light it was. The quilt comes in at a few grams over 500g, and is much lighter than my other bags. 

It came with a huge cotton storage bag, giving it plenty of room to loft and rest when not in use (Marco was very keen that bags shouldn't be stored compressed!), but I soon found that it would pack down very small when required. 

I did what anyone would do, which was to get into it and lie on the floor. It felt snuggly! The shell fabric (a windproof 38 g/m2 polyamide fabric with a DWR finish) has a soft smooth finish that feels very comfortable against the skin.  I tried it with the closure studs undone and done up, and with both pairs of studs done up it did feel a bit restrictive, but I guess this would be useful in a windy bivvy where you needed to keep all the cool air out. 

Bottom view - closed up

So far, so good. All I needed now was a chance to try it for real.

Live Test

Last weekend I had my first proper chance to try my new quilt.  I was camping for two nights in a campsite on Exmoor, sleeping on an Alpkit sleeping mat in a big, open mess tent. The temperature overnight got down to something like 3° C. I slept dressed in socks, leggings and a long sleeved baselayer T-shirt. 

I used the quilt without using the closure studs, and just left the wings lying on the mat next to me. I was concerned at first that this would allow a draught to get in and cool me down, but the generous wide cut of the quilt meant that I need not have worried. I was plenty warm enough all night for both nights.  

The quilt is light and comfortable, and the footbox means that when you turn over in the night (I turn a lot at night, usually sleeping on one side, but sometimes on my back) the main body of the quilt stays in place. Getting into and out of the quilt is much easier than a sleeping bag, and I'm sure venting would have been easier too, had I needed it, just by folding the quilt down or pushing it to one side

I got up once or twice (once to persuade the farm dog not to come into the tent and eat our breakfast bacon!) which always means you lose some of the heat you have built up, but found that pulling the quilt up over my head quickly warmed me up again.

In the morning the footbox had got a bit damp from condensation dripping in the tent, but it dried out quickly.

Overall Conclusion

Stuffed in a small Exped Drybag
(Marco will wince at the sight
of it being so compressed!)

This is an excellent bit of kit!

• Lightweight - a smidge over 500g
• Packs small - even without any real compression it fits easily into a small drybag. With a small  compression sack (from my old Snugpak bag) it is tiny.
• Warm - plenty warm enough for what I need.  I can't confirm As Tucas's comfort temperature assessments (yet), but they look about right.
• Easy to use - the footbox and generous width mean that it stayed securely over me even when I moved around in the night. 
• Easy to get in and out - much easier than struggling into a sleeping bag!
• Excellent customer service - Marco from As Tucas was a great source of advice in helping me decide what version of the quilt to buy. He put up with my endless questions and produced a custom design for me at no extra cost. 
• Excellent workmanship - the quilt is beautifully constructed.

Bottom Line

As you can tell, I am very pleased with my new quilt. I'll be using it in the summer on The Big Wales Thing, and will post more comments if I have them. But from this initial trial I can recommend both the quilt and As Tucas. 


[Note: I have no connection with As Tucas apart from as a customer.  I bought the quilt at full price with my own money.]