The disentegrating trailer I mentioned earlier was a fairly large affair (sorry no pics) that would sleep two internally. the problems were the fibreglass roof cracking where it was connected to the main aluminium body. The tow vwhicle towbar sheared bolts and the internal cargo, despite being well secured, became airborne. Obviously Morocco is stony and rough which didn't help ! It also bogged down in small and otherwise easily crossable sandy areas near Remlia, needing a tow out.

Probably a smaller trailer would help - personally I would not use one, but either take less or use a bigger vehicle. And if doing sandy desert avoid at all costs.

Andrew.

Hi Andrew,

I was a bit harsh in my previous comment on this trailer. We need to make a clear distinction between 'normal' and off-road trailers. Off road trailers are purpose built to take punishment, obviously there are good ones and not-so-good ones.

I can only share my personal opinion here but there are people that are much more knowledgeable on this. We have about 15 different manufacturers here that build them and the designs differ considerably.

For me the most important was the suspension, of all the ones I have seen a long (1100 mm) leaf sprung solid axle with shocks made the most sense. The short leaf springs as seen on most trailers have ability to break blades when they get slightly rusted and they have a really harsh rebound. The shocks are really important because they catch the rebound on the springs, if you don't have it the trailer will spend more time in the air on pistes adding to the strain on everything else, on a washboard piste it also helps a lot in reducing the vibration on the cargo and trailer body. Big wheels are a must because in sand you won't be going anywhere with normal trailer wheels, I have Cruiser rims with 265 BFG's on so in an emergency I can use the trailer wheels on the Cruiser too.

Next was material, some of them are made from fibreglass, stainless steel, aluminium, etc. I prefer the steel construction, it's not that bad on the weight, you can weld on it so anything that might break can be fixed with a cutting torch ar welding machine. I also don't like trailers with a welded steel body, mostly the manufacturers don't get the welding seams properly cleaned and a few years down the line the rust starts coming throught the paint. Also with a welded body is that you have no movement in the sturture and it's not uncommom the find cracks in the components after a few uses.

Lastly is living comfort, the trailer has to add a value to your trip, for us it was easy to take it with because we already had it so we didn't have to go spend money on it and a quick way to spoil a healthy marriage is to share a bed with your kids every night for more than a year.

On desert driving, we helped a guy out the sand in Sudan. He had a Cruiser with a turbo diesel on it but he was really struggling in the soft sandy bits, we have the same engine but no turbo, that night comparing notes we disovered that both our vehicle weighed in at about 4000 kg (fully loaded), the only difference was that I had it distributed over 6 wheels and he had most of it on his rear axle. The only scary thing with trailer is dune driving, due to our lack of planning we had to do a bit of that here and there, going over the edge and down the slipface with the trailer is downright scary to me.

A trailer has a lot of advantages but it has to be a good one because when things go wrong like you described it can ruin any trip.

P.S. Gareth, hope you are well, remember Marocco very well, Peter will be here end February, want to come down for the welcome party???

__________________
__________________
Jean Visser

http://ons4.reproroom.com