Moss the Tentmaker

A tent is a "collapsible shelter of canvas or other material stretched and sustained by poles." So says Webster's and so most people believe. Bill Moss has a broader concept. He knows that there are A-frames and O-domes and poly-domes, pup tents and pop tents, Indian tepees and Mongolian yurts, tents for dogs and campers and sheiks, tents that sag and perspire and leak, tents that infuriate. In fact Moss knows so much about the subject that even the Arabs --tent mavens from way back--may soon be living in Moss-designed, tentlike housing.

Moss, 53, does not just design tents, he creates them. There is, for example, the pop tent he conceived while working as an artist for Ford Motor Co. in 1956 --a sort of mammoth umbrella that can be carried in a car, sets up in minutes and sleeps four. The pop tent became a bestseller, and Moss has been designing tents ever since. Then there is the O-dome, a 530-sq.-ft. tentlike house of plastic-coated paper he built for himself seven years ago on an island off Maine; there are now about 450 fiber-glass versions across the country. "People aren't quite sure what to call me," says Moss tentatively. "Architect? Engineer? No, I'm an artist. A tent to me is a piece of sculpture that you get into."

What camping cognoscenti like most about Moss's "creations" is that they are light, easily assembled--and do not leak. They are also extremely sturdy, deriving much of their strength from their curved surfaces--instead of from the traditional poles and tautly stretched staked-in ropes. For those hardy purist campers who relish wrestling a recalcitrant canvas and a quarrelsome tangle of ropes and poles, Moss's innovations have taken all the fun out of camping. Among the latest designs flowing from the sewing-machine lines in his Camden, Me. Tent Works, Ltd.:

> The Eave Two-Man and Eave Three-Man. Rounded on top like Conestoga wagons, these tents take two minutes to erect and have withstood winds up to 80 m.p.h. No center pole or ropes are needed, and the tent breathes through a porous cloth roof protected by a waterproof "fly" that overhangs it like an eave. The three-person version weighs 6 lbs. and costs $195.

> The Trillium. This bulbous tent sleeps six and consists of three lobes, each with its own entrance, joined in a central "common room." The Trillium weighs 13 lbs. and, like the Eave tents, is freestanding, which means it can be moved while assembled. Cost: $350.

> The Poly-Dome. Still in the testing stages, this instant plastic cottage emerges from a package 9 ft. by 2 ft. To assemble, simply unfold, push out curved panels, zip up the roof, and in minutes you have a 110-sq.-ft. vacation home. Estimated cost: $150-$200.

Despite his inventiveness, Moss until recently was content to license his patents (he holds more than 30) to other manufacturers, who he feels sometimes did not exploit his ideas fully enough. As a result he opened Tent Works a year ago to manufacture his wares, has sold hundreds of tents, and is already expanding his production line.

He will need far greater capacity if Arab governments buy his 300-sq.-ft. tentlike shelters of stressed cotton fabric sprayed with plastic foam to make it rigid. "If I can develop and produce it for what I say I can," says Moss, "we are talking about hundreds of thousands of these structures." But Moss the tentmaker will not be fully satisfied until someone buys his favorite idea, an already tested shelter that can be rushed to earthquake-or other disaster-stricken areas. Carried over the site by a helicopter and released in midair, it opens like a parachute and drops softly to earth, ready for immediate occupancy.

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