ChrisW

What a great return to form, @DP1011! Yesterday’s drive was great fun. We started off nice and early and got straight into Nahel’s medium to taller sized dunes while the air was still cool. We found some good lines to sweep through the taller dunes, and some easy ridges to push through. We gave ourselves the chance to practice a few times on a nice long ridge section in the early part of the drive, and we found a nice bowl section which gave everyone a chance to practice managing their energy…and some great photos from @Marek! The back end of the drive was a chance for our newest support team member @Andrew John Melvill to shine, putting @Wayne Momsen back enroute again. As DP mentioned, great teamwork from everyone in keeping it together during the long recovery. Well done.

Hey @Davie Smooth_Operator - just wanted to send a belated thanks to you and everyone who joined us. We started off in the daylight with some easy lines through Fayah’s small to medium height dunes, giving everyone a chance to get warmed up and practice on the moderately technical terrain. It was also fun to catch a few sideys and some flat ridges. A stop at the fox holes was great for some social time and photos for everyone, and then preparation for driving in the dark. With the sun soon down, we trailed through some slightly larger and more technical dunes which gave everyone a chance to stretch further the skills from earlier in the day. A few refusals and stucks, all handled really well and plenty to learn from. A great day out and my passenger enjoyed it too!

Looking forward to it @DP1011 - and @Luke K P hope you get sorted soon…have missed the karak!

Great news @J-P L! Very pleased for you, and I am sure many of the club will benefit from your support and coaching along the way.

Hey Doc, unfortunately I will have to drop out - my wife lands back in AUH on Saturday night…not sure I’d be very popular if I sent a taxi to meet her… 😂

@M.Seidam Thank you kindly, Doc - looking forward to the regular Friday fixture.

The PCV is an interesting one - the connector on the Jeep gives a very firm and positive lock, but the female end of the connector is wide and does seem to gather sand. I was doing some work on my Jeep over the weekend and had it open - and was surprised to find oily sand there and a small amount on the face of the throttle butterfly.

@Ale Vallecchi Many thanks again for a great drive yesterday. We had some long periods of really good flowing lines and the convoy moved at a good pace. It was also a treat to find so many fresh ridges which gave us some very easy going rides with the sun sitting low on the desert. @Warbs, @Sam Selim, @Glenn W it was a pleasure driving with you guys - you tackled so much of the terrain with a good mindset and no dramas. All our recoveries were followed well and we worked everything out without having to step out of our cars - great work and meant that @Aser and I got to sit back and enjoy! Hope to see you all out there soon!

Cool, it helps but yes - I have the same issue. We somehow seem to often land on the same channels as farm or construction guys!

The simplest starting point is to become familiar with how the squelch function works on your radio. This basically raises the threshold (the floor) at which your radio will make transmissions audible. Very weak or distant signals can be screened out, whereas stronger signals (such as from radios in the convoy) remain audible. In my experience this screens many of the nuisance signals from construction workers. The use of more sophisticated modes would be great for many reasons - but it also requires a level of setup that might be beyond the scope of our weekend drives.

Thanks @GauravSoni, as mentioned elsewhere, this was a brilliantly simple drive plan executed extremely well. There was a continuous run of interesting technical dunes which all required slightly different combinations of momentum, gas and steering. This was definitely a good one to revisit basic skills and gain practice. I also enjoyed seeing what the highest gear/least RPM I could get away with was! From my position in the convoy I could watch @Abhishek Chikara and @Sam Selim - I was very impressed with you both, good approaches and you adapted your lines well as you discovered where the traction was. You also made a very good call Abhishek with the turn down, loop and re-attempt - on an IM drive that’s the difference between keeping the convoy flowing and having to stop and re-start. All under the watchful eye of the solar furnace 😂

…thank you for the timely reminder to ensure we pack all the gear we are each required to carry…shovel, recovery rope, soft shackles, suitable tow points on the car, etc… Looking forward to it @GauravSoni!

Thank you @M.Seidam and all. That was a really fun evening and gave me a chance to learn and practice different skills. It was a great pleasure to support you. You all did really well - driving at night in softer sand with larger terrain can be daunting, but nobody panicked and everybody did the right things at the right times with their driving. @Kashx2 and @Suneedh Wrangler you both handled refusals and reattempts really well, looking forward to driving with you both in the future.

Congrats @Warbs - was a pleasure driving with you the other night, you covered Qudra really well and are clearly ready for the next step!

Congrats @Jessica Lambert! Will be excellent having you helping out and passing on hard won experience to fellow drivers.

Soon, @Sam Selim! @Martin M You will need to join another drive for the weekend at or below your current level of Fewbie - this is a Fewbie Plus (FB+) level drive.

A few onboard vids…

@Ale Vallecchi thanks for leading a really fun drive, there was some good opportunities to stretch ourselves and the cars in there and plenty of learning opportunities. Getting out into the Pink Rock and Big Red areas was a chance to test some technical and bigger dune skills, with climbs at a few points too. It was a pleasure getting out with you all! Well done @Johannes Roux for carving good lines as second lead, plenty of Pajero learning for @Carl Stanley and @Jose Luis Campos, @Sam Selim you’re really at one with the car and the quality of your driving is coming up and up - and finally @Beide Worku it’s always fun to see the big cars carve through the dunes without breaking a sweat!

Perfect - I’m in.

@Ale Vallecchi Looks like our attendance list has changed and Khlief has dropped out.

AM preferable for me, but can support PM if majority favour then.

Hey @Ale Vallecchi, no problems - thanks for the early heads up. I’m currently due to support @Looper’s drive on Saturday morning, however I note that @Bjoern is also listed for that drive - so I could drop from there and instead support your drive on Saturday morning. I cannot do Sunday unfortunately. I’ll stay signed up to Looper’s drive for now, and if you change this to Saturday morning I’ll flip over.

Haha, thanks @Marek and @Sam Selim- I did tell people I wanted plenty of opportunities to learn recoveries, and many members of the club have been only to happy to help!