Tom Severin from Badlands 4x4 Training
Whenever i get a chance to learn more, or refresh my memory i usually try and take advantage of it. Recently i had the opportunity to join in on a class with Badlands 4x4 Training for one of their Advanced Winching and Recovery classes. Because most people only use their winch once a year or sometimes not even that it's good to brush up on your skills that you may be rusty at.
The first few hours is basically understanding how winches, pulleys, etc work. Tom goes into detail about operation, effects on battery life, what to do, what not to do, safety and this type of thing. He provides models and examples of this through the help of you the student. We used one rig for explanation purposes, then he turned us over to our own rigs in teams.
Tom double checking the line before we pull
My first pull of the day to get warmed up. We are running a Warn M12000, Black Rat shackles and an ARB tree strap. The pull was under hardly any load. Still dangerous as ever.
Tom explaining to the group the benefits of using a double line pull with a snatch block. Line speed changes, pulling capacity increases etc.
Shot of me bringing my winch cable back in. Always grab the cable wrist over wrist when bringing it back in, instead of letting the cable slide through your hands. Reason for this is you can get a burr caught in your hand if you let it slide.
Before lunch we made a few different angle pulls. Static and moving anchors. Multiple shackle points, many different anchor points. The most complex was the 5-1 self-reversing pull. It used at least 5 snatch blocks, 10 d-shackles and multiple synthetic winch line extensions.
The rigging for this pull took about 45 mins just on its own. It was checked, double checked and even triple checked before we ever even considered a pull. You can see how complex it was in the below photo.
Never stand in the DANGER ZONE, some of these photos were not under load, but appeared to be.
After we broke down the reverse pull and put our equipment away, we broke for lunch. On the menu for me at least were under hood manifold hot pockets. Tom spoke a little bit about winching conditions and how to judge a load. Whether it be in mud, snow, rocks, etc.
Once finished with lunch we headed for Goler Gorge near Red Rock SP for the second part of the day. We would proceed to air down and head up the rocky, water fall type canyon slot. The 80 barely fit but made it through unscathed. Unfortunately i didn't get any photos because i was the tail gunner and was too busy keeping up with the rest of the pack.
After arriving at the top of the canyon wash area we broke out the pull pals for some more self recovery training. Sinking them into the sand was a chore and took a few tries to get them stuck enough but eventually we pulled off them. The conditions weren't all that great. There was granite just below the surface so the spades wanted to slide. Needless to say, we headed on and i didn't get chance to break out the camera, i was too busy lugging around my home-grown land anchor.
Further down the canyon Tom purposely got into a terrible position. This was our next task.
One vehicle was pulling the Jeep up and out and the others job was to keep the vehicle from flopping on its side. My job was to coordinate the two winching operators. It was one of my favorite recoveries.
Pre-setting the lines. Remember to never extract from a slider unless you have too. They can become a flying object and hurt or kill someone instantly. We used his sliders as tension only, never pulled on them hard enough to rip them off.
After we recovered the Grand Cherokee we moved further up the trail where Tom could demonstrate how to use a Hi-Lift as a hand winch. Although a very slow moving process, It was a great excersize where everyone could see how you benefit from not only carrying a hi-lift for a jack, but also as a recovery device.
After the hi-lift excersize we proceeded to have the Grand Cherokee get stuck in a ditch. The problem with this recovery was that there was a bush straight ahead of him so we had to figure out how to extract him.
We used two rigs and one was an anchor and the other was the winch vehicle. The way we accomplished this was a floating snatch block directly inline with the Grand Cherokee. It was amazing and also quite nerve racking being the coordinator once again.
At this point is was about 5pm in the middle of the Mojave desert and the thunder clouds were drawing near. We were still deep in the canyon and most were getting tired. At that point we took a quick escape route up and over to civilization and proceeded to air back up at the highway.
If any of you reading this are wanting to learn more about recovery and getting more out of your winch or even uncomfortable with your winch because you don't use it often enough, i highly suggest this class. It may prove invaluable to you and your well being someday out on the trail. To have a winch is one thing, to know how to use it properly is another.
To sign up or get more info visit Badland4x4 Training's website at: http://www.4x4training.com/