Patent ID: 8240342

Claim:
A papermaker's press felt, comprising: a base fabric, comprising: a set of top round machine direction (MD) yarns; a set of round intermediate MD yarns; a set of round bottom MD yarns; a set of upper cross machine direction (CMD) yarns interwoven with the top MD yarns and the intermediate MD yarns; and a set of lower CMD yarns interwoven with the intermediate MD yarns and the bottom MD yarns; the top MD yarns, intermediate MD yarns, bottom MD yarns, upper CMD yarns and lower CMD yarns being interwoven in a series of repeat units in which each top MD yarn forms a long MD paper side float above certain consecutive ones of the top CMD yarns; the press felt further comprising at least one batt layer needled to the base fabric; wherein the bottom MD yarns are not vertically stacked beneath the top MD yarns.