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Intermediate Morning Drive - Sweihan-Nagrah - Friday 15th Nov 2019


Emmanuel

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Just now, Emmanuel said:

@Fuad sorry buddy, but if you want to drive at intermediate level with Carnity, you will have to join a few more fewbie drives, and then get promoted... 

 

No i am not driving with carnity. Will be in sweihan with different one and will meet and greet you guys on the way. 😉

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hi all, sorry but i will have to cancel my participation from this drive as a last minute change has come up and my kid needs to be with me, so since i will have to bring him along for the drive, i will join the newbie drive

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TRIP REPORT

Another amazing drive in Sweihan, thanks to @Frederic, @Javier M and @Brette ! 

We met almost on time at deflation point, all very excited in spite of early morning temperature - I don't know to how much it dropped, but I was shivering even with my fleece jacket. After a short briefing mainly about safety and driving in wet sands, we took off, maybe a quarter of hour before sunrise. As it was Brette's first intermediate level drive, I thought it was better to start at a moderate pace, but as soon as we crossed a few high dunes, I understood that our one and only Grand-Cherokee new shape driver had became a confident and skilled off-roader. All in all, on a distance of 60 km across Sweihan dunes, sometimes with very technical crossings, Brette got crested only twice, I guess, maybe 3 times max. Very well done, buddy. 

As we increased the pace, we reached Nagrah hill in no time (at about 7:30). Climbing to the top wasn't possible because the place was completely messed up, with big bumps and cross-tracks everywhere - not to mention the garbage, shame on those people who can't see the difference between a dune and a dump yard ! Anyways, Javier and I barely reached 80% of the hill, but this time, I have to admit that Xterra has been beaten by Wrangler, since Javier was the higher and won our little challenge... 

After Nagrah, Fred took the lead for a while and of course it was amazing. We crossed a sabkha to continue in another set of very nice dunes. At one point Brette had a pop out, problem solved in 5-10 minutes, thanks to a perfect team work - well, to be honest, I smoked a cigarette watching Fred, Javier and Brette working !

Another surprise, and this one was really nice : we had the chance to see a massive griffon vulture (see in the gallery) proudly standing at the top of a dune. We were very lucky since this particular vulture is one of the endangered species in UAE.  

At a few kilometers of E95, Brette unfortunately found that he couldn't engage his 4 wheel anymore and he got a check signal on his dashboard. We tried to disconnect the battery but this didn't solve the issue. Time was close to 11:00 am, so we decided to exit.

Again, thank you guys for your amazing support. You made this drive so smooth and fun.   

BTW, sorry that @Shamil couldn't make it and that @Atif was afraid for his bumper 😜. You missed us. Waiting for both of you another time.

 

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Indeed an amazing drive !

For one reason or another, every time a Sweihan drive got posted, I wasn’t able to make it. So that meant I was really looking forward to this drive, and knowing that I would be in this great company made it look even more promising.

The wet sands brought a different feel to the driving experience. I needed less power and hence enjoyed taking that drive at 80% engine power, except for a few climbs 🤪.

After being in pursuit of the mighty Velociraptor, I got the chance to lead for a while. The area was a bit technical with lots of pockets and smaller dunes, which is something I enjoy doing, but I’ll need to learn to make sure the whole convoy with LWB cars involved can deal with that. 
Emmanuel has mastered this skill brilliantly, and I keep learning every time while chasing him 😅

As correctly mentioned, Brette did great, and I’m glad to see the Cherokee doing Grand things in Sweihan. 
 

@Javier M had the Sweihan dunes for breakfast, and did brilliant textbook recovery work. You’d be Iceman in our Top Gun, but in a good way of  course 😉

At one point seeing what I first thought was a child on top of a nearby dune, we quickly realized this was a mighty big vulture. We tried to follow him for a while, while he kept circling around us. Makes one wonder Who was following Who....?

Anyways to cut a long story short, it was indeed a wonderful day with a magnificent team, enough to make me drive home with a big smile on my face. 
 

On to the next one !!

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"Go as far as you can see; once you get there, you'll be able to see further."

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13 hours ago, Xaf said:

I am already calculating in my mind how many months it will take for me to join you.

Looking forward!!!

Not long enough, if you drive good, seniors might promote you in next 4-5 drives rather than 10, which is an outline of the structure.

There is no hard and fast rule here. If drivers are good, then they do get promoted early and vice versa for infrequent or slow learners.

The only idea is to promote anyone at any level is when we are 100% sure that he/she is ready for the next level based on their drive skills, techniques, teamwork, and offroad gear.

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Let's root for each other & watch each other grow.

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13 hours ago, Xaf said:

I am already calculating in my mind how many months it will take for me to join you.

Looking forward!!!

Even if you can't join every weekend due to your demanding job, there are still a few things you can work on either from office (A380 :) ) or at home in-between shifts:

- Research the areas we drive with Google Maps and look at the dune formations, sizes, wind direction, etc... this will help you later on when leading drives. Learning about topography is also useful (you might have learned that already as a pilot).

- Research online (Youtube, Carnity, others) information about off-road recovery, tools, gear, tutorials, etc... There is lots of information available. I like for example Ronny Dahl his videos and tutorials: 
https://www.youtube.com/user/RonBacardi666

I always feel bad when I can't join drives and my balance of work / family /hobbies takes serious juggling sometimes, like for most people here, so I try to make the best of it :) 

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"Go as far as you can see; once you get there, you'll be able to see further."

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@Gaurav @FredericI like this mentality. Would be nice if I manage to catch the intermediate drives before the summer.

During the weekdays I go with other guys as well to the desert. There is a discussion on this board about driving in a club or private.

In my opinion, the balance between driving in a club and private is perfect.  The drives I already did, have thought me a lot. This knowledge I take with on the private drives where I have free time to practice them.

An example of this is, when @Emmanuel took shotgun with me and instructed me how to take the side-slope. After this instruction I understood the importance to drive in some circumstances the optimum torque band of your engine. Where I would drive before that only in D and try to push as hard as possible, I am now putting the gearbox in manual and hitting the 3000 - 4500 rpm.

My gearbox has 6 gears and in automatic it has the tendency to shift quickly a gear up. Toyotas have the ECT (Electronic Controlled Transmission) button, when switched on, the gearbox shifts at a higher rpm, that already helps when the pace is a bit faster and it becomes a bit more technical, so you keep a bit more control, but as soon when I see that I need my torque, I push the lever to the left, pull 3 times quickly backwards (from automatic to manual it goes standard to the 4th gear).

What I also find out, and now I open a can with worms, is that my tires are doing super well in the sand.

I am already looking ahead and making calculations how much new tires costs if I have them to replace them. As an offroader you start looking automatically at a/t or maybe m/t.

Only talking about dune bashing, I think h/t are performing good enough maybe the best. Yes, when you go to wadi’s you want to have a stronger sidewall and a more aggressive thread to have more grip. With dune-bashing you want to float on the sand instead of digging yourself in. 
I noticed this with my friends and in the group as well. The H/T’s are actually performing very good in the dunes. 

As I said, I probably opened a can of worms and might be shot down now, but this is what I’ve seen and thinking about it, it also makes sense.

@Frederic Thanks for the link, have something to watch again :).

 

 

 

 

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