Ground Anchors

[old Jack]

And I always hear this rubbish about if it doesn't have 2 or more uses it isn't needed. Well I need to inform you, if you need it, then you need it, no matter how many uses it may have. Much like having a second spare.....its all relative. Risk verses consequence.

There are no hard and fast "rules" on the multiple use theory if there was we would be only drinking water and eating dehydrated food and where is the fun in that!

When travelling, room is at a premium and weight is critically limited so there must be a compromise. I see people traveling with all sorts of tyre repair gear including slide hammers and bead breakers, I see people with 2 ruined spares on rear carriers and more on the roof, so I wonder if they were carrying much less weight and using more appropriate tyres, pressures and speed for the terrain they are traversing, would they have the same problems?

I do not carry a bead breaker as I can use a bottle jack to do this job, sure it is much slower but the last time I had to break a tyre bead was in the mid 1980's. My tyre compressor and plug repair kit fits into a tool box 350mm x140mm X 120mm all under 4kgs, 3x 600mm light steel alloy tyre levers nest together neatly and take up little room but do weigh about 500 grams each. With this gear I can repair more than 2 flat tyres if I need to, 99.9% of the time it is for repairs on fellow travelers tyres and not my own.

OJ.

[sharkcaver]

With this gear I can repair more than 2 flat tyres if I need to, 99.9% of the time it is for repairs on fellow travellers tyres and not my own.

And that one time you need it on your own tyre? Like I said, risk verses consequence.
And like you say no hard and fast rules.

The issue being people quote the more than 2 uses proverb often and religiously. Its rubbish. No hard and fast rules indeed.

I dont carry (or own) a set of tyre levers - but I should. Maybe I can second use them as a toasting fork and leave my jaffle iron behind cause that has only one use.

[old Jack]

Just goes to prove we are all different in the priorities we have and choices we make.

It what makes the world an interesting place and this an informative public forum.

After all I drive a Challenger with a Smartbar and Cooper tyres, and drink light beers from cans and red wine from 2 litre Casks when on trips!
I will stop and offer to anyone and I hope someone would do the same for me if I needed it.


OJ.

[kiwi1973]

I can offer some personal experience of the Lan-Cor ground anchor.

I actually got one of these at a slight discount a few years ago and was supposed to give a review of it, with photos, being used somewhere offroad overseas. Problem was that most the terrain we encountered in places like the Balkans was hard and stony ground. We weren't actually truly stuck anywhere there, but rather went to the effort to set it all up to take the photos - but couldn't get it to drill into the stony ground and had to give up. Up to that point in time I wondered if the design concept was flawed and the product far less useful than it initially seemed.

However, upon returning to NZ, where the Lan-Cor is made incidentally, I've found that it is much more common that we encounter the type of soft/grassy/muddy terrain in which the Lan-Cor really does work. Once you get used to setting it up and know how far down it needs to drill it is capable of working as intended and I have now used it several times to successfully recover my vehicle. Still, there was a situation when I needed to recover my vehicle over on the West Coast in NZ and needed a ground anchor, but the terrain there was too hard and stony to even attempt bothering with the Lan-Cor. So the bottom line is that it's hit or miss.

I then did some research on ground anchors and found that the military generally doesn't rely on fancy ground anchor designs for its offroad vehicle recoveries. They typically use pickets in various arrangements roped together. The most common arrangement is 3 pickets, then a metre back 2 pickets and another metre back 1 picket. Strong rope is used to lash this all together, from the top of the first set of pickets to the bottom of the second set. And from the top of the second pair to the bottom of the final picket. This arrangement is extremely effective - the pickets don't pull forward because if you can picture the rope lashing arrangement the leverage required to move the pickets would be tremendous. However, the weak link in this system is where you attach your winch line. If you put it just around one picket (or angle iron) in the front it will just bend in half (but it won't pull forward due to the rope lashings!).

If you Google 'ARB Terra Firma' you should see a photo of an interesting ground anchor design that could be easily home made. This design has a frame (channel steel maybe) that you bang in a few pickets. Because you attach your winch line to the frame you spread the load across the frame and accordingly all the pickets, such that one or two at the front don't bear all the force and bend. I've been meaning to try building a prototype to test.

[Pwoffey]

Interesting information kiwi1973. I don't have a ground anchor any type, but I imagine if I did ever get one it would be for sand recoveries. (I'm less likely to lose traction on hard ground in the areas I drive and if I did then there's often a tree to help out.) So far a shovel and Maxtrax have always sufficed for me, but in the situation we recently saw with Sharkcaver at Fish Creek, if you are buried up to your pumpkins in soft sand and time is of the essence (and, unlike with Shane, you are a sole vehicle) then I'm thinking a Lan-Cor might be the best solution. No doubt it takes some effort to sink the auger, but nowhere near what it takes to bury a tyre or the Deadman's apparatus. And you've probably already done a fair amount of digging under the vehicle itself,so I for one would be well and truly knackered. I'd be interested to hear from others who have used the Lan-Cor.

[sharkcaver]

Just goes to prove we are all different in the priorities we have and choices we make.

It what makes the world an interesting place and this an informative public forum.

After all I drive a Challenger with a Smartbar and Cooper tyres, and drink light beers from cans and red wine from 2 litre Casks when on trips!
I will stop and offer to anyone and I hope someone would do the same for me if I needed it.

All good from this end OJ. I like the fact we can disagree and still shake hands and respect each others thoughts.

As for the challenger, light beer in cans and goon bags, no issues with me. I reckon the challenger is great and goon is my favourite. I could learn to accept light beer I guess

And I would stop to help anyone too and have done so a few times.



Ok, getting a bit off topic so:

I bit the bullet and purchased a deadman today. Along with a factor 55 fid and some winch rope. I plan to make some of my own soft shackles.

The deadman will be useless in soft/boggy ground, but I want a sand solution, both beach and desert.

To add insult to injury, I'm tentatively planning to go back to Fish creek on the 11/12th August and give the deadman a test run. I wont have the soft shackles done by then though.

[kiwi1973]

On the one occasion I was bogged in sand and tried to use the Lan Cor it didn't work for me. However, it seemed that there was some sort of solid rock shelf or something under the sand that prevented it going deep enough. I note that some Pajero Club forum members have been impressed with the Lan Cor's sand performance when they did some testing.

My main strategy for dealing with a sand bogging now would be to use a Hi Lift jack with a wheel mate adaptor to lift each wheel up out of the sand and then get some sand and a Tredz (Maxtrax) under there. I think this may be quick and efficient and gives you the option to reverse out if that would be more practical for the situation.