Wet Sand Driving

[G-man]

Nice one Tom. Very clear.

The only sure way a new "off roader" would learn any of this, is to actually go out there and do it, again & again & again, like you said. Practice makes perfect. In the mean time, they must keep their egos holstered a bit longer.

[Desert_Dragon]

G-man slide sloping is depending on your acceleration and feeling the gravity affecting your car. Once you know your car and feel the gravity don’t fight it and go down with it. You tought me this and don’t advise me to stop sliding coz I wont its fun part buddy i will call you safety man The right part is the car which has lift up 4" + more likely flipping over.. in my opinion bigger engine more running in sliding


Tom I 100% agree with you long base cars are most likely control the back slip in wet sand, I tried it with dodge ram in liwa. while i tried jeep wrangler going down in high dune it swing the back like no tomorrow 8O


Cheerz Summer is coming 8)

[Jacques]

Nice one Tom. Very clear.

The only sure way a new "off roader" would learn any of this, is to actually go out there and do it, again & again & again, like you said. Practice makes perfect. In the mean time, they must keep their egos holstered a bit longer.

Glad to hear it's only "new offroaders" that make mistakes G-man. Tell you what, after 7 years driving in Middle East Desert, I still make mistakes. BTW, I saw a professional rally driver put his Jeep on it's side a month ago doing a bit of sidesloping "playing" during a gentle Friday afternoon "newbie" drive.

[TINTIN]

Nice one Tom. Very clear.

The only sure way a new "off roader" would learn any of this, is to actually go out there and do it, again & again & again, like you said. Practice makes perfect. In the mean time, they must keep their egos holstered a bit longer.

Glad to hear it's only "new offroaders" that make mistakes G-man. Tell you what, after 7 years driving in Middle East Desert, I still make mistakes. BTW, I saw a professional rally driver put his Jeep on it's side a month ago doing a bit of sidesloping "playing" during a gentle Friday afternoon "newbie" drive.

But like he said, it also has a lot to do with luck too.

[CarbonHunter]

Thank you - a good lot of info here for a newbie. I appreciate all your inputs

[Kalemero]

Sliding and sidesloping have been very well covered. I will talk about some other isues related to driving on wet sand. First, I like to run my tyres at much higher pressure when the sand is wet. The same terrain that needs 14 psi when dry can be done easily at 16 to 18 psi when wet. The wetter sand means there is a greater chance of your tyre sidewall being deformed when turning, starting up or reaching the bottom of a dune. This means you are more likely to pop a tyre off the rim. Running a higher pressure means the tyre resists the deformation and is much less likely to pop off the rim.

Second, damp sand holds it shape much more strongly than dry sand. This means that steep approach and departure angles that you can do easily when the sand is dry, because the sand will be swept away by your bumper, will now hold like concrete. You are much more likely to run you bumper into the ground when coming down a steep dune, or into the dune when starting up a steep one. The answer to this is to go more slowly, and to avoid angles where you bumper will contact before your wheels.

Cresting on wet sand is fun. It is great to see even short wheelbase Jeeps getting high centered at the top of sharp dunes. Once again, sand that would break away when dry will hold like cement giving you a nice picture of your car with all four wheels in the air. To overcome this you need to approach the crest just fast enough to get over without going airborne. Landing on hard sand gives much more of a jolt than landing on soft sand. The cost of going too slow is getting stuck. The cost of going too fast is damaging your car. Keep practicing with small increases in speed until you can judge them properly. Always err on the slow side to avoid problems.

Descending steep dunes in wet sand is much more dangerous than in dry sand. Your car will tend to pick up much more speed on wet sand tempting you to use the brakes. Using the brakes often causes the back end to swing around leading to a potential roll-over. The only way out of this is to accelerate just enough to get going straight again, only now you have the problem of even more speed. Going down steep wet dunes requires you be stopped at the top before going down to minimise your starting speed. Shift into low gear 1'st or 2'nd depending on which works better in your car. Let engine compression do your braking while going down to avoid sliding sideways. Only accelerate to keep the car straight. Avoid using the brakes. Hopefully you are still going slowly enough when you reach the bottom that your front bumper does not dig in.

My short wheelbase Defender 90 always tries to slip the back end around when I am the first one going down a wet dune. My long wheelbase Series III 109 does not have this problem. My advice is if you are driving a short wheelbase let someone who knows what they are doing go down first. You can follow in their tracks exactly and avoid having your back end swing around.

Going up steep dunes is also different. You get much more traction on the way up than you do with dry dunes. If you don't make it up the first time stop, switch quickly into reverse and let engine braking take you down backwards in your own tracks slowly. Try again a little faster next time or find another way around. If you approach a steep dune too fast you will bury your bumper into the face of the dune. Approach as fast as you can without this happening and accellerate hard once your front wheels have started up the dune face. It is better to have smoothly applied power without wheelspin than having your wheels spinning and sand flying. It takes time and practice to be able to feel when this is happening.

Once you reach the top of the steep dune you do not want to go airborne. Look at the paragraph on cresting above.

Little gullies and very small bowls, usually less distance across than the length of your car can be much worse wet than dry. Your front bumper tends to dig in and stay on the side you want to exit from. The only thing you can do is avoid them, or have someone pull you out backwards when you drive into one.

From my experience this advice will give a newcomer the safest experience in wet sand. It would be nice to hear what others think.

well said tom :bravo: