Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Principles of Overlanding: Vehicle Recovery Part 1

Transcript

Principles of Overlanding: Vehicle Recovery Part 1 · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Scott Brady, and I am here with my co-host, Matt Scott. Yeah,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: that's me. I'm here. And we have a special guest today.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Very special. Very special. And we have Jim West with
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: us today. And Jim is, he is a notable character
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in our community. And he's also, he's also a a
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: very experienced overlander and traveler himself. And he has participated
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: in the Camel Trophy. And he also currently does a
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: lot of instruction with 7P International. So we're going to
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: talk today about the principles of overlanding. And we're going
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to talk specifically about recovery. So thanks for being with
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: us today.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: My pleasure. My pleasure. And a special thanks to Danner Boots,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: who is supporting this episode today. Danner's new Logger 917
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: was inspired by the classic pattern and lines of Danner's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: original cocked logging boots made in the Pacific Northwest. They're
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: built with Danner's trusted quality and durability. The Logger 917
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: is designed to ensure you're comfortable and dry wherever your
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: adventure takes you, even if it includes a little bit
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: of recovery along the way. With a Gore-Tex waterproof liner
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: and a Vibram SPE rubberized EVA midsole, the Logger 917
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: offers performance, waterproofing, and lightweight comfort, all in a rugged
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: yet refined style. Thanks, Danner. So when we talk about
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the principles of overlanding, one of the things that we
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: want to focus on is getting as close as we
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: can to those first principles, which is what we're going
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to discuss today. And we're also going to introduce a
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: little bit of a new concept, which is we're going
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: to try to introduce the counterpoint to all of these
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: things that are more traditionally discussed. So it's this idea
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: of falsifiability, because we're not talking about math and we're
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: not talking about physics. So when you're talking about opinion...
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: We recognize that there are always other ways of doing it.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: So we want the listener and the viewer, in the
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: case if you're watching us on YouTube, to know that
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: there is not always one way to do this, that
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: there's other ways to do it. You have to be
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: really careful when people use words like always or never.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: In my experience, that just usually means that they have
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: very little experience. So we're going to really be careful
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: about the always and nevers. But we are going to
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: talk about things like the terms used around recovery. We're
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: going to talk about not getting stuck in the first place.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the right equipment. And we're
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: going to go into some other points of conversation around
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: all of that, including vehicle mounted winches. So let's start
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: off with recovery. some of the disclosures that we need
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to go through today so.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Go for it there are some yeah i i am
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: i'm the u.s importer for max tracks we're talking about
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: recovery equipment we're going to talk about recovery boards i
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: think that that's an important thing for the for the
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: reader the listener to know i'm going to have an
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: inherent bias on that stuff and i guess you know
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: jim with With 7P, you guys are also manufacturing recovery equipment.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: You're also a service provider of four-wheel drive training. So
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: we always like to just be very upfront, out in
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: the clear about any kind of biases that we have
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: so we don't have to then dwell on them later.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And what that means is as a listener, you can
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: just choose to ignore anything that we talk about around
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: max tracks or about 7P. But we are going to
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: include it because these are things that we've used and
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: we have some experience around that you may form your
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: own opinion about. And there are, of course, alternatives to
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: these things as well that we can include in the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: show notes. But let's start with these critical terms. So
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: one of the first things we need to determine when
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: we're doing a recovery is, is it a dynamic recovery
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: or is it a static recovery? Now, that is a
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: term that I like to get into the mindset of,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: am I moving a tree off of the trail or
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: am I in a very slow speed, very precise recovery maneuver,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: particularly in rocks, if you think about expensive sheet metal.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: You normally don't want to build in a whole bunch
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: of energy into the system when you're trying to be
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: very precise around a winching operation. So we call those
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: static recoveries. When they're dynamic, that can be vehicle to vehicle,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: which means we're using a kinetic energy recovery rope. Or
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: if we're doing winching and driving, oftentimes we will introduce
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: components into the rigging that allow for taking up some
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: of that tension and allow for it to absorb some
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of the differentiation in vehicle speed and winch speed. And
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: that becomes more dynamic. So those are some of the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: terms around that. Why don't You talk a little bit, Jim,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: about working load limit.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. So, I mean, it's the one thing that's
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: super important, you know, where you're getting your recovery gear.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: It should have a few numbers on it. It should
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: be rated. As we say, it should be purpose built
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: for your application. Working load limit. So, it's basically the
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: maximum amount of load that a particular piece of equipment
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: has that it can continue to use day in, day out.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: It doesn't damage it by that amount of working load limit.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: or stress that's put on it.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And that came from the overhead rigging industry,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: much of that. So think of it every day, day
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: in and day out, these shackles are being used to
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: haul loads in a factory or some kind of an
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: industrial setting. So they're designed to work with that load
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: day in and day out. So typically on a metal shackle,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a D shackle or a C shackle, screw pin style shackle,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: we'll see working load limit represented on those components. Oftentimes
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: on pulleys, we'll also see them represented. Now, what we'll
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: also see on consumer recovery gear is minimum braking strength.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: We may also at times see maximum braking strength too,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: which I think is something that we want to be
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: careful with because that's telling us- Encourages people to test it. Yeah,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: that's right. We want to understand what the minimum braking
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: strength is, which means that there's a degree of repeatability
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: around that certification. And minimum braking strength is very useful
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: for us around vehicle recovery. So you'll typically see minimum
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: braking strength for ropes and we'll see it for winch
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: line extensions. We'll see that for winch lines, et cetera.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: We also want to make sure that the components that
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: we're buying have minimum breaking strength. listed on the item.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I don't like it when it just comes in the packaging. Yeah.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I like it when it actually has rated strength or something.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: You know, I think, I think one of the things
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: that you touched on was purpose built stuff. I remember
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: when I was first getting into four wheel driving, I'd,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: you know, go to the farm store and I'd get the,
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: you know, the same looking shackle that everyone else was getting. Um,
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: but when you really start to kind of drill down into,
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: you know, what separates that from a van beast shackle or, or,
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: or something.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Um, I don't know. Uh, I think purpose built is
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: a huge thing. Yeah, totally agree. And working load limit
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: is also not always the same. Most of the inexpensive
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: shackles that we see, there'll be a four times rating.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: A Van B shackle is a six times rating. So
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: it really depends on what you're buying. And that's why
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: it's so important to spend the time to do that research.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: And for those that are listening and even watching on YouTube,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: we have an additional member of the cast today, Dak.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: who is a greyhound, an amazing, awesome greyhound. So make
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: sure you adopt a greyhound if you are interested in...
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: But he's also licking the table. He's currently licking the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Overland International table. But minimum breaking strength is a really
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: important one. We typically want to have it on the
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: rope or on the shackle or... on the pulley block
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: because it's so easy to get the item separated from
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: its packaging or separated from its tag. For example, if
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: it's integrated in with it, maybe right into sewn into it,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: for example, then we have that as a reference when
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: we're going to do a recovery. So it's important to
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: have that. We also want to talk about gross vehicle
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: weight rating. Oftentimes people will say, oh, I'm going to
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: buy the recovery kit for what my curb weight of
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: my vehicle is. That's typically not a good idea because
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: for multiple reasons, I mean.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: I've seen a lot of Tacomas with a gross vehicle
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: weight rating of let's say two pounds and they weigh 8,000.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: You know, curb weight is what it actually weighs. Gross
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: vehicle weight rating is what the vehicle is supposed to
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: weigh at its maximum. It is the curb weight of
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: the vehicle. So the dry weight or however you want
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: to think of it with its allotted and engineered cargo
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: capacity factored in. Cargo capacity also includes the passengers and
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: all of that thing.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: It's all cargo. It's all the things that are not
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: bolted in and didn't come from the factory. Yeah. So
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: we want to make sure that when we purchase recovery equipment,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: we're buying it for the curb weight or the gross
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: vehicle weight, whichever one is greater, because there are many
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: people out there that own vehicles that are over gross
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: vehicle weight rating. But why we want to do that
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: is that a couple of things. We can be overloaded
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: for the recovery gear that we have. And then we
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: also need to be mindful of who are we traveling with.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: If we've got a 70 series Land Cruiser and an
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Earth Roamer, We have to be thinking about it's not
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: a one size fits all in that situation. So we
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: may need to have different recovery.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: You don't always want to use, you know, more is
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: not always better because you have to remember that that
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: one million pound strap that you need for an earth
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: roamer is just going to rip the bumper or the
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: frame off of the Tacoma or Samurai or Samurai or
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: whatever that may be. You also have to. you know,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: factor in rated recovery points. That's not really a huge
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: thing in the United States. You know, that's, that was
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: definitely one of my takeaways when I was working in,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: you know, in the magazine world in Australia was that
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: you had rated recovery points as well. And that's something
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: I would love, love, love to see happen in the
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: United States because, you know, you buy an XYZ bumper
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: and it's got a, you know, a D-ring receptacle welded
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: on the front.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Well, what is it welded to? Is it actually engineered?
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Has there actually been somebody that knows what they're doing,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: figuring out that calculation?
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: ARB is good on that. ARB does... Do that. And
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: they're starting to sell ARB is starting to sell rated
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: recovery points now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Even just backing up a bit before you put the
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: expensive bumper on the front is people confuse recovery points
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: with lash down points.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Which are can be very, very different. Some of the
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: older Toyota stuff, it's synonymous. They have very, very high
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: rated factory points. Which is great. But just knowing to
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: recognize that this is for the tow truck to pull
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: this up on or to get strapped down on the
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: car transport versus doing a kinetic recovery where it's going
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: to let go and basically be a missile.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And some of what looks like a recovery point,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: like even on a Land Rover, it is just a
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: lashing point. So it's really important to know what that is.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And another reason why we don't want to use straps
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: that are too thick is that if we have a
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: light vehicle, a couple light vehicles, we don't get the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: rated stretch out of the strap. So you lose a
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: lot of the dynamic effectiveness of a recovery strap or
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a kinetic energy recovery rope. All right. So the next
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: thing that we want to talk about is the Marshall.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: So when we are doing a recovery, someone's going to
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: be the Marshall. It may just be you because you've
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: gotten stuck all by yourself. But you want one person
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: that's responsible, that's in charge. And so they're going to
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: typically be doing a lot of the communication. They're typically
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: going to be doing the spotting and the hand signals.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: They're also going to be keeping non-essential personnel out of
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the recovery zone. So there's this triangle that forms within
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: a recovery that... is kind of a zone of danger
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: and we want to keep as many people as possible
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: outside of that and at certain times everyone outside of
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: that that you can possibly adjust for so we want
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: to have a marshal in place that's going to be
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: enforcing safety and being good about communicating They're typically someone
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: with some experience, but we want to be clear about,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: all right, who's the marshal, who's in charge, and then
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: let everybody else just record it with their cell phone
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: from a distance, right? So yeah, we want to know
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: who the marshal is. All right. And then now we're
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit about the material that
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: some of these ropes and straps are made out of.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Some of them will be made out of nylon. Some
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of them will be made out of polyester and some
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: of them will be made out of dyneema. Now they
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: have very important roles to play. So a nylon rope,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: strap will have stretch. Now, the amount of stretch depends
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: on how it's woven and how thick it is and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: other factors. But if you have a nylon strap, it
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: will stretch. So you want to, I've actually seen tree
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: straps that were made out of nylon. They got it wrong.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: The manufacturer got it wrong. And you don't want a
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: tree strap to stretch. We want that to be made
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: out of polyester so that we end up with the
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: effect of null stretch. Now, when we say null, it
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: means limited or the minimum amount possible. Even Dyneema, even
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: that fancy winch line will still stretch a little bit,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: but we want to achieve no stretch. And then the
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: last thing is Dyneema. Jim, why don't you talk us
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit about Dyneema?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Well, they come into the off-road world probably 10, 15
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: years ago. I'll probably get that wrong. Primarily from, like
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: you said earlier, from the lifting industry. But a lot
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: of the other things that we've incorporated into off-roading has
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: come from the sailing industry, which seems odd. But Dyneema
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: was really popular in sailboats. It's light. It's incredibly strong.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: It actually stretches thickness for thickness less than wire rope.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Wire rope tends to unwind and you get stretch in it.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: So it turned out to be a quite good material
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: for the replacement of winch ropes, for extensions, for those
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: kind of things. There's always the... The debate, what's better,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: wire or synthetic?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: They both have their places, you know.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Getting into it now.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's automatic or manual transmission. I mean, all these, yeah.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: So to be fair, I have two vehicles. I have
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: my Land Rover, I have my Jeep. The Jeep has
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: wire rope that it's always had and it works great.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: We've used wire rope in this industry and lifting industry
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: for a hundred years. It's a very good material for this.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Its weaknesses are it does stretch. It has mass. So
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: when something fails, it's a lot more hazardous if you're
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: standing around. Dyneema came into the world. It doesn't stretch
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: as much. So that inherently makes it less dynamic, so
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: less dangerous. It does absolutely have a recoil. The whole
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: thought process that you put 10,000 pounds on it, it
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: breaks and it drops to the ground. It does, but
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: it's dropping to the ground while moving across.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Still a lot of energy. Exactly. It's amazing how much
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: we had during one of our winch tests, we had
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Dyneema fail right at the fair lead. And it took...
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: The fancy ARB sail that we had on it and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: it took all of the other components and it all
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: went not only back to the tree it was connected to,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: it went past the tree about 40 yards. So the
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: key to it is that since there's less stretch, it
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: has less energy that's being absorbed in it or retained
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: into it. So that way, when it breaks, it doesn't
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: have as much energy to move. However, the key to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: it is it has less mass. So the cable, you know,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: cables that we use for winching, they're also using the
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: logging industry. People don't know this. They're using the logging
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: industry to cut logs in half. It actually makes for
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a really great saw. So the reason why people lose
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: legs and everything else is that it's got mass to
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: it and it is at high speed. It's a very
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: sharp instrument that can cut things. through muscle and bone.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: So if you get hit with dyneema when it breaks,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you're not going to go to the hospital,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: but you're probably not going to lose a limb. You're
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: just going to have a really bad welt or maybe
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a bruise, for example. So it's much safer by reducing
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the mass and removing the component of it that would
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: be a cutting surface. So that's one of the really
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: big things about dyneema.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: And I think one of the things while we're on
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: this that is worthwhile just bringing up is there are catastrophic...
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: effects that can happen from a recovery that goes wrong.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: So, you know, we talked a little bit about.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: The Marshall, the main spotter, but I always like to say,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: if you don't need to be there, don't be there.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: You may think that you are helping. You're often just,
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: you know, planting the seeds of confusion. Make sure kids are,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: you know... You can kind of tell where that's going to,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying where it's going to break, but you
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: can just remove them from that area. I think that's
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: always something that you can err on the side of caution.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I don't know, something that I always just like to
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: throw in.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so true. You know, another thing that's nice about
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Dyneema is it's because it's used in the marine industry
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: is it's UV stable. Yeah, a lot of people think
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: that it like degrades and stuff.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: It fades, but it's not really affecting its strength.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: The dye will fade, but the high density polyethylene, that
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: is what Dyneema is. Dyneema is the brand name for H-D.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: it's it's uv inert yeah it's very uv stable stable
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: it's not inert it is stable.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: You'll have you'll have some reduction in coloring uh but
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: it it will last a very long time on the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: front of your vehicle so those are the terms surrounding
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: it so let's talk about step one around uh overlanding
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: and recovery which is don't get stuck in the first.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: Place that's the easiest day just don't get stuck just
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: don't do it that is it we're done recovery don't
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: get stuck uh So, Jim, what are some tips that
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: you would give the listener about what are some things
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: that they can do preemptively to not get stuck in
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: the first place?
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Whenever I teach recovery classes, one of the things, and
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: it typically gets a couple of responses. One, if it's
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: a co-ed type class, the female partners typically give a
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: dirty look to the male partners or a knowing look.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: But what I always say is the automotive industry put
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: a mechanism in cars preemptively. pretty much since cars have
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: been cars that can get you out of the situation.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: It's called reverse, which is again, you know, I'm going
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: to live to fight a different day. I see something
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: and okay, I'm going to get stuck. And sometimes, I mean, I'm,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I'm that guy. Sometimes like I'm going to get stuck
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: and that's okay. If you're looking for just a nice
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: day out and you don't want to get muddy or just,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: you know, sweaty or, you know, it's just not, not
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: the plan today, put it in reverse and try a
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: different way. It's, it's not a failure. It's not a,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: it's not a chink in your manhood. It's just making
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: good decisions.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Separating the ego, I think in four wheel driving is,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: is so huge.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: You know, most of the catastrophic scenarios I've seen people
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: get into a hundred percent ego caused.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of times. And if we remember,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the goal of overlanding is to travel. So there may
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: be an easier way around. And we're also constantly being
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: mindful of mechanical sympathy. Scenarios that get a vehicle stuck
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: also puts the vehicle under a great deal of stress.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: So by backing up and taking another route around. Now,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: if we're just out having fun and we're recreating, then
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: all power to us. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So one
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: of the things that I really want to touch on
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: early in this don't get stuck process is getting not
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: only driver training, but recovery training. Matt and I talk
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: about this frequently in the podcast that the best investment
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: that we can make is in educating ourselves. I look
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: at my travels and I know only 5% of what
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: I aspire to know. And the more training that I
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: can get, the more education that I can get from
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: people like Jim and like 7P or or other organizations
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: that are high quality training organizations that have a lot
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: of travel experience, we can gain so much from that.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: By getting driver training, we can build in a set
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: of skills, toolboxes in our mind and in our muscle
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: memory that allow us to do a better job of
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: driving that reduces the likelihood of us getting stuck. So
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: we want to focus on driver training. More importantly, around
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: all of this, we really want to get training when
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: it comes to vehicle recovery. And that's because it is
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: such a dangerous operation and it can be very complex.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Rigging can be very complex depending on the scenario. It's
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: not as simple as unspooling the winch, wrapping the rope
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: around a tree and pushing the button because that kills
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the tree, damages the rope, and it has a very
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: high likelihood of a failure point at the hook of
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the dyneema. So all of those things just happened and
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the uninitiated didn't know that. And that's why training is
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: so critical. So when we think about vehicle recovery, let's
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: make the first priority of looking maybe a local club,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe go on to one of the forums and find
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: an experienced member that's willing to do maybe some pro
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: bono training, maybe go to an Overland Expo or some
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: kind of another event. But if you really want to
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: get the highest quality training, the most proficiency out of it,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: you want to look for an organization. that has a
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: lot of experience, not only with recovery, but with overland
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: travel as well. You want to be very careful with
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the trainer that only focuses on recreational four-wheeling because they
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: will typically focus on the idea of recreational four-wheeling, which
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: is maximizing the vehicle in technical terrain, as opposed to
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: maybe being as conservative as you need to be as
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: a traveler. So find trainers that are also have a
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: couple of passports.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, and, and, you know, I know you work
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: for 7P, but I think that's one of the cool
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: things with 7P is like all of the guys I know,
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: they're incredibly well traveled um You know, I mean, you
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: are an international organization too.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Earlier, you were talking about your, you know, guys in
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Scotland and guys in Wales.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: And, you know, kind of all over the place. You know,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: there is, you know, I4WDTA, this is not to say
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: anything negative on them. I4WDTA certification body. But within that,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: you're going to find, you know, a plethora of different
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: personalities and types, you know, just to kind of reiterate
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: what Scott said, make sure you find somebody that is
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: not trying to teach you how to drive an ultra
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: four course. Somebody that's teaching you like, okay, you're traveling
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: around the world. Maybe that they understand actually what you're doing.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Well, and being a traveler is key because it gives
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: them the insights of regulations in other countries. It helps
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: them understand the things that you encounter as a traveler,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the things you encounter when you come through a port
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: or through a border crossing or the other kinds of
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: vehicles that you will interact with. And maybe the other
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: cultures that you'll interact with and that helps you be
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: more successful. Overland Experts is another good organization that we
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: like to recommend for training as well.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: It's one of the things, if somebody's new into this world,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: they've bought a vehicle or they haven't even bought a vehicle,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: but they're wanting to. A lot of people have, if
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: you say off-roading specifically, you know, they think of Baja 1000.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Back to the trainer, you know, if your trainer shows
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: up with the rock buggy on the trailer and you
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: want her on overlanding aspect, you might have picked the
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: wrong person. And conversely, if you want to go fast
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: and they show up in my Land Rover or Sprinter van,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: it's like, man, probably the wrong person.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Your Land Rover can do anything it wants.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Right till it doesn't.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Until it doesn't.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so it's a very broad recreation.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Overlanding, like you say, Scott, is it's more about, and
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be world travel. I mean, that's
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: what the three of us absolutely aspire to, but it
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: can be as simple as just, you know, okay, I'm
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: going to go out for a week and just go
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: from point to point. But it is about vehicle sympathy.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: It's not about, you don't have a pit crew. So
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: when you roll into camp, there's not going to be
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: a whole bunch of people putting your car back together
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: because you've abused it all day. So it is vehicle sympathy.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: And it really is a mindset that comes with that.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And that's why you want to have that good fit
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: between the trainer and the traveler. And that's just what
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: we're recommending is make sure that the trainer is also
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a traveler themselves because it will help not only them
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: be more relatable, but have some more insights that will
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: help you in your travels wherever you're going. So training
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: is really important. And another thing that helps us with
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: not getting stuck is using the right vehicle for the conditions.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: I think about if I was to drive my 110
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: in Antarctica, I don't think I would make it off
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the runway. You would freeze.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Freeze to death.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I would freeze to death. Yeah. Exactly. Probably wouldn't start.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't be able to see on the windscreen in about
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: two seconds.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we'd be all fogged up. So use the right
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: vehicle for the conditions. So if you're going to be
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: crossing large swaths of sand dunes, you want a certain
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: kind of vehicle. That's going to help you get stuck
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a little less. Pair your vehicle well to the terrain.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Think about the terrain that you're going to be crossing.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: By having the right vehicle, there's a.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: And while we're talking about it, you know, pair the
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: vehicle to the modifications you're going to make too. I mean, again,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: I always kind of, I use the example of the
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: ubiquitous Tacoma that weighs, you know, what a super duty should. But,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: you know, a Tacoma with 3,000 pounds of stuff on
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: it is going to get stuck really easy.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: That vehicle, that amount of tire... There's a lot of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: things that go into the amount of gearing the vehicle has.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Make sure that, you know, if you're going to put
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: a four-wheel camper or some kind of expedition conversion or something,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: make sure the vehicle is actually designed to carry that
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: kind of weight because that greatly affects your off-road capability.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no question. And understanding that, so you buy, we'll
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: pick on Tacoma, even though it's a magnificent vehicle.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Like we're picking on it because it's amazing.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Cause they're great.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: It never breaks down.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Unlike, uh, anyway, so you buy this car and
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: I get this all the time and people are like, okay, I,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: you know, I want to lift it. I want to
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: put bigger tires. I want to put the rear rack,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: the rooftop tent. And, and I always try anything you do,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: anything has a plus and a minus.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: So yes, I, you know what, I go drive it.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: I need a little bit more ground clearance. So I'm
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: going to lift it up a little bit.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: You've changed the center of gravity. You've done this. It's
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: better here, but it's less capable here. So just going
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: into it with the mindset that everything I do is
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: going to have a plus and a minus. Yeah. So
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: as long as you understand that, then you're a lot
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: more eyes open when you make your purchases.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so true. And then talking about purchases, making
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: sure that the tires are appropriate to the conditions. I mean,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: it's amazing how many people buy mud tires and they
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: live in the desert. It's not the best tire for
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the desert. So making sure that you have the right tire,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: which will really help around getting stuck, especially when you're
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: talking about mud, but you're more likely to get stuck
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: in the sand with a low horsepower vehicle with a
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: mud tire than you would be with an all-terrain. And
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: that's simply because of the flotation effect and the way
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: that the sand can keys with the lugs. Now, the
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: more that those lugs dig, the more they become a
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: paddle with low horsepower, the more likely you're going to
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: go down instead of forward. So you want to pair
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the right tire for that as well. And then you
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: also want to start by airing down. It's so fun.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: Can we just end this now? Like how to not
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: get stuck? Air down your tires.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I'm always amazed. So we'll get out in sand is
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: sand is probably the biggest place where you see somebody
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: stuck and not Horrible stuck, but just kind of stuck.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: And you go out and the first question I ask,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: have you ever done your tires?
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: And they look at you like, what magic do you have?
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Why would I want flat tires? And quite literally, you know,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: taking 20 pounds out of the tires and they drive
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: right out. It's like, you're not stuck anymore. Yeah, it's
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: not magic.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: The best way that I can articulate this to someone
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: is take like a grapefruit or a balloon or something
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: soft and squishy and just put it down on the ground.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: And what you'll notice is the more pressure you put
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: on it, the more, you know, the wider that footprint gets.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Specifically for a vehicle, you know, your surface area grows
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: in length, which is what I call the tank track
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: effect or however you want.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: To do it.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Tim Huber, who's another 7P guy, I remember a while ago,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: I want to say it was for an Overland Expo
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: training course, actually like jacked his vehicle up.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: The Rorschach stuff.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Painted a tire or something, put it down. Okay.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Here's what 60 PSI looks like, which is for people
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: watching on YouTube, which is about that big. And then
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: here's what 8 PSI looks like, and it's about that big.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's the biggest thing. Also, ride quality. All
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: All of it.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Entire durability.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Again, and again, one of my mantras, there's a downside.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Which is, well, first of all, if you're down, you
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: better have a way to air back up.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Or you're just being silly.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: As you air down, you're exposing the sidewall to more
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: damage potentially, especially in rocks and such like that. You're
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: reducing your overall ground clearance because if you take a
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: big sidewall and you air it down, you might lose.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, on mine going from 35 to 15, I
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: lose about an inch and a half, two inches of
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: ground clearance.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Which is significant.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: It can be. It can be.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: In the sand dunes, it's not, but in the rocks,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: it certainly is.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, think about how much money people spend on
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: larger tires and suspension and whatever to gain that amount
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: of ground clearance. And they don't realize that if you're
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: doing it right, you're just losing it right back again.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Starting right back to zero. So again, everything has a
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: plus and a minus as long as your eyes open
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: with it.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: It's okay. Yeah, it really does. And tire pressures are key.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: A good, for those that are listening, since this is
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a principles series for us, a good rule of thumb,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: if you're in soft conditions is to start by matching
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the tire pressure to the wheel diameter. You have a
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: 17 inch wheel, go down to 17 PSI. You have
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: a 20 inch wheel, go down to 20 PSI. Use
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that as a starting point in soft conditions. You may
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: find that you need to go lower than that. If
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: you're in a lot of sharp rocks, you want to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: be a little higher than that. But that is a
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: general rule of thumb is that if we have a
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: 17 inch wheel, we want to start by going down
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to about 17 PSI. Now, a lot of that is
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: it's variable, right? This is a general rule of thumb
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: that someone can remember as a starting point. You have
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: a very heavy vehicle.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: If you're in a four wheel camper, you know, super
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: duty Ram 3500 thing.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Don't go to 17 pounds of pressure. Well, and you
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: may need to in the sand dunes. And there's ways
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: to do that by, for example, using a chalk line
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: test or for doing painting carcass of the tire and
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: then putting it down onto an imprint test so that
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: you can see how much of an increase in surface
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: area you get. But there's things that you can monitor.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Like if you have bead locks, you can go lower,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: but we're really looking at what are the temperatures of
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the tire. So going out and doing some testing, bring
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: out a temperature gauge. In the days of COVID, I
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: think a lot more people People have, they're like $ 3 now. Yeah,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: you can point the little temperature laser at the car
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: because of the sidewall and you can determine what the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: temperature of the tire is. But that's a good starting
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: point is around the diameter of the wheel. Start around
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: that point. And then adjust from there. That helps us
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: with a starting point. But we definitely want to be
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: looking at airing down as a solution to help us
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: keep from getting stuck as well. So now, because we
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: want to talk about counterpoints. So the whole goal around
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: this is falsifiability of this idea of don't get stuck.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: The alternate to that idea is do get stuck. Get
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: stuck a lot. Go out and get stuck a lot.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Go out with your friends. Be 16-year-old me. Yeah, exactly.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Which was like two years ago. Yeah, yeah. For some reason,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: there's this stigma about getting stuck. It's okay to get stuck.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: It's fun to get stuck. We learn and we grow
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: and we can try out all this cool new gear
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: that we bought and we can work with our friends
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: to come up with solutions and we can become more
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: proficient at getting unstuck, which means when we are on
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the skeleton coast and the tide is coming in and
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: we're about to lose our vehicle, we have that muscle memory,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: that effectiveness, those tools of the trade and those skills
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: in our mind that allow us to get unstuck very efficiently.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the better you get at it. I mean, it's
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: absolutely that. The more you do it, the better you become.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: And to get stuck in a controlled environment is a
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: lot better to build those skills. Recoveries, I think for
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: people who've never done them, they're amazed at the length
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: of time it takes to do it right. So you
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: can rush into, especially with wrench recovery, you can rush
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: in there and get it wrong and have to reset
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: and do it again. And inevitably to take a moment
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: and to think through the process and get it right
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: the first time, do it safely, do it efficiently. It
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: still takes a fair chunk of time. And so people
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: really underestimate that. The more you do it, The more
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: you build that muscle memory, like you're saying, the more
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: efficient you are, the faster it is. But it's never fast, really.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: So I've got a fun question for you, Jim. What
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: is your best stuck story? I mean, when a Camel
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Trophy guy gets insanely stuck, what was the one- Have
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: you ever had to swim out of a car?
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What, like everybody hasn't?
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I was just messing with you. Like, you know, hey,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: go ahead and be Jim West.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: So I guess- Well, what I will say is it
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: wasn't a stuck, but it was an oops. And so
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: I think we were one of the first teams to
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: ever roll over a camel car during training at Eastner Castle.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: And our instructor saw it coming a mile away. It
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: was in this winch four, I think what it's called.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: So this is mud bog. And he said, right, you're
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: going to go in, you're going to get stuck here.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: You know, Jim, because Dan was driving, Jim, you'll jump
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: out and you can pick a winch, basically set up
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: a winch. It's like, okay, cool. Well, us being arrogant Americans,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: as we are, We're the best.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Just ask us. And we kind of looked at it.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: It's like, I think I asked, I said, so Colin, uh,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: how about we just drive through it and not get stuck? Do,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: do you, I mean, do we have to get stuck?
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: And he's like, no, what are you thinking? It's like, well,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: you know, if we go down this right side, um,
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: keep a little bit of, of side tread on that,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: on that mud wall, very vertical mud wall that becomes
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: important in a moment. I think, and Dan goes, yeah, yeah.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I think I go in here in second gear. I
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: bang third gear, get it on the turbo. I say,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: we go right across this bog and we don't get muddy.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: We don't get our wellies muddy. And, uh, Colin said,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I think that's an interesting plan, boys. And he did
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: something he hadn't done all day. He said to one
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: of our journalists, Peter McGillivray, who I think still runs
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: SEMA now. He was a photographer for four wheelers way
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: back then. He said, Pete, how about you and I
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: get out of the car and we'll go stand over there?
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Which should have been our first clue that something was
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: probably going to go wrong.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: A miss.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Anyways, to try to keep the story short, we bailed in.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Dan banged third gear beautifully, came on the turbo. I'm
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: hanging out. I keep saying a little bit right, a
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: little bit right. And he was just enough right that
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: when it grabbed traction, it flipped the car right onto
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: its side. and uh so not stuck but definitely uh
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: forward progress aired so we got out he says okay
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: boys i'll get on the radio and actually we're laying
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: in our belts and thinking well that's it we're not
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: going to camel trophy because we just laid a car
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: on its side so he looked down through my window
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: and said hey boys are you okay in there and
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: yeah he goes okay i'll get on the radio and
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: have somebody come recover you at which point we said
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: can we just do it ourselves he said what's your
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: plan and so Basically, we did kind of a version
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: of a pendulum winch where we came off to a tree,
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: back to the back to a tree and back to
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: the car, winched the car back on its wheels, moved
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: it forward, and we managed to get it out. So
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: that was, he let us do it, do the fail
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: so we could have the victory. And it's our plan.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: So not my best stuck, but definitely one where I
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: learned the most lesson, especially what a winch can do
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: if you have some imagination.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Sure. What's yours? Yeah.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Well, I think my funniest one was, it was my
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: first off-road vehicle, which was a two-wheel drive Isuzu Amigo. Oh, perfect.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: And I was growing up in Southern California and I
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: decided I was going to go out wheeling after work,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: which means I had nothing in the vehicle. I had
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: no idea how to operate it. I had no idea
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: what airing down meant.
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I had no idea. I just thought everything was solved
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: with as much speed as possible. So I was going
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: back and forth through this. Wait, it isn't?
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Solid plan.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: So I was going back and forth through this mud hole. Again,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: tool drive. And of course, it's always the last. I'm like,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do it one more time. And so
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: now I'm stuck. I can actually hear Highway 101 in
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: the distance. Probably someplace I shouldn't have been. So then
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the only thing I had in the vehicle was the
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: drapes from the business that I was working for. Oh, man.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: So my boss asked me to go get the drapes laundered.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: So that's all I had. So I shoved the drapes
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: underneath the wheels.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: You really needed it then.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: And that did, of course, nothing to get me out.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: It's the most Southern California thing I've ever heard. Make
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: sure that you go launder the drapes.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And to use them as max tracks.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so I was thoroughly sucked. So
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I had to walk up to the freeway, find the
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: emergency call box, you know, yeah, eat crow. So that
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: was probably my most hilarious stuck. But I've been, yeah,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, canning stock route in the wet was the
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: most difficult. We had at one count 12 max tracks.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: We were building a road. It took us 14 hours
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: to get out. Yeah. And it was it was probably
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: my most enjoyable travel experience I've ever had. It was
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: it was probably that experience that reminded me how much
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: enjoyment comes out of getting stuck, how much fun it
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: is to make fun of ourselves, how much it is
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: important to learn the hard way and to get stuck
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: and to stay proficient at it.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: So it's a process.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: So, Matt, you got to tell us your favorite stuck story. Yeah.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: And were you wearing flip-flops? Yeah.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: A hundred percent. I was wearing Queensland boots and board shorts.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: I guess mine, I had just left my job as
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: editor of Unsealed. We spent, you know, we were living
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: in Sydney. We spent a few days in Brisbane, hanging
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: out with some friends and then set out on this,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: I think it was just under six month trip all
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: around Australia, off-road in our Land Cruiser. And first day
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: we're outside of this town called 1770, north of Bundaberg.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: And beach we wanted to go to, tide was too high,
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: couldn't get through to the camping spot we wanted, so
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: we were driving up this kind of access track, and
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: there's all these, you know, places, water crossings, right? And
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: I'm walking all of them. Laura was walking most of them.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: I was not the one walking them.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: I was driving. It was, you know, the cowboy thing.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Important fact.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: Well, I decide, oh, we don't need to do that.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to drive through the grass on this one. And,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: you know, of course, Laura, who I have learned is
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: generally right.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Wise man. Why are you doing this? Don't do this.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: It'll be fine.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: So our Land Cruiser probably weighed eight squillion pounds. And
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: I remember that it had 68 kilowatts of the rear wheels,
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: which is not many horsepowers.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: It was slow. It was heavy.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: And it was sunk to the frame and then some.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: And I had like one small bush to winch from.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: And I had luckily I had eight. Max tracks with
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: me or on the roof for on the back. This
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: is before I worked with max tracks and I ended
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: up having to basically use the winch to position myself forward.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: There was nothing that I could attach to to go backwards.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: So I had to winch straight forward and then I
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: had to put go onto the max tracks and then
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: I had to put max tracks behind it. So I
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: could kind of leapfrog myself backwards because going forward was
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: just not, it wasn't an option because I knew that
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: I had a viable path had I just listened to Laura.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: So yeah, there you go. Step one, don't get stuck. Listen,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: listen to other people. Listen to your significant other. But
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: it took us hours. And this is the first day
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: of our trip. We have these, you know, I think
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: traveling becomes a bit romantic. And, you know, we thought, okay,
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: our first big day out, we're going to be gone
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: for a while. We're going to spend it on this
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: beach by 1770. It's going to be really cool. We'll
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: hang out there. I ended up scarfing down McDonald's and
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: staying in a hotel. We didn't talk for about two
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: hours because I knew.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I knew I knew. Yeah, that was that. That's me.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: That's a great story. Learn that one.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I had I had the the the bug bites
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: on my legs for some time.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love the stuck stories are really fun. Everybody now. Now, Jim,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: you said you had one that was even better. Well,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: it involved you stealing a bike.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I hate one-upping. Um, but your story just reminded
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: me of, and again, it's, it's the ones that you
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: learn early. Um, so I'm, it's a 16 year old
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: version of me. So terrifying. And, uh, a girl, not
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: even a girlfriend, but she had a, gosh, I want
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: to see, it was like a 75 Ford short bed,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: four wheel drive. Uh, back in those days, I didn't
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: have anything four wheel drive. Uh, kind of like your Suzu.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: They used to be really expensive.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: I know. Yes. And, and I, and, as I was raised,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: my dad said four-wheel drive means four-wheel stuck. He knew
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: me well before he knew me. Um, so we're out
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: and quite literally in downtown Phoenix at, uh, Shaw Butte,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: which is now all houses. I love driving by there still.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: We're out four wheeling between the mountains and, and we
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: go down through this, it had rained. So we're out
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: splashing through washes and stuff. The one rare time that
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: there's actually water in Phoenix and we go through this
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: wash and I get stuck. And cause she always loved
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: four wheeling, but she never liked to drive. It was
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: her truck. Um, so I, of course, perfect time to
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: put it in four wheel drive. Again, you learn these
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: lessons now. Um, so which was, The back was already buried,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: so the four-wheel drive managed to accomplish the front going
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: down as equally far as the back now. So we're
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: on the frame rails or lower.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: We dig a bit because all I have is a shovel,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: no winch, no nothing.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: At least you had a shovel.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Had a shovel.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Back then, even thinking.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: No, it was hers.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: It was hers. Yeah.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: So I dig and dig and dig and realize fairly
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: quickly that this is basically, we're going to have to
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: wait a couple of months for this to dry out
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: and then drive out. Or call my dad, which was- Phoenix,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: a couple of hours. A bad idea. I said, listen,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go call a buddy of mine, Kenny, who's-
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: We are like-minded and the world survived, two of us.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: So he's getting off work. I'm going to call him.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: So cell phones obviously didn't exist in 1976. I hike
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: for about two miles, get into a housing community and
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: there's a bike laying there in the front yard. And
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I thought, okay, cool. But no lights on anywhere. And
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: so I steal the bike. I temporarily appropriate the bike.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: I ride to the first house that has lights on,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: which is about a mile away. Again, this stuff would
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: never happen in these days.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Thank God.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: The gal answers the door. She's babysitting. She's probably 16.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: And she lets me in. I use the phone.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: I call Kenny.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: He says he'll be off in an hour. Cool. I
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: ride back. My biggest fear of this whole evening was
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: getting caught putting the bike back.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Because nobody's going to believe, no, no, I'm putting it back.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Not a chance. Do that, hike back. He shows up
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: an hour later with his two-wheel drive truck, promptly gets
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: it stuck. He has a strap, which didn't help. And
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: so we start digging. Again, one of the, just the
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: silly things that you remember, there were a lot of
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: frogs out and the frogs were making a lot of noise.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: And apparently for some reason they were annoying Kenny. I'm
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: under the truck digging and he says, okay, I've had
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: about enough of these frogs. And it's like, well, yeah,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: what are you going to do? Kill them all. pulls
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: out his. 22 rifle from the backseat of the truck
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: and proceeds to go through, I don't know how many rounds,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: but in fact does kill every, I don't know if
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: he killed every frog, but he absolutely silenced them all.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: And then came back and, you know, again, looks crossed
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: paths with each other. We dug for about another four hours,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: then we had the trucks out.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Amazing. And let's learn from Kenny and not kill frogs. Yes.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: It's definitely not ecologically sound. No, it's a bad practice.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love it. I love the story. I like
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: stealing the bicycle.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it just seemed like the thing to do at
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: the moment, but I really was terrified of getting caught
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: putting it back.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: But that's so good, though. You were trying to do
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: the right thing, and I think they would have understood.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Just borrowing. Well, you'd like to think.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: So this concludes part one of our principles of overlanding
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: on recovery. You can find part two within the next
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: few weeks. So by the middle of January of 2021,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: you'll find the next episode posted for part two. If
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: you'd like to find out more information on Jim West,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: you can follow him on Instagram at MyQuest38. And you
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: can also find out more information about his four-wheel drive
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: training and his team with 7P International. And if you'd
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: like to follow Matt, you can follow him at MattExplore
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: on Instagram. And if you would like to contact me
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: about any feedback, or questions on the show, you can
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: reach me at scott.a.brady on Instagram as well. Thank you
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: all for listening, and we will talk to you next time.