Lorenzo Candelpergher Posted October 14, 2021 Author Share Posted October 14, 2021 Dear Desert Wanderers, this RSVP is now closed. Please find below the convoy order for our drive: @Mario Cornejo, @Rawad, @Alain Canivet-Abikhalil, @JeromeFJ, @Chinthaka Ruwan, @Arman, @Ranjan Das, @Russ, @Shaaz Sha, this drive is going to be thrilling and exciting, going across a terrain that will be new to almost all of the drivers, beautiful and majestic, but very challenging from a technical point of view, with tricky soft sand everywhere. The drive will be very demanding, both mentally for the drivers and mechanically for the cars. It will require your full and undivided concentration at every step, especially when we will reach elevated positions on steep slopes, so make sure you come well rested and hydrated and that and you don’t have any reason for being distracted. Also, please consider carefully if you wish to bring passengers along with you. As far as your vehicle is concerned, please make sure that you have checked its perfect conditions (tow points, tires, fluids levels) as we are supposed to cover over 80km tomorrow. We will be using Carnity Channel 4 (446.08125Mhz). Our meeting point is confirmed as per drive post: https://goo.gl/maps/Mf11NJccmLJrgbEv5 . For those who are new to Sweihan, once you exit the E16, you will have to cross a gate, that automatically opens when you approach it. Please make sure you come with a FULL TANK. The nearest petrol station coming from Dubai / Abu Dhabi is here: https://goo.gl/maps/N9dL153xVhABBqJt6 The nearest petrol station coming from Al Ain is here: https://goo.gl/maps/BUrnVktkLWvaVDbs7 See you tomorrow morning, ready to go (i.e. already caffeinated, deflated, flagged and briefed) by no later than 6:00am (sharp), so make sure you make it to the meeting point at least by 5:45am. 4 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeromeFJ Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 @Lorenzo Candelpergher thank you for the teaser and presentation of the drive. It's going to be exciting !! Can you just check the link to meeting point. there is a dot at the end making the link invalid in the post above. The link on top of the drive post is correct 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russ Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergher really looking forward to this! Just one small correction to your post, as @Srikumar correctly identified when we were there a couple of weeks ago, the gate will in fact only open if you shout the word ‘ABRACADABRA’ at high volume upon approaching.. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russ Posted October 15, 2021 Share Posted October 15, 2021 Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher for the drive this morning, whilst it was unfortunate that events conspired against us so all 3 parts of the drive couldn’t be completed, I hope this means we will be able to return to the area again soon! This was totally different to the Sweihan drive I did recently, which just goes to show how vast the area is.. Thanks to those who supported and @Shaz Shah I hope you manage to sort your car out soon (after you have located it!) See you all soon 🌵 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeromeFJ Posted October 15, 2021 Share Posted October 15, 2021 Thank you for the drive this morning @Lorenzo Candelpergher! A beautiful itinerary with huge possibilities, and almost no tracks at all. The only convoys in sight were camels ! It is a gem! Definitely worth returning and exploring further. The landscape was superb and we could enjoy even if the pace of the drive was requiring a continuous concentration . thank you all for the support and company, @Shaaz Sha, I hope you can recover you car without too much troubles. 3 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Varghese Posted October 16, 2021 Share Posted October 16, 2021 16 hours ago, JeromeFJ said: Thank you for the drive this morning @Lorenzo Candelpergher! A beautiful itinerary with huge possibilities, and almost no tracks at all. The only convoys in sight were camels ! It is a gem! Definitely worth returning and exploring further. The landscape was superb and we could enjoy even if the pace of the drive was requiring a continuous concentration . thank you all for the support and company, @Shaaz Sha, I hope you can recover you car without too much troubles. @Shaaz Sha's car was recovered yesterday. 1 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Varghese Posted October 16, 2021 Share Posted October 16, 2021 (edited) 18 hours ago, Russ said: Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher for the drive this morning, whilst it was unfortunate that events conspired against us so all 3 parts of the drive couldn’t be completed, I hope this means we will be able to return to the area again soon! This was totally different to the Sweihan drive I did recently, which just goes to show how vast the area is.. Thanks to those who supported and @Shaz Shah I hope you manage to sort your car out soon (after you have located it!) See you all soon 🌵 We located the car around 2.30 hours after entering the desert in Pitch dark. A mom camel and her 2 kids actually helped us. Once we saw the herd 3 times while following the map we understood then the car is nearby. Fixed the car and exited. The 3rd part of the drive was at night. The dunes looked very tall and menancing at night. Edited October 16, 2021 by Thomas Varghese 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Varghese Posted October 16, 2021 Share Posted October 16, 2021 We had gone for recovering @Shaaz Sha's car from deep inside the desert in Sweihan yesterday. After the Newbie drive with @Kailas I got news that @Shaaz Sha car had to be abandoned inside the desert in Sweihan as its upper arm link broke during his drive with @Lorenzo Candelpergher. There was no way the car could be recovered by tugging it out as the wheel had come out. 1st the drive from Ajman to sweihan to join for my drive with Kailas. Then picking up Shaaz who was taken care of by Lorenzo and driving all the way back to Ajman to source the parts and a mechanic. Once parts and mechanic was sorted out taking all this back to Sweihan to locate the car inside the desert. All experienced personnel in Carnity was engaged in the winter drive opening session. As the mechanic cannot come with us today we had no choice but enter sweihan desert by ourselves in 2 cars and start to locate where the car was left and that too after 8.30pm as we reached the entry point around that time. We roamed around 2 hours inside the desert in pitch blackness and finally located the car by 11pm. Half an hour later the car was fixed and ready for action. 2 cars became a 3 car convoy and had to figure a way out to the exit in pitch blackness and surrounded by big dunes. Another 3 hours roaming inside like lost orphans until finally we reached tarmac around 1.30 am. Reinflated tires and drove back home to Ajman dead tired. Reached home around 3am. By the way @Shaaz Sha would have done the same for me if it was my car in that situation. He has done that before in Iftar bowl when my car had to be left there after my differential broke down. We exited the desert only at 2am after recovering my car and he had missed his next day drive same like I missed mine today. So no regrets. My thanks to all the marshals @Carnity who has trained us well to achieve this kind of feat in such a short time. Never expected we could enter and exit inside Sweihan like this in pitch darkness. Special thanks to @Rahimdad, @Frederic, @Gaurav, @Wrangeld, @Chaitanya D, @Lorenzo Candelpergher, @Jeepie, @Tbone, @Srikumar, @Vanessa8580, @Foxtrot Oscar, @Ale Vallecchi, @Luca Palanca Falsini, @Islam Soliman and all other marshals I have driven with. All the knowledge given to us during the drives were put to use for this recovery. After this I felt like I'm a superman. 😀 Not a story but real action. 2 1 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinthaka Ruwan Posted October 16, 2021 Share Posted October 16, 2021 Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher for the wonderful drive. It was a challenging and eventful drive. Different terrain compared to my previous drives. Wish to go there again. @Shaaz Sha happy to hear that your X is fixed and recovered. Also a big thank to @Thomas Varghese. Excellent work. Some pictures are in gallery. See you all soon. Have a great week. 2 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Lorenzo Candelpergher Posted October 17, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 17, 2021 DRIVE REPORT Dear Desert Wanderers, One of the things I like the most when offroading is that sense of freedom that the vastity of the spaces and the absence of other people around give me. This was definitely the feeling in this drive. We started quite timely at 6:10am, just before the sunrise. We swiftly climbed up the first group of dunes for the day, in the area called Sweihan Tilal, stretching east/west from E16, parallel to E20, all the way towards Al Faya. The view of the place was really majestic, especially in the magic half hour just after the sunrise, calling for a stop for a magnificent shot: @marks took an amazing drone shot from the same location. I hope he'll publish it for everyone to watch. As we moved forward, the convoy, all new to this area and mostly new in Sweihan entirely, gained confidence with the high dunes and the soft sand. Interestingly enough, all dunes had this unique characteristic of being covered, on the windward side, with tons of small bushes except the top 5-10 meters from the crest, which made the call to climbing and side-sloping on the high side even more compelling. As the terrain was beautiful, we indulged quite a lot along convoluted lines, slowly moving west, while enjoying endless, fantastic, panoramic views. Here you can see in my rear mirror @Alain Canivet-Abikhalil contemplating the landscape: After approx 2h, we completed the 1st stint of the day and exited Tilal area by crossing the sabkha on the south side. From there the aim was to reach the long alignment of tall and complex dunes on the other side, but before that we had to fix a pop-out that I had while coming down from a small dune on hard ground. We then entered the dunes again, which meant a complete, shift of terrrain: from large dunes and high speed swoops we transitioned into tall dunes with very complex geometry, requesting quite some effort to navigate through. This was meant to be the 2nd stint of the day. After a couple of km into this area we had the first serious stuck of the day, with @Rawad, betrayed by a moment of hesitation while criss-crossing in soft sand and finding himself in need for a quick winching out. It was soon after this recovery that @Shaaz Sha first signalled some overheating issues and then realized he had a damaged upper arm on his front left suspension. With such a critical failure, we tried to back-track to the sabkha on the north east side, but after a couple of attempts we gave up as the terrain was not approachable by the damaged XTerra, so it was decided to head south west where an easy crossing to the sabkha on the other side of the dunes would have been possible. This, however, couldn't be achieved as @Shaaz Sha's upper arm collapsed completely, rendering his car un drivable nor untowable: Given the situation, it was decided to leave the car on site and plan for a recovery later on, with @Shaaz Sha joining me as passenger while we continued our drive to Al Faya. As we were running short of time, we increased the pace a bit, which made our 3rd stint to Al Faya quite an interesting fast paced and exciting one, while going through brighter and brighter dunes, not so easy to read as the sun was high in the sky. The landscape, however, was amazing and the driving at high speed was pure pleasure (for all except @Shaaz Sha, I guess): It was on one of these high speed slideslopes that @Ranjan Das lost control of his Rubicon, finding himself with a double pop-out on both right side wheels. Thanks to a great team effort the problem was soon fixed and we where back in business, but with very little time left. Before toning down the drive and heading straight out, we made a quick and last drive through some rock formations, one more memory to be taken away for the day: By 10:43 we were our on the tarmac on E20. We overall covered 88.7km at an average moving speed of 26.5km/h, with an idle time of 1h 8' vs a moving time of 3h 23'. Everyone did extremely well, with minimal refusals and reattempts and no significant stucks. Congratulations to all: @Mario Cornejo, an excellent 2nd lead, especially after a 4 weeks pause from off-roading, @Rawadand @Alain Canivet-Abikhalil, on their 2nd IM drive, first on these tall Abu Dhabi dunes, @JeromeFJ and @Chinthaka Ruwan, now fully comfortable with Sweihan's big dunes, @Arman, @Ranjan Dasand @Russ, all cruising well in the churned up sand at the back. Thanks to @Mario Cornejo, @marks and @Shaaz Sha for their great support through the drive. Good to know that @Shaaz Shawas able to go back to his car with the help of some friends, including @Thomas Varghese, and have his machanic fix the upper arm on site so that the car could be driven out on the same evening. Great team work, especially considering it was done at night time. Kudos to all and see you soon in the next drive! 3 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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