towing camper trailer on sand

[weeds]

heading up to double island point on saturday for a week and will be towing the camper trailer which weighs in around 1200kg

getting on and off the beach along with towing at low tide i reckon i am comfortable......

low speed stuff to position the trailer in soft sand (sand dune-ish) i.e above high tide is my only concern

tyres will be at 18psi

is there anything else i can do to make things easier?

oh, tow vehicle will be a 300tdi defender, have lockers that may assist or hinder the situation

i have seen caravans set up on previous trips so i reckon i should be able to get my camper in

[Xtreme]

Positioning is one thing but have you also thought about sand pegs and decent sized plates/boards to put under jockey wheel and stabilising legs?

[Xtreme]

Positioning is one thing but have you also thought about sand pegs and decent sized plates/boards to put under jockey wheel and stabilising legs?

Have a good relaxing time and congratulations on your recent activities.

[weeds]

Positioning is one thing but have you also thought about sand pegs and decent sized plates/boards to put under jockey wheel and stabilising legs?

Sand pegs are sorted......umm need to throw in there blocks of wood, thanks for the heads up

[Pedro_The_Swift]

all of my camper/tent spots were on some form of grass, so the actual positioning was easy,, getting to that spot can be tricky--:angel:

[weeds]

all of my camper/tent spots were on some form of grass, so the actual positioning was easy,, getting to that spot can be tricky--:angel:

aint no grass where i'm goin.......

[Tombie]

You could go lower with tyre pressures...

A good trick is to measure the footprint of the tyre and adjust to match the tow vehicle...

Vehicle at 18psi will be much different to trailer at 18psi in a lot of cases..

[weeds]

You could go lower with tyre pressures...

A good trick is to measure the footprint of the tyre and adjust to match the tow vehicle...

Vehicle at 18psi will be much different to trailer at 18psi in a lot of cases..

good point tombie..........i might not measure to the millimetre but will now go lower on the trailer

[tonic]

We did Fraser in October via double island point. Camper 800kg min, plus full 110. The deefa just said "what trailer". I believe you should not lower thee pressure on your trailer as it increases drag. On your vehicle you are looking for more traction so you lower pressure to gain a bigger foot print. To do it to something that is not driving your are creating a bigger surface area to drag. Anyway we did not get bogged once and we don't have lockers. Have a great trip.

[weeds]

We did Fraser in October via double island point. Camper 800kg min, plus full 110. The deefa just said "what trailer". I believe you should not lower thee pressure on your trailer as it increases drag. On your vehicle you are looking for more traction so you lower pressure to gain a bigger foot print. To do it to something that is not driving your are creating a bigger surface area to drag. Anyway we did not get bogged once and we don't have lockers. Have a great trip.

food for thought....thanks

[cewilson]

Disagree with not dropping tyre pressures on the trailer. We have a Trak Shak that has been towed over the country into quite a few different areas. Think about walking in soft sand and how your foot sinks into the sand. Now think what would happen if you were to spread that weight out over a bigger footprint - it wouldn't sink in as much.

It's the same thing with the tyres. It's all good on harder sand but once you hit that real soft stuff your trailer tyres will try and dig in - they won't float over the top of the sand.

BTW - biggest tip is don't go for tight turns as your trailer tyres turn in a different arc to your vehicle. Try and plan exits etc from the beach so you do a wide arc and hit the soft stuff already with the vehicle and trailer straightened up.

Cheers
Chris

[weeds]

Thanks chris......

I reckon I will lower the tyre pressures when we leave on Saturday.

Well I got into our camping ok ish I guess......my first attempt going around a sand dune off camber resulted in me getting stuck although I could back out quite easily. I ended up coming in on the northern side but there was no way I could do a u-turn kept bogging down so we ended up man handling it a we wanted it spun around 180 degrees......

I don't know how some of the camper and caravan got into where they were set up.....I assume much lower tyre pressures.

Currently I have 18 in the front and 22 in the rear.......haven't got stuck anywhere yet, plenty other getting stuck

[Milton477]

You could go lower with tyre pressures...

A good trick is to measure the footprint of the tyre and adjust to match the tow vehicle...

Vehicle at 18psi will be much different to trailer at 18psi in a lot of cases..

My camper trailer weighs much the same & I deflate the tyres to 10psi to match the footprint size of my D2 at 18psi.

[benji]

I'd be letting the tires down more.
When we were at Fraser last year we were very heavy (even carried a spare diff as I was very suspect of the rear one), trailer weighed about 900kg. We went 16/18/9 - front/back/trailer. Got up and over one particularly hard exit that an empty Delica wasn't able to do; the climb out of Eurong was dead easy on those pressures.

[benji]

Yes I'd be going lower.
Fraser last year we were very VERY heavy (even carried a spare diff as I was suspect of the rear one), the trailer was about 900kg

We were running 16/18/9psi - front/back/trailer. Driving off Eurong beach into the Rocks campsite we were able to do an exit that an empty Delica wasn't able to do.

[Utemad]

I don't know how some of the camper and caravan got into where they were set up.....I assume much lower tyre pressures.

I have used winch and snatch block to get a good spot.