At the moment we are on a beachfront site, 10 metres from the water at the Burrum Heads Beachfont Tourist Park. ($40 p/n)
It's blowing a gale and the van is rocking like 40 miles of bad road made worse by the poorly designed Avan annexe which cannot be removed without lowering the roof which would allow the van to...disintegrate.
However, a couple of vans along is a smart bloke - he wanders along with a brickies hammer in one hand and a handful of stakes in the other. He suggests a few mods to reduce the effect of the annexe on the van one of which is to attach some vicegrips to the leading edge of the windward annexe side to reduce/eliminate the flapping. He also suggests placing the car immediately in front of the van.Of course we have everything but vicegrips, but make do with some pliers and elastic bands to grip the fabric so we can tie another guy rope to it. Thats the background.
Next trip I will carry at least 6 extra stakes with guy ropes and springs....also vicegrips....plus I'm going to inspect all round the van to locate tie-down points so I can anchor the van. The wind is probably only 35 to 40 knots at times so it's nothing to what you can get in a thunderstorm, but it worries me and I'd feel much better if I was better prepared. This is our 9th trip in this van and never had this wind problem before.
We almost got blown off a cliff in Tassy last year by the wind - had to turn the motorhome around to face into the wind, much better.
We use things called Tarp Clips on the awning - cheap, and can put as many as you like along the edge of the awning, they may be the answer for you Denis, as you can put guy ropes through them and anchor them and your awning to the ground, which would work on your AVan awning I think.
We had winds here at Greens Lake in Victoria of about 140k per hour a few weeks back - rocking and rolling all night!!!! Scary stuff.
(A photo of what they look like - I know, dreaded bungee cords - but they worked at the time!!!! - use whatever you want!)
-- Edited by jules47 on Wednesday 30th of October 2013 08:56:20 AM
The wind problems are always less if you can park your van facing the front into the wind Hako, but that's easier said than done, as the b*** wind changes during the night!
I always wanted an Avan and was outvoted by my partner, now am glad of the pop-top, we can roll the awning in and pull the top down in serious winds... but we are gonna get a pair of those "deflappers" to make the awning behave a bit better in light winds.
Gerty - had the Avan into the wind so aerodynamically it was OK except for the 'annexe' which acts just like a sail. The SE change pushed thru so we ended up with a nice night and a calm wind at sunup enabling me to catch a nice whiting for lunch.
Jules - never knew of 'tarp clips'...googled them and they will be the way to go. It was mainly the leading edge that was the problem and 2 of them would have reduced greatly the flapping. That's the way I'll go. They'd be handy for a lot of other uses as well.
