Off-road driving is one of the most popular activities in the UAE and provides a feeling of freedom and a lot of fun. Experienced drivers will have no troubles navigating their vehicles into, thru and out of the desert. Newcomers mostly manage the first part… What to do if you stuck in sand? There are a lot of ways to recover a car. With more experience you will avoid to stuck in most cases but even experienced drivers stuck form time to time.
First of all check the terrain where you stuck, based on the terrain there are different ways to get out.
As long as you are on an incline, it is quite easy: Reverse and go down the dune. It is important, that you reverse straight and don’t try to turn the car. If you try to turn you are risking to flip the car.
If you stuck directly on top of a dune, there are two ways to get the car out, either to pull the car out or digging. Digging is no fun especially in summer heat and windy weather. To have any progress, you have to move a lot of sand. Try to dig the way that the car will slip on either side of the dunes edge. (Caution – don’t move under the car while digging!)
The worse case of getting stuck is on flat terrain or even worse in a ditch between two dunes. On flat terrain, you should try first to dig the car out by itself (this applies for all situations) If you turn the steering 45° to right and left, your wheels are digging sand from aside instead of just digging deeper into the sand which could give you the required bit more traction to get out. You will need a good feeling for your car but as long as you feel a small movement forward don’t stop and continue. This technique, it’s working many times. Be patient and avoid spinning the wheels. If you really stuck, you have to pull out your car with another one. If you are pulling out a car you should always check first which is the best direction to pull. This applies for both cars. It will not help you if you manage to stuck with the second car (the pulling one) while you try to get out another one. Especially on flat terrain and soft sand the risk is high, that the pulling car is also digging into the sand and got stuck. Therefore you should use a rough pulling method. Normally you bring the rope (or a sling) first on tension to pull the car slowly and controlled out. On flat terrain, you have to challenge the material much more. When the rope is attached to both cars, still laying loose on the ground, speed up the pulling car. Before the rope gets tight let the stuck car turn the tires and accelerate. The rope will get with one strong hit tight. It doesn’t sounds good for the cars and the material – right it isn’t good but the fastest way to get the car out. I don’t need to mention that you are trying to move tones of metal, use for this action only strong and high quality ropes. Caution: Make sure that no one is close to the cars, if the rope will torn, it can badly injure people who are close by.
Finally the worse case scenario – you stuck in a ditch between dunes, where it’s not possible to pull you out with another car (it will not work pulling a car uphill). You should always avoid this situation and drive anticipatory always knowing the way up the next dune. But now it happened! Digging is useless because the sand will always slip back in the whole you are digging. Lets hope you went with a bunch of strong friends to the desert! Ask them to push the car out of the sand. Depending on the weight of the car and how badly you stuck 4 guys could be enough. Again avoid spinning the wheels you will only dig the car deeper into the sand also you will piss off your friends who are pushing the car if you cover them in sand. If this will not solve the problem, release even more pressure of the tires as you have done before entering the desert. Release as much air till you almost run on completely flat tires. Just leave enough pressure in the tires to not slip on the rims. This should help. If you can’t directly make it over the dune reverse back as far as possible up the opposite dune – don’t stop again the car on the bottom of the ditch. Go backwards and forwards like a swing till you have enough speed to make it over the dune.
If all these tips will not help, it doesn’t mean that you or your car is lost but you will need help of an experienced driver or special equipment. There is a lot of equipment which will help in certain situation like a winch with sand anchor, special sand boards, special jacks and much more.