COVID19 Compliant - Wednesday Morning Short Fewbie Desert Drive - Riding the neverending long range dunes from Al Qudra to Lisaili - Dubai - 21 Apr 2021

[Rawad]

Hello @Lorenzo CandelpergherI just received an urgent meeting request for tomorrow 9am. Sorry for dropping after preparing the convoy list

In case of a miracle and the meeting got cancelled, I will rejoin if you don't mind

Thx

[Lorenzo Candelpergher]

Thank you for letting us know @Rawad Bahsas, I hope you can make it in the end.

[Lorenzo Candelpergher]

5 hours ago, Batuhan Kulac said:

Also @Lorenzo Candelpergher I dont know if this is too important but it says apr20 on the convoy order sheet. 

Not too important, as luckily no one was at the meeting point this morning at 5:45am, but fixed. Thanks  

[Paul Zeitoun]

@Lorenzo Candelpergher, aaah it became too crowded, it is not a couples outing anymore, so i am not coming.😀😀

Something came up, got to be at kids school at 9. Apologies but can't make it.

[Lorenzo Candelpergher]

Sorry to hear that @Paul Zeitoun. It will be for another time.

 

[Lakshmi Narasimhan]

@Lorenzo Candelpergher, @Islam Soliman, @Ahab Shamaa, @Gaurav Soni thanks for the short beautiful morning drive. Well done @Islam Solimanleading us in between. Thanks to every one in the convoy for being so patient with couple of popout, refusals, struck, but lot of learning. What a team work, thanks to all seniors for supporting and guiding. Pretty much relaxing mid week drive love having more!!!

[Lakshmi Narasimhan]

Guys, please enjoy the video of my popout!!! please let me know why this happened?

 

 

[Paul Zeitoun]

19 minutes ago, Lakshmi Narasimhan said:

Guys, please enjoy the video of my popout!!! please let me know why this happened?

 

 

@Lakshmi Narasimhan obviously too much pressure on the tire wall due to sliding combined with torque. 

that's the fine line between tire pressure and tire grip on the rim.

hope you enjoyed the recovery 😀😀

[Lakshmi Narasimhan]

enjoyed the recovery and thanks to our leads, and learnt so much from this!!!!

[Lorenzo Candelpergher]

DRIVE REPORT

Dear Desert Wanderers, 

This morning drive was an experiment, as I wanted to test the appetite of Carnity Club Members for a mid-week short morning drive and to understand how it should be implement to make it as successful and pleasant as possible. 

As an experiment, I would say it was a positive one, even if - it must be said - it wasn't the luckiest nor the smoothest of all drives, and we certainly came home with a series of good ideas to make it better next time. 

We hit the sand at 5:54am, with almost 10 mins of delay, as a few members of the convoy reached at the last minute. On mid-week morning drives, respecting the time in and the time out is a critical success factor as everyone has a job waiting at the end, so next time it should be everyone's clear understanding that the time stated in the drive post is the DEPARTURE TIME, ie by then we should be deflated and flagged, possibly briefed and ready to go. 

We were just 700 meters into the drive when @Islam Soliman announced his pop-out. The sign was clear and I knew, at that point, that our morning was going to be complicated.. 

The pop-out was quickly fixed and we could get back on track. We crossed a small section of technical dunes with no major challenges, then we reached the first group of long range dunes. 

With the sun mostly to our front right side, we had perfect visual on the sand and we really enjoyed a good 40 mins of long ridge riding and side sloping.

The convoy was doing great:

@Lakshmi Narasimhan, on his 1st Fewbie drive, was doing an excellent job, following the big Yukon in front of him.

@Antoz was also a relatively fresh Fewbie but managed his Prado extremely well. 

@Werno was totally relaxed in his Wrangler. I guess today it was more about the landscape than the driving for him. 

@Ahab Shamaa, pampers or no pampers, was always where he was supposed to be. An excellent Center Forward, looking after the guys in front and dispensing precious advice when needed the most. 

@Batuhan Kulac's G63 was a pleasure to watch today. I must say I was expecting more trouble with those low profile tires, but everything was smooth. 

@Lawrence_Chehimi led his Y62 excellently. I must confess I felt a bit sad watching him ride the same beast I used to drive until just a few weeks ago. The Jeep Wrangler is a beautiful car, but the personal sense of achievement one gets when managing to do some crazy stuff with one's Patrol, honestly has no comparison. 

@Dodi Syahdar with his F150 did everything everywhere as if it was a walk in the park. I guess it takes more than this to stress his monster car. 

@GauravSoni at the back, enjoyed all the pleasures of being a sweep.. Driving on churned up sand, but in total freedom. 

The landscape was beautiful, the light was amazing, the sky was blue, the drive was great. What could we ask more?

Thrill and adventure, no doubt. 

We started with a couple of crested cars, including @Antoz's and  @GauravSoni's one, who got a bit too much carried away by the freedom that being a sweep can afford: a sweep can choose any line and not necessarily follow the convoy's track in churned sand, but deviating from the leader's line may be tricky at times.. 

All stucks were quickly recovered.. But still, not enough thrill.. We then met a huge group of camels, which was really a fascinating view (I hope someone managed to get a some good photos), but again this wasn't enough adventurous. 

In search of more excitement, I then crossed a crest in the wrong point, finding myself on a very steep face with the nose of my car pointing straight into a huge group of convoluted rocks. Nasty business: no way to go back, no way to go on either side, my only option was to get down to the bottom and somehow get past the rocks. In the end, I collected a few scratches on front and rear bumper, tested the Rubicon sway bar disconnection, and, indeed, somehow got out. The funny thing is that everyone but @Islam Soliman was on the other side of the crest, and missed the show!

We had just regrouped the convoy and started moving again, when @Lakshmi Narasimhan announced a the 2nd pop-out of the day. This one required a bit more effort, as we had to lift the car twice, but was anyway sorted out rather quickly. 

By 7:30am we had been 1h 35' into the drive, with more than 49' stopped. It was time for @Islam Solimanto take his partial lead, as he deserved at least a good full hour for himself. 

We soon exited the long range dunes where we had spent so much time and moved to a more technical and demanding area with medium/small size dunes. @Islam Soliman took us across some very nice spots driving along very nice lines. As happens to every daring leader, he got crested a couple of times, but that only means he didn't hold back in trying to find non-trivial trajectories for us to follow. Well done! 

At 8:40am I'm sure everyone would have continued a bit more, but time was of essence for those of us who had a job waiting in the real world, so I took the lead to reach a well known flat track nearby and get us back to our starting point, where we reached at 8:55am. 

In the end, due to the many events that held us back, we could only cover 31km (plus which 13 on sabkha / flat track to get back to Al Qudra), half of the distance we were supposed to cover in order to reach Lisaili Fort. We drove for 3h, of which 2h moving and 1h stopped, at an average moving speed of 20km/h, a figure doped by the final high speed stint on flat ground. Our actual moving speed in the dunes was actually way less than that, around 15km/h.

It was great fun, despite the many challenges. On the next midweek morning drive, hopefully we will be a bit luckier, but I'd say there will be definitely another one and I hope you'll count yourselves in once more. 

Have a great end of the week and see you in the sand again soon.

Thank you all for your company and thanks to @Islam Soliman, @Ahab Shamaaand @GauravSoni for their precious support.