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Morning Newbie Desert Drive - Al Qudra to Lisaili Mighty Dunes - Dubai - 26 Nov 2021


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Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergher for such an amazing and informative drive ..definitely learned some new tricks from the conversations...would definitely come back to have some more fun on these dunes.  @Russyou were amazing with your support and the awesome recovery tips and tugs..

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@Russ  @Lorenzo Candelpergher

Thanks for the best drive 🚗  and experience that you shared with us today. We had great combination. Each breakdown of car is a  new lesson to learn. Thanks to all participants also for great patience. Can't wait to  See you guys again

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@Lorenzo Candelpergher thank you for an action packed Friday morning drive!

This area is the perfect place to learn and improve desert driving skills and I’m sure everyone benefitted from the tutorials and choice of terrain; some small technical dunes to negotiate, crossing dunes, and side sloping of large open dunes.

@Marcin Wronowski - a fantastic 2nd lead, well done.

@Asem Rashwan - Hope you manage to fix the issues with your car. Please ensure you replace and ensure the integrity of your front tow hooks before joining your next drive.  
 

@Premjit Vappala @Mawy @Simon Dawood @Vishal Nair @Usman Basit @Rouaj @Muhammad Qasim @Sergio Big Dawg @Tom B @Mohamad Ziad Alhennawi you all drove very well. Continue practicing going up and down dunes and any hesitation will soon disappear, and keep in mind everything Lorenzo mentioned about fish tailing wherein if you feel the rear of your car is sliding down the dune you must steer down in that same direction, as counter-intuitive as it may seem!

Hope to see you all soon 🌵

Ps - Some pics of the drive in the gallery section 📸

 

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20 minutes ago, Russ said:

@Lorenzo Candelpergher thank you for an action packed Friday morning drive!

This area is the perfect place to learn and improve desert driving skills and I’m sure everyone benefitted from the tutorials and choice of terrain; some small technical dunes to negotiate, crossing dunes, and side sloping of large open dunes.

@Marcin Wronowski - a fantastic 2nd lead, well done.

@Asem Rashwan - Hope you manage to fix the issues with your car. Please ensure you replace and ensure the integrity of your front tow hooks before joining your next drive.  
 

@Premjit Vappala @Mawy @Simon Dawood @Vishal Nair @Usman Basit @Rouaj @Muhammad Qasim @Sergio Big Dawg @Tom B @Mohamad Ziad Alhennawi you all drove very well. Continue practicing going up and down dunes and any hesitation will soon disappear, and keep in mind everything Lorenzo mentioned about fish tailing wherein if you feel the rear of your car is sliding down the dune you must steer down in that same direction, as counter-intuitive as it may seem!

Hope to see you all soon 🌵

Ps - Some pics of the drive in the gallery section 📸

 

@Russ first I would like to thank you for your support towing my car to safety, and thanks God that everyone is safe especially @Lorenzo Candelpergher and you.

@Lorenzo Candelpergher thank you for leading this amazing drive and for not hesitating to help me and everyone during the drive.

Second I would like to thank everyone for being a great company, looking forward to seeing you soon.

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We have had a great drive with an amazing group of people   special thanks to  @Lorenzo Candelpergher and @Russ for the great drive, it was a blast.

Looking forward to seeing you next time 

 

 

 

20211126_075738.jpg

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DRIVE REPORT

Dear Desert Wanderers, 

It was a nice and chilling dawn when the convoy met yesterday at 6:30am.

Everyone made it to the meeting point quite on time and after an extensive briefing we were ready to move by 7:05am.

We warmed up crossing a long sabkha heading north east, then entered an area of nice long range dunes, where we spent quite some time roaming around and practicing some fun sidesloping. 

The sand in the area was very churned up and with many tracks, which made the exercise way more complex, but worth it.

To the surprise of most in the convoy, we encountered several rock formations, which made the landscape, in the sunrise light, even more fascinating. 

As we moved further deep into the desert, we managed to get some distance between our convoy and the other two that were roaming in the area, one of which led by @M.Seidam.

Quite early in the drive @Vishal Nair's Pajero, if I am not mistaken, showed some transmission overheating problems, so we stopped to address the issue. As discussed, most Pajeros suffer from transmission overheating which is often solved by installing a small additional fan in front of the dedicated radiator. Many Senior members in the club will be able to help on this. Our Marshal @Vanessa8580our Expert @Mehmet Volga or@GauravSonifrom the Support Team will be surely able to give you some advice. 

As the convoy was doing very well, I decided to raise the bar a little and to throw in some more fun stuff, including a few straight-up / straight-down dune crossing. 

It was approaching a high crest, followed by a long and steep descent, that @Asem Rashwan got crested in a moment of hesitation, giving Russ the chance to demonstrate to the whole convoy how a proper rope recovery is done.

The stop and regrouping came handy to review some basic concepts about sidesloping, dune crossing and fishtailing, after which we were again on the move. 

With a few more refusals here and there we made our way further North, approaching the area of the Mighty Lisaili Dunes, maintaining a nice and fluid pace. 

Too good to be true, me and @Russ were thinking.. Then it happened: @Asem Rashwan's Ford Explorer, after a severe overheating caused by repeated attempts to recover from a stuck situation in supersoft and churned up sand, totally lost power, with no chance to get the engine running. 

Given the situation, as @Carnity's motto is that we never leave anyone behind, it was decided that we would attempt to tow the Ford Explorer out on the tarmac using my winch first, to get him on the flat, and then the endless horsepower of @Russ' beast.

Winching uphill a dead load was hard but it worked out, so the towing was next, but probably the tow point (a bolted one) had been taxed enough and it collapsed as soon as @Russ started to pull. Luckily no one was injured and nothing was damaged by the steel projectile and we are all here adding this story to the many adventures of our off-road memoirs.

Having explored in advance the best route out, the convoy had an easy exit to the Sabkha and eventually to the tarmac on D63 Seeh Al Salam Road, where we reached at 11:05am, exactly 4h after our departure. 

Everyone in the convoy did extremely well

@Marcin Wronowski was an excellent 2nd lead. Always responsive to my instructions for small deviations.

@Premjit Vappala did very well with his Pajero. With time you'll learn to be less shy on your throttle and get addicted to flooring it 😂

@Mawy followed in a very disciplined and focused way, with a brilliant performance. I also appreciated his many smart comments and useful suggestions on the radio. Well done! 

@Simon DawoodDawood had sometimes the temptation to fight gravity while sidesloping. Practice will help you control your fishtailing with the right combination of gas + countersteering , which will ultimately lead you to sustain longer sideslopes without challenging the unbeatable gravity. 

@Vishal Nair proved to be more efficient with manual shift than his automatic gearbox when it comes to preventing transmission overheating 😉. Other than that, some refusals here and there were all part of the game, especially in non trivial terrain as the one we drove through yesterday. 

@Asem Rashwan drove overall very well and had his good share of Desert Adventure for the day, but all is well what ends well. As @Russ recommended, please do not join any other drive before replacing both front tow points with proper ones, adequately strong and rated to withstand harsh tugs as happen off-road. 

@Usman Basit had a moment of concern when he heard some weird noise from his front left wheel, but it disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, so he could continue the drive and get a full blast of fun with the rest of the convoy. His hesitations here and there will fade away with time and practice. 

I had less visual on the cars at the back, but both @Rouaj and @Muhammad Qasim leveraged well their capable FJ Cruisers, struggling here and there in churned up sand, which was however quite unavoidable yesterday. 

@Sergio Big Dawg certainly showed he has a few more drives outside @Carnity under his belly. Also, his legendary Y61 is, by definition, almost unstoppable.. 

@Tom B at the back led his capable Land Cruiser, a great (but heavy and thus not easy) off-roader. Coming to terms with counter-steering to control fishtailing will take time and practice, but is particularly important on a heavy long wheel base ride like his. 

@Mohamad Ziad Alhennawi was comfortably at the back with his giant Hummer. As he noticed, the heavy weight of his beast requires a lot of ability in never losing momentum, as gravity won't make any discounts on an H3 😂😂.

Overall we covered 43.6km in 4h net, moving for 2h 33' and stopping for 1h 27'. While in movement, we kept an average speed of 17.1km/h, which means it was a fairly fast paced drive as most of the terrain allowed for a fast ride. 

Congratulations to all, very well done but, most importantly, special thanks to @Russ who was all over the place, tugging, shoveling, giving instructions, providing valuable guidance, making my life way easier. Look at him at the top of a long slip face descent, guiding the whole lot down:

20211126_082459.jpg.ef97d252f618666c203f959c9a69519e.jpg

A perfect support and an excellent towing exercise at the end. Bravo! 

See you soon in the sand! 

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