Winches For Any 4wd Vehicle Doing Serious Off Road Work In Soft Sand Or Mud

By Author: Danielle Wallace
Total Articles: 3
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Many a 4 wheel drive owner wishes to drive in the desert or to deserted beaches where he can test his driving skills by getting through soft sand. Depending on the desert and the location there might be scrub or there might be hard or soft sand.

Beaches are particularly variable as to the softness of the sand and the amount of time one must spend in 4 wheel drive Low Range, 4 wheel drive high range and where one can easily drive in 2wd.

Normally on the beach one always tries to drive between the times that the tide is out and can drive below the high water mark. This enable one to drive quite fast in 2wd high range. There might be occasions where the sand softens and so one has to engage the 4wd but unless one is in sight of one's objective it is worth parking up on the beach and waiting for high tide to pass before driving on the soft sand.

Sure, if one has let down ones tires to about 1 Psi or 7 Kpa, one can drive in 4wd Low range through the soft sand making very slow progress of 10 to 15 mph and consuming loads of fuel. Even then one is in danger of getting bogged down. Then there is little one can do ...
... other than find or create a strong anchor point ahead and pull oneself out with one's Smittybilt XRC winch.

Many 4wd owners who are driving on the beach will be towing a ski boat to go fishing in the sea. Here the Smittybilt winch is particularly important. Normally the vehicle will have a tow ball fitted to the front fender as well as the winch. This enables the trailer to be detached from the towing position at the rear and hooked up to the front.

In this way when the boat's shackles and ties have been loosened the driver can launch the boat directly into the surf by astute timing. As the waves are right he will accelerate the boat directly at the water and then slam on the brakes. The inertia will cause the boat to slide off the trailer into the sea from where it can be taken out to sea while the trailer, still attached to the nose of the auto is parked up the beach, well above the high water mark.

It is in recovering the boat that the Smittybilt XRC winch really comes into its own. When a ski boat returns from the sea it normally rushes at the beach as fast as it can and will slide up the beach above the water line a couple of feet. It does need to be recovered and loaded back onto the trailer.

The Car is driven back down the beach with the trailer lined up on the boat. The line from the Smittybilt winch is attached to the strong point on the nose of the boat and then the winch itself is engaged pulling the boat up and onto the trailer. From there it can be pulled back above the high water mark , tied down and towed away normally.

Drivers of 4wd vehicles like to test their off road driving skills in soft sand and will know the importance of Smittybilt accessories. Smittybilt XRC winches are particularly useful. Visit http://www.4wd.com for more information.