Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Principles of Overlanding Vehicle Recovery Part 2

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Principles of Overlanding Vehicle Recovery Part 2 · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Scott Brady, and I'm here with my co-host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Matt Scott, and our special guest, Jim West, Camel Trophy
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: veteran and recovery expert, also a member of the 7P
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: International Overland Training Team. And this starts part two of
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: our Principles of Overlanding Vehicle Recovery, where we're going to
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: go into a little deeper dive on the kinds of
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: equipment you want to bring along and the lessons that
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: we've learned traveling around the world. We're also going to
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: pick up from a few of the stories that we
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: ended the last episode with and then get into the
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: meat of overland recovery. And a special thanks to Danner Boots,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: who is supporting this episode today. Danner's new Logger 917
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: was inspired by the classic pattern and lines of Danner's
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: original cocked logging boots made in the Pacific Northwest. They're
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: built with Danner's trusted quality and durability. The Logger 917
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: is designed to ensure you're comfortable and dry wherever your
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: adventure takes you, even if it includes a little bit
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: of recovery along the way. With a Gore-Tex waterproof liner
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: and a Vibram SPE rubberized EVA midsole, the Logger 917
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: offers performance, waterproofing, and lightweight comfort, all in a rugged
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: yet refined style.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Tanner. All right.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: So if the first goal is to not get stuck,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: let's say we do get stuck. We want to have
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: some equipment along with us to help us get unstuck.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: These stories show that drapery doesn't really work. Frogs don't
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: really work. And in Matt's case. Listen to your wife.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: I guess you driving doesn't really work. I don't know.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Honestly, like every rad picture I have of a truck
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: somewhere cool, somewhere very remote. Yeah, she's the one driving.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: So we want to have the right equipment along. And
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: because we are trying to be responsible in our podcast,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: we're going to talk a little bit about safety equipment.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: So these are recommended items.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: There's a counterpoint to it as well, but it is
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: a good idea to start with gloves. I do wear gloves,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: but I've got it. This is something that I've got
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: an opinion on, but I would love to know your thoughts.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: Loose gloves, tight gloves?
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Loose gloves versus tight gloves.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: They're Some people love the idea of these really loose
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: gloves that in the, in the one.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Like, like a breed, like someone, someone coughs five feet
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: away and the glove falls off.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Well, it's, it's in case it gets caught by, I mean,
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: I've never seen this happen in ever.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: But it's only going to get caught.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: I have snagged a glove on a wire rope. Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Do you wear loose gloves or do you wear tight gloves?
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: I wear, well, I call them mule skinners. They're just regular,
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: they're gloves, but they're reinforced a bit. They're not winching gloves.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: So they're kind of in the middle. I think like
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: a mechanics glove, a rope glove or something like that,
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: that actually Velcro's on. I can see the problem. But again,
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: if it becomes a problem, your winch operation practices are bad.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: You're too close to the winch. Because the whole thing
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: for those folks who have never got into the loose glove,
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: tight glove debate is as you're putting the winch line
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: on the spool, if you, with wire rope, it was
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: a biggie. Although here in Arizona with a cholla cactus,
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: if you don't know what cholla cactus is.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: They hurt. Avoid them. Look it up.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: So, with synthetic rope, you can get a cactus in
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: there and I've seen that. And you can get snagged
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: almost the same as wire rope, but you end up
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: with a little burr. It snags your glove. You're operating
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: too close to the winch and it sucks your hand
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: in through the fairleaf.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: And there's winch run in and all that. And we
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: can talk about that whenever you like. But winches don't
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: stop immediately. They continue to roll a little bit until
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: they've kind of rolled to a stop. And they're under
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: full power. They have all that gearing while they're still moving.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: So if you get hung up on the wire rope
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: and you're two inches away and you let go of
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: the button, your hand is going to get pulled through
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: that fairlead. Again, my 9,000 pound winch won't bat an
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: eye at pulling this hand through and it will be nasty.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: So loose gloves, you could get out of it when
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: it snags. The problem with loose gloves and the problem
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: that I always had with them, because I've got, it
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: seemed like Warren and, well, not just, I'm not picking
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: on Warren, but Super Winch, everybody gave you a pair
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: of gloves when you got a winch cut. Sure. And
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: they were these massive loose gloves. You have zero dexterity.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: That's the challenge.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: So you're constantly fighting with the shackles and you're fighting
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: with the connection points and you're- You're taking them off.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you end up needing to take them off.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: So I think it is an interest, and we're not
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: saying that one way is right or wrong. I think
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: when it comes to the loose gloves versus tighter gloves,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: use the thing that allows you to be most proficient
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: and successful in the recovery, and then use good recovery
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: practice so that way you don't get your hands into trouble.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: scenarios that involve pinching. Don't stick your hand in the winch.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: No, it's a bad idea.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: It's a really bad idea.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: All right. So that's, that's the, that's the glove thing.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I also like to recommend that people have on glasses,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: whether it be safety glasses with their lenses at night,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: just a pair of sunnies during the day, sunglasses during
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: the day. And that's because I have, I have encountered
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: when under load, some of these components can kick out
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: rocks or or they can kick out metal shards.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like a snapshot can throw dust and little mini
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: particles like everywhere when it tensions.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: I think it's a good idea to have glasses on
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: I also think that it's a good idea to have
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: on sturdy boots because you can drop a pulley block
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: on your.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: Foot, which.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: You only do that once. Yeah, people have done that
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: actually with significant injury. So it's a good idea to
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: have boots on. It's a good idea to not have
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: loose clothing. I certainly don't have a problem with long hair,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: but if you've got longer hair, you want to have
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: it tied back. So that way your hair doesn't fall
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: into the winch while you're working on the rope.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Speaking from experience. I have zero experience with that.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: But again, the counterpoint to all of this safety stuff
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: is be really careful around the whole virtue shaming concept
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: of like you see an image and someone's in flip
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: flops and they don't have a glove.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: They're out there doing it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: I see that most of the people that complain about
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: this kind of stuff are typically people that are.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, like, listen, the amount of times you
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: get stuck. Compared to the amount of times you hop
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: into your four-wheel drive, especially when you're a traveler, I
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: don't need to dress like SEAL Team 6 to go
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: drive around in my air-conditioned car to go down a
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: road that I'm perfectly capable of doing. Occasionally, you get stuck,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: and I think that the key thing there is that
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: you don't put your hand in the winch. Just don't
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: be a martyr. moron, right? Use common sense.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: If it were that simple.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: But like, yeah, like if you're setting out to go
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: recreational four-wheel driving, yeah, like maybe don't wear board shorts
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: and flip-flops. But when I'm driving down the beach for
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: 200 kilometers in Cape York, I'm not wearing shoes, you know,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: but that's just me. There's your counterpoint. Like be smart.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: If you're in a situation where you clearly recognize like, hey,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: should not be wearing these clothes, well, then reevaluate.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Make that part of your assessment. Should I change my clothing?
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Should I add gloves? Should I put on glasses? Should
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I be mindful of the fact that I have long
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: hair because I've been traveling for a long time and
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: it's gotten.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Whatever. I wonder if.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Dan Grek has ever got his hair stuck in his winch.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: He's got that hippie hair. He's got some locks. He's
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: got that hippie hair. He's got some locks.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So those are some general ideas around safety equipment,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: but also be really careful around the whole virtue shaming
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: thing of It just makes you look silly. But then
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: after that, what's the fundamental equipment? And what would you
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: say if someone was just getting started with travel and
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: four-wheel driving, what would be the few pieces of equipment
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: that you would recommend around recovery that everybody brings in
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: their vehicle, Jim?
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: And let's assume that they don't have a winch.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: Okay. I'll just back that up. So when I did
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: Camel Trophy, Super Winch gave us a free winch. It's
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: the first winch I ever owned. A little known fact
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: on my resume to get on the camel trophy team,
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: I lied and said I'd used winches left and right.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: What I meant was come alongs because they were inexpensive. So,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: I mean, we talked about it and just looking at
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: the list, it's a good list, is a shovel. I mean,
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: I am not bashing anybody who comes up with a
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: overlanding shovel, but I'm cheap.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I'm cheap.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: The shovel in my vehicle now is actually an old
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: British military T-handle shovel. It kind of proximinates whatever. The
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: Campbell Trophy shovel, which was a bulldog.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: The Carter shovel.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: And it works good. It's short. It works you to death.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: But I don't get the $ 400 and $ 500 shovel thing. Again,
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: I'm sure they're brilliant shovels. Have a shovel. It doesn't
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: matter if you go down to Home Depot and buy
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: a $ 12 shovel. Have a great shovel, a $ 500 shovel.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: I like to carry stuff that I can do multiple
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: things with it. It's not a single-use piece of equipment.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So you can go poop.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: With your shovel just as easily exactly as you get
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: unstuck with your shovel i.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Like a yeah that's 90 percent of what i use
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: my shovel for totally or you're you know snuffing out
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: a fire or whatever you use it for general utility
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: things or you're you're digging a hole so you can
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: level your vehicle or whatever yeah i think that my
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: shovel came from the korean war.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah I bet it works.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So I like it. It works.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: I like a T-handled shovel. I like a D-handled shovel.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I like a shorter shovel. So you can get a
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: little bit of force. You can also get underneath the
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: vehicle fairly easy. I like for it to be a spade.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: If you're in the snow, of course you want something
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: that is flat nose so you can displace more material.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Sand, it can go either way.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Don't get too hung up on it, but I think
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: that you should always have a shovel with you and
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: it's a really good idea to make it a spade
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: that's a little shorter so you can get up underneath
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: the vehicle easily. I really like those Glock entrenching tools
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one. You turned me on to
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: those a while ago, and I want to say they're $ 30.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: They're not that expensive.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: They have a saw in one end. They do fold
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: down so you can use it as a, I want
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: to say, trowel is the technical term, to clear stuff
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: from underneath the vehicle at a 90-degree angle. They work well.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: You know, I've used the expensive shovels like the Demos shovels.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're cool.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: They probably work well, too.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're cool, but I recognize the irony. There's cheap
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: versions of the product that I sell. For me, on
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a shovel, I don't see the value, perhaps, in spending
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: a huge amount of money on a shovel.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: But you do want to have good quality equipment, and
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: you want to have it with you. Right.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just spend what you want. Use case.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: If you need something that folds up, if you need
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: something that's light, if you need something that looks super
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: cool to your buddies, maybe you want a different shovel.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Need versus want, right?
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, we do want
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: to have a spade that's a little shorter in length.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: And it's really good idea if it's T-handled or D-handled.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: So that's a really good idea. What else do we
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: want to bring.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Along, Jim?
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: Most of my decisions of how I load my car
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: is how far afield I'm going and who I'm going with.
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: If I'm going by myself and I'm going very remote,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: then I typically take a little bit more gear. I
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: have to be able to self-rescue. In my box, I mean,
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: I'm a minimalist. So I've got a kinetic strap. I've
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: got a static strap. That's my tree strap. I've got
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: a few winch extensions. I've got a few soft shackles.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: I've got a few bow shackles, pulley block. Eliminate most
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: of those things if you don't have a winch.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: So people, you see pretty much people love high lift jacks.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: I have a high lift jack 95% of the time
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: it sits in my shed. It never goes on my car.
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: I used, I've had it for probably 50 years.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: It's really hard to argue against the utility and the
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: use case of a high lift jack. I'm in the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: same thing.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: Like they're 80 pounds.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: To, yeah. You'd rather have one than not have one.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Correct. Yeah.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: And we'll talk about the use of the high lift
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: also or recovery.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit more.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: More of a challenge to use, but it can be suitable.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we want to have a recovery strap or
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: we want to have a kinetic energy recovery rope that
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: is rated to 1.5 to two times gross vehicle weight.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Or if you're over gross vehicle weight, 1.5 to two
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: times what that rate, what that weight is. You want
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: to be closer to two times if you're going to
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: be traveling with mixed vehicles. If you're going to be
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: traveling with like vehicles, you can be closer to that
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: 1.5 times gross vehicle weight. And then you want to
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: have a couple, two, three screw pin C or D
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: shackles along with you as well.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: So now that we've got a recovery strap or a Kerr,
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: we want to have two or three screw pin C
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: or D shackles. C is the most common. They're typically
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: going to be rated around four and a half tons.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: You get a van B shackle. It'll be rated around
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: six metric tons. Soft shackles are also a thing too.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: I really like those.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Again, I think that they just, the more metal that
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you can remove from a recovery scenario, personally, I think
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the better. They're definitely more expensive than a screw pin shackle,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: but I think there's a lot of benefits to them.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I like having both of them along.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: The concern that I have with soft shackles is that
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: they are vulnerable to sharp edges on the chassis. A
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: lot of times when we're doing recoveries, we may not
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: notice that there's that little piece of flashing or when
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: we put it into the factory recovery point, we don't
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: notice that there's something in there that's sharp or we
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: need to put it around something that's non-conventional so i
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: like to have both i think obviously biggest advantage to
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: soft shackles is the fact that it reduces mass from
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: a connection point so soft shackles can be really great
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: for that what do you think on that Yeah.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, I absolutely carry both. Learned how to tie them.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: So that reduces the expense a little bit, which is
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: kind of nice. And exactly. We mentioned Dyneema in general
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: for winch lines, but we didn't really go over the
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: weaknesses or the problems with Dyneema is what you said.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: They don't like shark objects under load. They can cut
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: quite easily. They don't like heat. They don't like abrasion.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: So any of those areas where those could happen, put
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: a bow shackle in. Just because, yeah, I mean, again,
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: it's the wire rope versus synthetic. They both have their places.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: And I think like for utility, I still like wire rope.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: You know, if I had a, if I had a
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: brush truck, I'd probably have wire rope. Yeah.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: Something that's going to.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Et cetera. Totally.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. If you're winching all the time, especially in muddy
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: environments where a lot of material is getting impregnated into
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: the winch line, the synthetic line is just not a
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: good solution for sure.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. All right.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: And then I would also make the argument for a
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: recovery board as a part of a basic recovery kit,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: because it's so common that someone that's new to driving
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: will get themselves overstuck.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: They'll get too stuck where you just can't get.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Out with using these basic recovery skills like airing down
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: and shovel and all that other stuff. So having a
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: way to self-recover, we don't always have other vehicles with us.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: So I just permanently leave a set of Maxtrax. There
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: are other brands as well. During the Camel Trophy days,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: they use the PSP.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: PSP board, yeah.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Which PSP in dry conditions is fantastic.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: They struggle a lot once things get wet because they
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: just don't have the traction, the surface traction of a
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: modern recovery board.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I think there's this little downside to a recovery board.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, seldom are they going to make a scenario worse.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, true.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: You know, that's the way I look at it.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I'll kind of stay out of that one.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, it kind of comes down to they're
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: either going to work or they're not. I mean, it's
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: quite literally that simple. And if they work, they're absolutely
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: save you a whole bunch of work.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I always like to say when we crossed the Simpson
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Desert with our Land Cruiser that had like four horsepower
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: and weighed like 18 million pounds we would lay them
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: down proactively you know on that sand dune that you
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: know that you're not going to make it up i
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: always liked doing that and i still do that with
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: with our kind of camper vehicles yeah.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah you can build a road uh with recovery boards
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: and um yeah i've I've had to do that on
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Mini Kit just recently with the new Defender. We were
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: in the coral pink sand dunes and we had a
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: less experienced driver and they were struggling. And by using
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: the Max Trax in this case, they were shocked. They
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: were literally wide eyed at how, you know, you turn
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: it over, use it as a shovel. move a bunch
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: of material out of the way, shove it up underneath
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: the tire, give it a little press with your foot
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: so that it gets planted and then slowly apply throttle
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: so that the lugs of the tire can begin to
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: key with the teeth of the tread board. Then it
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: just pops you out so quickly. So they really have
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: a lot of use. And I think that they are
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: a fairly good idea to bring along as a fundamental
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: piece of kit. You can move them from vehicle to vehicle.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: If you sell your truck, it's easy to just take
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: it on with a new vehicle. So I think they're
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: actually a fairly good investment in that regard. Yeah.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: And I think too, not to dwell on it or
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: trying to sound biased, but for those that maybe don't
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: have a winch or don't, they're travelers that don't have
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: the budget to obtain one and do not have the training,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: it's just cheaper. Yeah.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: With regards to the winch, people think, okay, you know,
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: I'm going to say I'm going to get a good
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: quality winch that's going to be $ 8, 000 to $ 1, 000. That's
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: kind of just the start. So now I have to
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: have a way to attach it to my vehicle. So
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: a good quality bumper for my old Land Rover is $ 1, 200.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: And now the winch itself, I need a winch kit,
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: recovery kit that has all the pieces, the tree strap
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: and all and the pulley block and all that. So-
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: It's not just the purchase of the winch. It's a
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: wonderful tool.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I probably would never argue against the utility of one.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: No, absolutely. But you just have to, if it's just
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: not economically feasible for you, then there are much less
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: expensive ways to more labor intensive, but to get the
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: same thing done.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it can be more expedient. It can also
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: help you go backwards really easy. You can use a
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: front mounted vehicle winch to winch rearward as well. But
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: it's more complicated around vehicles that are newer, where they're
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: less okay with running winch cables underneath.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Them and stuff.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, you think about all of the sensors and airbags.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, anyways, we don't need to go into that
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: kind of a detail on it. But there are times
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: that you want to just make it very simple. And
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: sometimes going in reverse is the best way to get
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: out of a scenario for sure. So now let's move
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: on to the basic equipment that we want now that
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: we've introduced potentially a vehicle mounted winch or we want
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: to take... into consideration additional scenarios. That's where I would
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: absolutely include the recovery boards, two, ideally four recovery boards.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: You also want to include a utility strap or a
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: tree strap. This is going to be something with null stretch.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: If it is Dyneema, it needs to have some kind
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: of padding around it if you're going to use it
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: as a tree strap, so that way we don't disturb
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: or break the cadmium of the tree and do damage
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: to the tree. So we'd never want to do that.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: So we never want to wrap winch line around a tree.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: We always want to a tree strap or something that
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: can distribute that force on the bark. So we do
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: want to have some kind of a utility strap. We
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: also want to consider bringing along a line dampener or
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: knowing what we can use as a line damper. So
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: a messenger bag works great for that with a few
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: things put in it, soft things put in it with
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: some weight. We can also use a duffel bag and
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: we can put the strap around it.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: A jacket. A wet sweatshirt or something. Yeah, a jacket.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Something is better than nothing. You know, that's where that
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: whole counterpoint thing comes in. Yes, it's great to have the...
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: The safety jacket. Yeah, the safety jacket. This is what
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: we're talking about here. This is a recovery damper. Great
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: to have one of these. But that's, you know, at
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: its core, what is this?
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: This is... You know, this is what, like a nylon
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: with a little bit of.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Weight into it. You know, my sweatshirt probably doesn't weigh
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: much more than that.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: The whole idea is if it breaks, it drops it
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: to the ground. It doesn't let it fly up. And
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: so whatever works to dampen that is fine.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: The line damper has two functions.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Functions as a sail, which means we wanna have surface
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: area so that way when or if the line breaks,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: it slows it down as it moves through the air.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: We wanna add a sail area to it. And then
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: we also wanna add a little bit of weight, but
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: weight that's safe if it impacts another vehicle or an individual,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: and that weight helps to bring the line down to
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: the ground. So we wanna have some surface area, And
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: we want to have a little bit of weight to it. Again,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: we don't want to hang a bunch of shackles on
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: the line. That's totally counterproductive. But line damper is a
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: good idea or knowing how to do an improvised line damper.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: We want to bring along additional components.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Shackles.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: That's probably a good time to start looking at the
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: soft shackles as well. and understanding how they work and
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: getting some training on that as well. And then once
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: we introduce a winch into that, we want to start
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: to be able to take advantage of the mechanical nature
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: of a winch by introducing one or multiple pulley blocks
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: to increase the capacity of the winch.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: And we're doing that mechanically. It's a gearing effect.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Now, when we increase the mechanical advantage of the winch
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: with a pulley block, we are reducing the line speed
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: by approximately half. It's actually a little bit more than
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: that because we've introduced some parasitic drag into the system.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: But in general, we have to understand that things are
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: going to be a little slower, which is rarely a
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: bad thing, right?
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: No, I can say it's a slow methodical process. So
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: there's some competitive winches out there. Look at that monster. Okay,
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: let's get this out of here so it doesn't confuse people.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: My dad, God bless him, had a couple of sayings
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: and he said he got them from.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: An old guy.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: And my dad was an old guy then. And I'm
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: an old guy now. But he said, basically, if you
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: get a little stuck, what's the first thing you do?
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: You make lunch.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Slow down.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: Slow down.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: If you get really stuck, you make camp. So in
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: the whole point there is, and again, we kind of
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: hit on it earlier, is especially with a winch or
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: even a kinetic recovery is if you do it wrong,
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: bad things can happen. At the very least, it won't
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: be successful. At the very most, somebody gets hurt or
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: equipment gets broke. It's really good to slow down, come
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: up with a good plan. One of the things, especially
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: when you introduce a pulley into the process, is it's
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: more critical to think of where's my weak link. Point
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: there is, is so if I have a winch extension
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: going from a tree anchor or whatever to to the pulley,
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: and then it's double-lined back, understanding that if the winch
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: is full at full power, so mine's a 9,000-pound winch,
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: so that's 18,000 pounds it's pulling, what's the rate on
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: the extension? Because that's, whereas the winch line's only taking
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: nine on each side, it's splitting that, but where that
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: goes to the tree, so you have to always build
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: to the program's weakest link.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Correct. What's that single point of failure?
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Now, on the table, we just put down, this is
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: actually sold by 7P, and there's other ones out there.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Maxtrax sells ones as well. But we have a synthetic
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: line that's turned into a synthetic shackle.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: A beefy one.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a very beefy one.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's tough.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a monster. And then we have a machined
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: aluminum ring that goes inside it. So Jim, give us
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: the incentive towards using a product like this. There are
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: people that have some concerns with them and I think
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: that they're valid, but there's also definitely some usability behind
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: these things as well. So what brought this to people's mind?
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Why are they becoming more popular?
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: Again, this absolutely came out of the sailing industry. These
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: kind of pulley blocks are used quite often.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they even have like carbon fiber ones for yachts.
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah. On the- The.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: America's Cup boats and, you know.
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: I don't have one of those.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: You don't?
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: No. What do we have on here? Again, you know,
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: what we used before that was, whether you call it
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: a shiv or a pulley block or... Do they work?
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: Absolutely work. This came about, again, a good friend of
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: mine kind of started having to think because, again, synthetic
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: rope has... It's the strongest based on the radius. And
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: there's a whole formula for radius. I do not know
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: what that formula is. Sharp edges, we already said, it
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: doesn't like that. And so... The radius inside of a
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: recovery ring, and pretty much all of them have kind
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: of the same radius as far as the inside goes,
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: is more conducive to synthetic rope. It likes that bend
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: better than the radiuses for a regular pulley block. Depending
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: on the cheeks of the pulley block or how it's designed,
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: it can actually abrade if the synthetic rope is sticking
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: up above, whereas these are very, very deep. So you
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: can get some failures there. Again, Pluses and minuses. I
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: beat that horse to death. One of the minuses of
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: this and why most people who don't like it, they
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: don't like it because if you put your program together
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: and it's not tensioned up, you have to keep an
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: eye on this. Once you tension it up, if you've
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: built your program right, you're fine. But if you say,
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: if you're doing a drive winch.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that doesn't work.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: Really good. Yeah. You can, but you have to be
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: amazingly disciplined. You cannot completely unload If you unload the system,
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: the rope can fall right out of this. And that's
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: a problem.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Very difficult.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: So you have to keep an eye on it, which
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: means that it can fall out of the ring.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: And then you need to shut down the driving operation
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: so that you're not shock loading it or you're not
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: putting rope on rope.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Which would very quickly cut through it.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And certainly there's not only the radius for the winch line,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: but there's also the diameter of the ring, which will
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: help distribute heat. Will also give some additional mechanical advance,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: mostly around heat and that radius. But if it gets
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: too big, then you've got this huge piece of material
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: you've got to carry along with you.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And it adds a lot of weight. to your kit.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: So there's a reason why these things are the diameter
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: that they are and that they have the radiuses that
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: they do is to manage heat and also to minimize
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: the likelihood of damage.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: To the Dyneema.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I think. For Overland travelers, at the end of the day,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: you cannot carry everything with you. You have a certain
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: amount of weight. You have a certain amount of stuff
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: that you can fit in spaces, right? When I look
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: at the way that I travel and the way that
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I go off-road, et cetera, I am less inclined to
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: bring a traditional pulley. They are pretty heavy. You know,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: they kind of move around. They rattle. You know, they're
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: very useful. I'm not arguing against the utility of them.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: But when I look at how I travel, this is
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: a lot more... This is a lot more approachable, right?
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: You can carry one of these, you know, for most
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: people in most situations in overlanding, they probably never should
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: need a pulley block.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Let's be realistic.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: But when you do have to do more advanced rigging,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: something like this at, you know, two pounds right now
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: becomes worth its weight in gold, right? So this is
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: really easy to just throw in. I personally, I don't
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: know how you feel about this. I look at the
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: recovery ring as more of a casual user. I look
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: at the pulley block as maybe more of a professional
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: or commercial use case. That's, that's just how I tend
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: to recommend them. You know, full disclosure, we do sell
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: these things to, you.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: Know, but just not quite as good, right?
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: We'll fight about that one later, bro. No, but I just,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: that's the way I break it down. If somebody is
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: coming to me and they're saying, hey, I want to
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: use this thing day in, day out. I'm a tow
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: truck driver. I am whatever. No, go with the pulley block.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: But again, for Overland Travelers, you can't have everything. This
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: is a good way to have something out of, you know,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: you can shove that.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: The back of a drawer system and it's a fraction
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: of the weight that's a huge advantage because those fractions
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: of weight do add up people might say oh it's
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: only 30 pounds less i'm like.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: But obviously so this is the biggest one we build
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: and again coming back to uh loading you know i
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: and and bought you know what if you buy a
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: pulley blocker you buy a recovery ring from like i
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: think just five manufacturers doing them now.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I think there's 5 million. Cause what's happened is they've
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: ended up on Alibaba. So like there's, there's like the, the,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the Alibaba Overland companies, like all of them, like all
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: of them. Like there's one that's like Overland vehicle, something
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: they have one Overland vehicle systems. It's like $ 20 and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: it's like that big. Yeah.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: I would love to do some destructive testing on it.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Right. Like, well, there's a lot of heat that generates
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: in that very small diameter.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: So in, from my perspective, they do have their use.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: They need to be used with, some additional training. They also,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: because they are more complex than a typical pulley block,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: the rope can fall off of the ring and come
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: in contact with the soft shackle, which can lead to
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: almost immediate failure. So the advantage of a traditional pulley
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: block is they have these wings that open and you
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: put the line in there and then the wings.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Close and then... Closed system.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: It's a closed system, so it does much better in
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: dynamic recovers between driving and winching. It doesn't mean you
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: can't use a ring for driving and winching, but it
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: requires that marshal to be very mindful of the recovery ring.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: So again, for those that are listening, that can be
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: an advantage. I do bring one along, but I bring
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: it on along as my second pulley block. And that's
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: the reason why I bring it because I want the
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: second one to be lighter, take.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Up less space.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: You use that one less often.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: It becomes a much more complex system. Yeah. The biggie
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: here is, and regardless, is I have a pulley block
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: at home and I don't use it.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: It is specific.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: It looks like an ARB pulley block. It looks exactly
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: like it. And it says 9,000 on it. It doesn't
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: say 9,000 anything. It just says 9,000. So again, back
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: to that, make sure your equipment is good quality equipment.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: Like I said, the Alibaba stuff. Make sure it's rated
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: appropriately for your vehicle, you know, and the rating should,
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: like I say, they.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Should be on there. And I'll get on my high
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: horse on quality recovery equipment here. You know, when I
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: ran Unsealed 4x4 as the editor of that magazine in Australia,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: we did a huge comparison test where we went to
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the store and we bought three of every major snatch
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: straps sold in the market as quite predictably unsealed. The
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: cheaper brands, I mean, they were, you know, like three
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: out of three, or I want to say we bought three.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: We did a wet test and then we did two
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: dry tests. I had a certified rigging facility. You know,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: there was, it was a night and day between the
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: quality stuff and the cheap stuff. I mean, ARB was
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the most consistent, which I think consistency, we awarded them
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the best because it was the most consistent. You want
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: things to be consistent. You don't want to buy a
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: 9,000 pound rated item. And it breaks at 18 or,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you know, breaking strength. Recovery stuff can be very tedious
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: with its terminology. So I caught myself there, but you
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: don't want something that is advertising one being actually a two.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: That's all I'm really trying to say there. So if
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: there's any place that you're going to spend money again,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I know I have bias with the whole max tracks
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff, but if there it's
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: it's even more appropriate i think with anything involving a
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: winch or you know kind of vehicle recovery buy the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: best that you can afford i i think.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Because these are these are safety devices we have to understand.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: They're safety devices that can turn into the opposite very
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: very very quickly yeah that's right you know those those
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: cheap was gonna say a name that ended in built
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: but i stopped myself but those those those, those, those
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Chinese pot metal shackles.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Um, like they can be really dangerous.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: They can have inclusions. They can have a lot of stuff,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: high inclusion rate.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So, all right, well, let's talk, we've talked about
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: pulley blocks. Let's talk about some other consideration. We'll just
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: kind of run through this. Um, there's a tool called
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: a transit cluster. They're used typically by towing companies. Um,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: you can go on to expedition exchange that John Lee
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: there sells them all day long. But it allows you,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: if you've got to pull a Subaru off the trail
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: or a vehicle that doesn't have a recovery point, it
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: allows you to key into those various holes on the frame.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Again, these aren't rated recoveries. This is if everything has
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: gone bad.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something a tow truck driver would carry
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: them to get the Toyota Corolla out.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Of the way. Yeah, so you may want to consider
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: a transit cluster. We'll include that in the show note.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: A winch line extension is a good idea, particularly- If
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: you're traveling in areas without, where that is not heavily forested,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: if you're traveling in heavily forested areas, then they're less important.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's always, there may be a point that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: you can recover from, but there also may be a
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: safer point just a little bit further. I always, always,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: always carry a winch line extension. I've been in so
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: many scenarios where I.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Have to use a winch.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: Five feet short.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: And you get more winch line power there. The more
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: wraps you have around that drum too. So yeah, the fewer,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the fewer technical stuff.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Additional things to consider is having rated recovery points. ARB
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: is one of the few that sells rated recovery points,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: but know what the gross vehicle weight rating is of
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: your vehicle and know if your recovery points on your
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: vehicle is rated for that gross vehicle weight. If not,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: consider having that upgraded. Make sure that you do that.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: We also want to look at the idea of bringing
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: along ground anchors like a pole pal, improvised solutions for that,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: which we could go into great lengths about.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like there's that new dead man thing. And I
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: think that, you know, there's almost a similarity between the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: discussion of the, you know, the recovery ring and a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: more formal holy block approach. You know, I think that
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: the dead man, they work really well. They're, you know,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: they're very functional, but maybe more of an emergency tool
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: than let's say a pull pal. One's going to set itself.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: One's going to have to, you know, require you to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: dig a hole, but a lot of, a lot of
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: labor than not having it.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They can be very labor intensive for sure. I like,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: to use the pole pal on Expedition 7 because we
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: were so remote so much of the time. We had
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: a pole pal along in one of the vehicles and
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: we used it a lot more often than I expected
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: that we would. But yeah, there's always the option of
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: burying tires and all kinds of other ideas that work. Again,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: I've found that pairing max tracks with a winch or
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: vehicle to vehicle recovery tends to solve most of those problems.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: But when you need a pole pal, you really need it.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: It's one of the few things that actually solves the problem.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: They're great.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: They're great. All right.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And then the last thing around advanced considerations is a
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: rear mounted winch. In most cases, winches are used for
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: recreational purposes, which is why they're on the front. If
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: you are, let's say you're driving a very large vehicle
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: like an earth roamer or you're driving a man vehicle
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: and you can only put it one side or the other,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: you may actually be better off putting it at the
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: rear of the vehicle, having a front and a rear
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: winch if the gross vehicle weight allows for it. That
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: can be another tool in the toolbox. But I think
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: that if you're doing vehicle recreation, you almost always want
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: to have the winch on the front of the vehicle.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on that, Jim? Yeah.
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, Land Rover came out with the SVX Discovery
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: years ago and it ended up just being more of
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: a show car. And because of all the front impact stuff,
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: which is the problem with modern cars and aftermarket winches,
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: they mounted one on the rear.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Interesting.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: And kind of looked at it and played with it
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: a bit. And I grew up in a front winch world.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: And so to have it in the back, you have
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: to completely rethink your thought process. It absolutely works. I mean,
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: if you're going in, it's basically a It's a defeatist winch.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: Because you're going to go in and I'm not going
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: to keep going forward.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I've got to go back. Yeah.
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: And I know there's all manner of receiver hitch portable winches,
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: portable winch trays. Again, pluses and minuses. They give you versatility,
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: which is nice, but side pulls.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: Incredible amount of leverage.
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: They don't like side pulls at all. It just bends
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: them up like a cheap lawn chair.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: It does. Exactly.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, it's... I mean, again, it just kind of
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: keeps coming back to is what works for you. Whatever
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: you have, learn how to use it.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: And very much keeping it simple.
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: They did an expo years ago at Mormon Lake still.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: A Volkswagen Jetta got stuck. It was the mud fest.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: And a couple of us walked over.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: And they already had the trunk lit up. And the
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: loop for the trunk, they had hooked. And I'm like...
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: I'm out. I'm going to watch this from far. Cause, and,
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: and they, but again, you know, stepping outside the bounds,
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: it worked. The guy was super gentle. It was barely
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: stuck and they just pulled him back on the road.
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: And it's like, I don't think I'd have done that.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you got to improvise, right?
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, we touched on that idea. Rated recovery points.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: The thing that I'm super passionate about, I've like, I've
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: had to write these stories when people die, do not die.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: use a tow ball as a recovery point because you're
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: basically putting thousands of pounds of energy with a, with
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: a kinetic strap behind a cannonball.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: Yes. Oh yeah.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: And it will go through people, right? Do not do
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: it and everything else. Like if there's anything you take
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: from this and you see somebody doing that, I mean,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: make sure you're not within cannonball range and then just
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: leave honk or whatever you can do.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: But, um, I've got a great picture of a CJ.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: And it was cool because I got the story behind it.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: So they're doing a kinetic recovery. Two straps, D shackle
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: in the middle, hooking the two straps together. And CJ5
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: is launching.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: To pull this guy up.
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: And so it doesn't work, it doesn't work. So he
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: keeps backing up, keeps giving it a whole bunch more welly.
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: And so the last time, and the best part is
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: when he's driving, he's doing this. So the de-shackle or
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: one of the straps, it would be the stuck vehicle strap,
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: breaks right there. That loop snaps and it launches the
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: de-shackle through, right through the middle of the tire. So
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: that steel that is mounted on the back of the Jeep,
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: through the back tailgate, through the headrest of the seat,
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: Through the windshield. And so it basically, with that recovery strap,
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: it threaded the Jeep like a needle. And if he'd
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: have been sitting like this driving, it would have gone
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: right through his head.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: The force is amazing.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: People underestimate that energy.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: They really do.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: And those straps are capturing energy. They're stretching and they're
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: absorbing and they're ready to... catapult energy for sure.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: I'm going to release it somehow. Hopefully it's the car
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: getting out.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, I don't know. I guess
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: that kind of brings us into, into our next step,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: which is admitting defeat.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: So I think that one of the keys around recovery
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: is saying that it's not going to work. I'm going
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: to admit defeat early. I'm not going to keep digging
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: and spinning. Once you feel like you're not making progress, then,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Back off the throttle. Because you can make things worse
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: in multiple ways. You can make it so much more difficult.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: So admit defeat early. Use recovery gear proactively. Put down
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: max tracks ahead of the time. Get your equipment ready.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Unspool the winch and battle rapid around the bumper. All
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: of those things that can get you prepared in advance
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: if you really think that you're going to get stuck. Now,
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: of course, the counterpoint to that is you could just
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: send it.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: So and a lot of people I've been amazed at
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: what some people can get through by just using a
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: whole lot of momentum. But the risk goes up significantly
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: with that. You've introduced all of this speed and you
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: end up with a lot of vehicle damage in those
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: kinds of scenarios. But I've also seen some incredible feats
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: of driving skill there. And vehicle durability, usually Land Cruisers,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: you know, getting through something by, you know, just sending.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: It, right?
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah. When it works, it's beautiful. When it goes wrong,
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: it's great video.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: As slow as possible, as fast as necessary.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Sometimes for people, fast as necessary means really fast.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they go right to the second half of that.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Now, since we've gotten stuck now, we're going to, to
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: your point earlier, Jim, was that Let's make a cup
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: of tea.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: Let's assess the situation. Let's formulate a plan.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: I've heard it called a stuck assessment. Essentially, just make
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: a plan. Take some time. When you first get stuck,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: the adrenaline's high. People are amped up. People may feel embarrassed.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Give it some time. relax, go have a drink of water,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: go take a little short walk and then come back
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: with a fresh mind. And that's the point in time
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: that you want to have that conversation with a group
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: because people may have ideas, ask others how they would
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: get it undone. Once you've decided on a plan, then
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: we want to keep the peanut gallery to a minimum.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: We don't want people yelling while the stuck recovery is happening.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: So we want to make a cup of tea, chill out.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I am not ashamed of telling people to
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: shut up.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's unfair to ask people to just
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: remove themselves.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: The one, the only exception to that rule that we teach,
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: and we always say, you know what, specifically, so if
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: you're doing a winch operation and you have your person
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: out marshalling that winch, we're the only two people that
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: exist with one exception. If anybody, anywhere yells stop.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, safety.
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: That's the only thing is.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: To stop.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: And they might be completely full of it. They might've
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: seen something, you know, they might be talking to their
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: dog who's running away.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: But that's fine.
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: Stop and reassess.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: Everybody agrees that stop means stop no matter what.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: No matter where it comes from. Because you're already stuck.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Like you are already in the situation.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good advice.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: And that's important for people to remember that they can
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: be empowered to say stop, but pretty much nothing else
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: because it really can be disruptive and unsafe for the
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: people that are trying to get unstuck to get a
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of chatter from the peanut gallery. All right,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: so now we're going to move on to some of
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: the fundamentals of recovery techniques. Now, we can't really do
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: a lot around this in a podcast, but we're going
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: to talk about it in the types of recovery techniques.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: So there's self-recovery techniques. which can start by airing down more,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: even going to very low pressures in the sand to
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: get you unstuck and then air up again to an
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: operating pressure. Of course, using a shovel, again, using recovery boards,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: using sand ladders. There's a difference between a board and
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: a ladder. A ladder can also be used for bridging
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: as well for certain scenarios. There's improvised solutions like even
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: using your floor mat or like I tried to use
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: with the drapes and blunts, you can have a bunch
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: of people helping to push. Sometimes just that little bit
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: of human effort and ingenuity can get you out of
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: a stuck scenario.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in some parts of the world, like asking for
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: help might be your best scenario. Like if you're in
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Southeast Asia, Yeah.
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: Just 8,000 people will show up.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Hey, can you come push? Yeah, exactly.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, how many times have we seen somebody getting
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: holed out with a line of oxen or whatever?
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, how cool is that? Ray Highland has some
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: just amazing stories of, you know, being in Indonesia somewhere, Malaysia,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: somewhere in the rainforest and, oh, well, we're stuck. Okay.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Well wait five minutes and there's going to.
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: Be some people that come by. Yeah. People show up
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: out of everywhere.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: So those are self-recovery solutions. Then we've got vehicle mounted
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: electric winches. We can also use what's called a tear
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: for style winch, which basically is a hand over hand passing.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Essentially it's a mechanism inside the care for winch that
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: pulls the winch line, captures it, relocates the pulling component,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: and then pulls it again. And they're very slow. They
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: do work. They tend to be very lightly rated. If
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: they're rated for real work, then they are massive and
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: they kind of defeats the purpose. If you're doing a
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: lot of crazy driving and really muddy situations, or I
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: use it in the snow or side slopes and stuff
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: like that, because then you can connect it to the
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: rear of the vehicle to create a pendulum effect and
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: take up slack and keep the rear of the vehicle
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: from sliding. Works great for that. High lift does the
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: same thing. These are improvised tools. They aren't ideal for
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: most scenarios. Anything else that you've used like that, Jim?
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: I've used everything. Mainly because again, you know, went so
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: many years without a winch. And again, you find there's
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: a great YouTube where the guy uses the two logs.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: And creates a winch.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: I saw that.
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: And I had never thought of that.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: Fascinating.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: It's just like, that will work. So I like to
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: always tell people it's basically limited to the equipment you have,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: what's around you and your imagination.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, if you look around, I mean, as
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: simple as a straight line, like you're using a winch extension.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: And that rigid line, the force in the middle is
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: four to seven times each side. So sometimes just having
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: that rigid line and a vehicle stuck, you can get
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: a couple of people to push.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: Pull and it gets enough. I mean, just that much.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: That's a lot of leverage.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fascinating.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: It's good stuff. Um, again, people, uh, we, we did a,
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: we did a Jeep job in Turkey years ago and
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: the same, we were creating a really difficult route and
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: people kept showing up and fixing a road, you know,
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, quite literally they were making a freeway for
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: us and, but people show up and, and people that
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: that's got, it's, it's gotta be a worldwide thing. Most
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: of the time they want to help. If you say, Hey,
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: could you help out? I've never had somebody go, no,
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: they just all want to help. So yeah, just using
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: what's around you.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the locals can really add a lot. They can
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: add a lot of drama and problems as well. Because
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: usually they're excited, but they may not have the same
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: training you do. So make sure that you are kind.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Be specific. always want to be kind in your communications.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: You always want to be specific in your communications, but
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: also don't be afraid to be assertive because at the
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: end of the day, it's your vehicle and your safety.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: On the vehicle mounted winches, the winch rating. So again,
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: we want to be looking at that about 1.5 times
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: gross vehicle weight. If you get the winch closer and
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: closer to the gross vehicle weight of the vehicle, like
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: let's say it's a 6,000 pound gross vehicle weight, you
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: have a 6,000 pound winch, then you're going to be
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: taxing that winch and you're going to have to be
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: very specific about the number of wraps that you're using
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: to get that maximum pull. You're also going to need
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: to introduce pulley blocks. So you typically want to have
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: a winch that's rated about 1.5 times to two times
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: gross vehicle weight. Has that been your experience as well, Jim?
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: Just a couple of things here, and you kind of
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: touched on it, is winches are rated with an empty spool.
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: And so basically that first wrap on that spool is
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: where you get the 9,000. If it's each wrap after that,
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: you lose about 15%.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: So by the time you get the most, if you
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: have a normal amount of rope, you have about five wraps.
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: So you've really lost that pulley block. You pull off
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: twice as much. That helps that because you get down
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: to those lower wraps. And people underestimate, again, so my
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: car is a pretty heavy car. It weighs 5,000. Well,
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: I have a 9,000-pound winch. I can lift it vertically.
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: But people underestimate if there's a little slope, if it's
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: buried to the frame rails. how much actual force it
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: takes to move that vehicle. That's where the one and
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: a half times comes in.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: And if we don't want to go with too much
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: winch either, because we've added unnecessary expense, we've added unnecessary weight,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: we've reduced the line speed as well, which is slow.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: Winch is not necessarily a bad thing, but there are
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: consequences also with going with too heavy of a winch.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Don't put a 16.5 worn on a Samurai.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: It's just you want to pull the frame apart.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: You want to use the appropriate tools for the job, right?
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: So that's around vehicle mounted winches. We also want to
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: make sure that we have a way to connect up
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: the line. We want to have connection points. We want
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: to have tree straps. We want to have appropriate anchors
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: as well, which means that it could be on another
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: vehicle if we're winching to another vehicle, or if we're
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: coming back to our own vehicle, that any of those
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: connection points need to be rated for the load that
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: we're asking of the system for sure. Now, we talked
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: a little bit about synthetic versus steel cable. There is
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: no hard and fast rule on it. The Dyneema will
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: always be safer. The cable will oftentimes be more durable,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: and that's the reason why people I.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Think that the main benefit these days of synthetic lines
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: are the fact that the cargo capacity of vehicles, I
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: don't want to say is dwindling, but the vehicles are
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: getting heavier and they can't carry as much. You know,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: you can lose a lot of weight very quickly by
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: going to synthetic. So that also plays a factor, you know,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, not having to have an extra 50.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: 60 70 pounds at the furthest most point of your
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: vehicle from that axle there is a benefit there.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Absolutely and the counterpoint to the winch is obviously winches
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: are expensive and to your what you talked about earlier
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: jim is you've got all these other components that you
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: need to buy and and even upgrading batteries and everything
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: else you can you can pay for a whole trip
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: yeah with just the cost of a winch. So if
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: you travel mostly in the desert Southwest, or you don't
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: really travel in muddy conditions, or you've got- Yeah, that.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Cholla cactus isn't going to pull you out. It would
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: be a good suitable recovery.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: So there are times where you don't want to have
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: a winch, or you might say that it's less of
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: a priority. And also, vehicles can really pack up against
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: their gross vehicle weight rating, and a winch is a
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: heavy item. So we need to be mindful of how
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: much weight a winch adds as well.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: So now we're getting to the last little component of
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: our discussion, which is vehicle to vehicle recovery. What are
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: some things, Jim, that you've seen around vehicle to vehicle recovery?
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: What are some good basic techniques or things to be
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: mindful around vehicle to vehicle recovery?
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: So I guess, I mean... Two things, again, are you
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: using the second vehicle as just an anchor? And then
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: it becomes basically your standard winch. You know, you're using
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: a winch line versus kinetic. And kinetic is probably the
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: fastest way. People, especially people when they have a brand
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: new winch, they always want to pull out the winch rope.
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: But again, slow and methodical. It takes time versus it's like,
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: you know, you can put a kinetic rope or a
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: strap on there and We're down the road in two
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: minutes where people get into trouble. And so my rule
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: of thumb is for just doing a kinetic recovery is
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: I'll hook the vehicles together and I'll back up. So
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: basically the line is on the ground and that's it.
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: And that gives me about a car length before. And so,
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: and the whole thought process is, is I want the
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: front car to have momentum, the rope stretches, it transfers
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: all that momentum and energy back to the back car,
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: hopefully popping them out. I've seen people for their first pull,
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, back up almost bumper to bumper and And again,
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: it's like the winch where you're creating a massive amount
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: of energy, depending on how much you're getting out. And
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: you will discover the weak link. Hopefully it's the vehicle
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: stuck moving. But again, with that kinetic energy, it's going
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: to transfer somewhere. So- I start very conservative, you know,
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: do that little boop and see what happens. Did the
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: car move a little bit?
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: A little bit more. We're down the road. It didn't
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: move at all. When I find myself backing up to
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: where the rope's about halfway under my car, I'll give
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: that a shot and I'm giving it a bit more
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: welly each time. But I'm easing into that increasing of energy.
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: If I get to that point and nothing's moved, I'm
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: probably going to get out. We're going to have a
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: conversation and come up with a plan B.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe the vehicle's, you know, high centered. Maybe there's a
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: rock in front of the differential.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: Something, right?
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: What is the minimum effective dose, right? So if we can,
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: sometimes it doesn't require backing up at all. Sometimes just
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: getting it under tension, it starts to build up some
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: energy in the rope itself and it easily extracts the vehicle,
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: particularly if the recovering vehicle is highly capable. You take
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: a Jeep Rubicon on 40s and it's going to pull
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of things out without even having to back
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: up or any welly at all. Put it into low
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: gear and just slowly pull it out. really want to
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: do that minimum effective dose because we don't want to
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: introduce a lot of energy into the system that we
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: don't need to. Now, there are certainly times that you
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: have to. Yeah, absolutely. So the other thing that's key
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: around that is communications. That's where it's good to have
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: radios so that way you can communicate like I'm going,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm starting to go, which the vehicle that's
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: being recovered can see that. But the the person that's
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: doing the recovery may not know that you're unstuck or
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: they may not know that you've hung up on something
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: or something has failed. So having a way to communicate
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: is really important.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: And if you don't have radios, find a simple system
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: of communication that can be like a horn, a horn,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: like most, most cars have them, you know, one horn,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: it means go. Two horns means stop.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: I'm good. Yeah.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: We did a recovery, um, back again, back at the
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: The one Mormon Lake Mudfest. And I remember as a
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: German couple who were overlanding around the world, they had
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: this giant man truck.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: And they augured in and I mean, it went down
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: and he kept saying, oh yeah, I'm just going to
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: air down.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: It's like, well, bud, you know, I, That's that one, bud.
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: You can't beat physics. So quite literally, they said, hey, Jim,
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: go get your car, which is my discovery, and hooked
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: up a strap to it. And one of my fellow instructors,
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: Lee McGee, I trust him implicitly, he was that link
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: of communication. And so I know how what's in my mind,
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: he knew what was in his mind, and we got
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: out of jive. So he said, back up, back up,
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: back up.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Cool, you're good.
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: And I leaned out and said, so I got just
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: the ropes on the ground, right? And he said... Yep.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: Which meant something different apparently to both of us. So
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: I took off, uh, knowing that I'm going to have
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: about a car length. And so I, I gave it
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: quite a bit knowing that the man truck was massively
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: heavy compared to my car. I'm not creating much energy.
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: And you have that point where I should have hit
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: the end of the rope by now.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: And I hadn't. And it's like, and I was literally,
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: I went another full car length and the car, my
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: car's accelerating.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Well, diesel. So as fast as your car's up to
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: three miles.
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was, it was, it was massive acceleration.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, 95 horsepower.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: Yes. It's 111.
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: I was trying to be insulting and that was actually
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: even worse.
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: It's sad on so many levels. But you reached that
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: point where you think something should happen and it hasn't.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: And I was literally about ready to come out of
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: the throttle when I hit the end of it and
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: a big transfer of energy and it yanked the truck
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: right out.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet.
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: And it was this whole David and Goliath thing because
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: you see this little bitty discovery in this giant man truck,
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: but it worked well. But we were not in sync
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: where we should have been. And again, that conversation, you
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: have to be on the same page because if things
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: go wrong, they can.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Go horribly wrong.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: And slowing down, making sure you're on the same page.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: And I guess to summarize some of the most important
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: things is to really focus on safety, focus on communication,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: focus on training before you make decisions. any significant purchases
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: around recovery employ the minimum effective dose on vehicle to
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: vehicle recovery and then don't buy the whole catalog um
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: right off the bat start by learning more about recovery
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: and and driving and you may find that you really
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: don't need yeah.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I mean how many high lift jacks do we see
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: yes on you know vehicles that have no way of
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: using them well you're not gonna lift it with it
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: you're not lifting it with it right i mean maybe
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: you can use you know the tire attachment and use
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: it as a you know come along kind of thing
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: but Make sure you have the supporting modifications.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: Know what it does. That's exactly what you're saying, Scott,
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: is know what it does before you buy it.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: But the cool thing is all of this stuff, if
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: you want to dive in deeper, there's four-wheel drive trainers
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: almost everywhere. There's four-wheel drive clubs. There's the ubiquitous knowledgeable
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: guy that's down the street that maybe you can glean
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: some information from. But yeah, I mean, 7P is a
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: great place to look. You guys do a lot of
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: the Overland rallies, Overland expos. I for WDTA is something
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: I always recommend. Again, you know, make sure you're finding
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: the right instructor for for what you're doing. You don't
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: need the ultra four guy if you're in a, you know,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: a synchro that wants to drive the Pan American Highway.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: You might end up with conflicting personalities. But yeah, I
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: just think, you know, slow down. Generally, in most recovery scenarios,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: you've are that. I don't want to call it a mistake,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: but the mistake has already been made. You're already in
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: the situation. And unless you're, you know, you're on the
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: beach with the tide coming in, it's likely not going
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: to get worse. Evaluate. Is it going to get worse?
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Is it not going to get worse? And calm down.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: That's the number one thing I have realized from, you know, myself,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: maybe 15 years ago, my heart would be racing when
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I got stuck. Or, you know, the same thing where
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: the first time you pick up a wheel in your car,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: your heart's racing. Well, you learn to just calm down
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: and to be a little bit more methodical and a
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: little bit more precise with what you're doing. So a
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: lot of information.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: So then we've also got Overland Experts as a great resource.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: 7P International, obviously fantastic.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: And then.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Overlanding, overlanding BC. That's Chris Walker. He's up in, um,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: about a side of Vancouver, outside of Vancouver. Great dude.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Super experienced. Works with all Land Rover guys. Um, yeah,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's this thing, Google. you know,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: just check it out, you know, check it out and get,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: get recommendations. And Jim, where can people find out more
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: about you? What, what's your, you have a social media
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: channel that you, that you maintain on Instagram or. I do.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: It'd be great if I knew that, wouldn't it? Myquestadventures.com
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: is probably the best way that has all the links
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: to everything. That's basically my own company. So the stuff that,
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: that happens in the Phoenix Valley. That's what I run through.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: I'm a part owner with 7P. So we do that
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: with 7P. io is the website there. Again, on Facebook and
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: all the social medias for pretty much any kind of
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: training pretty much around the world.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't recommend 7P enough. Each one of those
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: individuals have impressed me in some way significantly in my
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: time working with them. So a great organization. Matt, what's
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: your current social thing on Instagram?
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I hate social media. I guess as of today, I'm
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: back on Instagram, which is Matt Explore. I occasionally go
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: on it. That's all.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: So make sure you troll Matt Explore.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: And I am scott.a.brady on Instagram.com. And we appreciate all
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: of you for listening. Please reach out via those social
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: channels to Matt or I if you have any additional
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: questions or comments or concerns around the podcast that we
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: can address for you. And we thank you all for
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: listening and we will talk to you next time.