The Pull-Pal Winch Anchor & Winch Techniques	Short Cuts
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Page 2 - Increased Effectiveness and Safety

The Pull-Pal, and winch anchors in general, allow you to put the anchor where you need it so you can pull at the angle you need to get safely unstuck. Safety can be an issue when you need to winch around an obstacle, but it is particularly important when on unstable terrain, hills, or side slopes. In these cases, you must factor in what good old gravity will do when you start to pull. This is a point that is easy to demonstrate at your desk -- just take a quarter and tape a length of string to one side of it. Place the quarter on one end of a good sized book laying flat on the desk and pull it across with the string -- no problem at all. Now tilt the book up so it creates a side hill of 30 degrees or so. Now pull the quarter across with the string: as soon as you start pulling on it the quarter starts sliding down the slope -- if you keep pulling it will eventually fall off the edge of your book. If this quarter were instead you in your 4x4, then falling off the edge would be an unpleasant experience. If you were being winched by another from the same slope, being anchored together might ruin his day, too. To safely work on slopes, you need to factor in the tendency of gravity to force things to slide down hill. If, instead of pulling the quarter straight across the book, you angle the pull so it pulled it not only across the book, but up the slope as well, you could probably get the quarter across the book without it falling off.

Now the real world is much too varied for us to give you specific rules for every possible situation, but we can show you some of the ways that the Pull-Pal can be used to increase the versatility of your winch and the safety of your extraction, as well as a few other techniques and pointers that we have found to be useful in tough spots.

Straight pull This is the most basic recovery scenario. You get stuck and are able to place the winch anchor directly in front of your vehicle and winch straight ahead. One valuable aspect of using a winch anchor is that it allows you to position the line, and feed out the right cable length for an optimal pull.	Anchored pull Often when a vehicle gets stuck it is in an area where traction is poor, or the situation is precarious or unstable. In these situations an anchor helps stabilize the recovery vehicle and keeps it from becoming mired in the same mess as the stuck vehicle. This is often a good idea when winching a vehicle uphill and fighting gravity simultaneously.	Angled pull with a snatch block Using the Pull-Pal winch anchor with a snatch block attached, and pull can be used when a straight pull is not possible -- such as when there may be an obstacle in the way.This technique can also be used to winch a vehicle uphill without positioning the recovery vehicle above the stuck vehicle. This prevents the chance of the pulling vehicle from sliding down into the stuck vehicle, or requiring the pulling vehicle to climb into what could be a hazardous position on treacherous terrain.
All diagrams are for illustration only and are not drawn to scale.The diagrams are clickable for larger images.
Multiple Anchors In situations where there is insufficient resistance available for a > single Pull-Pal to provide a sufficient anchor (such as loose mud or snow), > additional anchors can be used. Each of the anchors is separated by about 10 > degrees and they are connected with chain, strap, or cable to a central > clevis or snatch block. Camel Trophy Teams use this technique in very loose > situations.	Countered pull across a side slope This situation is not an uncommon one.When transversing across a sidehill or slope, one vehicle goes off the trail and/or starts sliding downhill. In this case, attempts to pull them back onto the trail or further forward, by simply pulling them straight ahead, might result in them sliding further down the hill. Using a second line can prevent this from happening by helping to keep the vehicle from sliding downhill. There are many ways to do this; one is shown in the above diagram. The red vehicle is using its winch to pull itself out while the blue vehicle, with the help of a Pull-Pal and snatch block, uses its own winch line to counter pull the other end of the red vehicle. The blue vehicle releases its winch to provide just the right amount of tension to keep the red vehicle moving uphill.

A Countered Pull: In this case, the vehicle in back pulls with a strap while the Commando winches forward. Simply winching forward would have caused the Commando to slide further down the hill.

You have to winch over or around obstacles, you can't winch through them.(yep, that's me)

Some General Pointers:

• If you feel yourself getting into trouble -- stop the vehicle (assuming it is safe) and put your brain into overdrive. Don't keep moving into deeper and deeper trouble. It is always easier to get out of a small problem than a big giant green booger of a problem. Don't let your ego (or your friends' taunting) get you into a dangerous situation. I'm not talking about just breaking your equipment -- if that's what you want to do, just clean up after yourself -- but people do die doing this stuff. Don't be one of them.
• Carefully evaluate the situation before pulling out your winch cable (don't be the quarter that fell off the book).
  When you have decided that it's time to get out and use the winch, take a look at exactly how you are stuck.Imagine what will happen and where all the parts of your vehicle will be when you start pulling (or getting pulled).
• Remember that you have to roll over objects, you can't pull through them.
  If you are stuck in deep mud or behind a rock or in a rut, remember that even the strongest winch probably can not pull your vehicle straight through a solid object. You have to get your wheels up and rolling over (or around) what ever you are trying to get out of.This may mean changing the angle of the pull, or it may mean doing a little digging. As an example, in the picture to the right, my blue Jeep is perfectly stuck in a Jeep sized mudhole (about 3 feet down), with solid earth both to the front and the rear (as you can probably guess, I tried it on a dare).
  We tried pulling in both directions and I watched as a Hummer pulled itself about 50 feet with a 12,000 pound winch, using my Jeep as the winch anchor. The problem was the mud was over the midline of the tires, so they were not rolling up and over -- they were trying to pull through. We tried digging to form ramps, but this was in vain, the mud (caused by an spring flowing up in this area) just filled itself back in.
  Finally, after several hours we did manage to get unstuck.
  The solution was amazingly simple (once we thought of it). The Hummer was positioned just a few feet in front of the Jeep and (since the Jeep was in a deep hole) the pull of the Hummer's winch was then almost straight up. It easily lifted the front of the Jeep up and as the mid line of the tires cleared the edge of the hole the Hummer just backed up a bit and the Jeep was then able to roll right up and out of the hole.
• A tire that has no traction has no traction in any direction.
  This is an important point, one that is also driven home if you have tried to steer in a panic stop with your brakes. If your tires are not rolling and/or have no traction then as soon as you start to move them (or when you start pulling the vehicle) you can't count on it going in the same direction that the tires are pointing. The vehicle will take the path of least resistance, following the forces exerted on it. In the countered pull example with the Commando (see picture above right), as soon as we started pulling on the vehicle (breaking the traction) it started to slide down hill -- we had to use a second pull in another direction to keep it from winding up hundreds of feet down a snowy, muddy hill.
• Gravity
  Don't forget to factor in GRAVITY. Remember, it is always going to be pulling down, this is an incredibly important factor that is too often overlooked when winching across slopes, or when a recovery vehicle located above a stuck vehicle tries to winch it out, only to find that it is being pulled down towards the stuck vehicle instead of the other way around. Consider a countered pull, or a pull utilizing a snatch block so the pulling vehicle is not risking being pulled downhill (see "Angled Pull with a snatch block example, above).
• Safety First and Foremost!
  This can't be emphasized enough. Make sure that you are familiar with all of the basic winching safety precautions and that you heed them all. Don't let 30 seconds of carelessness cause a lifetime of regret. Some of the most rudimentary basics include: Keep clear of a winch line with any tension on it, make sure that your connecting points are solid, stay out of the path that a broken cable might take if it snaps, use a damping weight (winch weight) or blanket to help damp some of the energy in a ballistic cable, keep your hand clear of the fairlead, wear gloves when handling cable, maintain your winch and cable, and make sure that your winching technique is safe.

| Page 1 - The Pull-Pal | Page 2 - Some Winch Techniques | Page 3 - A Real World Example |