How not to get bogged at Blacksmiths Beach.

I’ve recently made a post on Instagram including a few pictures of my ute bogged down to its belly in sand. The response to the post was quite surprising, with so many questions as to why the ute got bogged.

For that reason, I've decided to write this blog post explaining why it did get bogged, what could have been done to prevent it and what I could have done to make it easier to get out of the hole.

Firstly, why did the ute get bogged? 

Realistically speaking, there were a number of contributing factors but in this situation, the main cause was erosion on the beach. At the time, the tide was high so there was not a lot of beach to drive on. Being Blacksmiths Beach, heavy restrictions apply to where you cannot be and areas are fenced off to promote dune regeneration. The section of beach I was driving on, was above the high tide mark whereas, the other fellas I was driving with, were on the hard sand below the high tide mark. The track I was in was only one car wide and there was a significant drop (around a meter) between myself and the water. Essentially, the track that I was in suddenly came to an end. It quickly became obvious that I was not the first person to come across this on the day (later confirmed by some people we met later on who were put in the exact same situation but with a trailer too). Due to this section of track ending I had to veer to the left, down this ledge and then turn my wheels back away from the water. As I turned away, I decided it would be a good idea to give the accelerator pedal a boot full resulting in a loss of traction and once again another contributing factor to getting stuck. From there on it was sand coming in my windows and the rig bellied out on the softest sand imaginable.

More contributing factors…

Besides the erosion on the beach, the next most significant cause would have to be the weight of the vehicle. This ute runs around daily at approximately 3.3 tonne and was likely sitting at 3.5 tonne on the day. The ute does have power upgrades but at the end of the day, the heavier you are, the more likely you are to get bogged on the beach (in my opinion). This is where a jack off canopy would be far superior to a chassis mount, something that has to be taken into consideration when building your tourer. However if my canopy was a jack off variation, it still would not have helped in this situation because it was just a quick run down the beach so I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of taking it off for such a short run.

They do say hindsight is a beautiful thing but since looking at the videos and assessing how it unfolded, it is possible that that the whole saga could have been prevented by leaving the traction control system turned ON or turning it back on once realising I was losing traction.

I don’t use 4low on the beach as the Rig usually sails along nicely in 4high in second and third gears (Blacksmith Beach is speed limited to 30km/h). With that being said, I could have retained traction control while driving but I chose to turn it off out of habit and for safety reasons and that is something that I can go into in depth within the future. If you have seen the pictures and videos, you’ll notice that the driver’s side rear tyre isn’t spinning and neither is the front left. This is due to the open differential front and rear in the DMAX from factory. With an open dif,f the drive/power/torque is sent to the wheel which has the least resistance. The traction control system assists by applying the brakes to the wheel spinning and the drive is sent to the other wheel. It is possible that if it was turned on, the tyres with more traction might have pulled me through or at the very least made the recovery easier, rather than digging deeper holes (which was a result of poor communication as well as driver error)

At the end of the day, trial and error is a great way to learn. Nothing was broken or damaged in the process. 

It was a quick and simple recovery, dig out some sand from around the tyres then a rear snatch.

Adrian Christie now has something to brag about after snatching me out with his 3.5l Turbo Rodeo and the fellas had a good laugh at my expense.

I am off to clean the sand out of my interior! Happy wheeling. Please feel free to ask questions and get to planning your next get away!