So, you wanna be a skateboarder?

Understandable. If I get dispatcher like that I will be showing up there tuesday afternoon and doing everything I can to get off loaded and get reloaded and offloaded again by thursday evening. I think I would be requesting another dispatcher also...

 

Parasailing sounds like fun to me. Then again, am a bit on the crazy side lol

 

Trust me it's not fun at all.

 

Yes..it only "sounds" fun...in reality, clinging to a tarp headed for the next county is anything but fun.

Of all the hardships of flatbedding...tarping in high winds IS the worst.

 

Hardships?


I've never thought of it that way...

 

To be honest...me neither.

Thats just the way it "came out" when I was posting that...LOL.

But if there is anything associated with flatbedding that IS a hardship...tarping in the wind is it.

 

I've always looked at it as more of a challenge....

 

I was up in Quebec a few years back and had to tarp a load of aluminum bars...It was 10 degrees, wind blowing 40-50 knots, snowing like there was no tomorrow, no shelter...nothing to get behind to break the wind any at all.

I keep clothes suited to that weather in the truck...I was nice and warm (sweating actually), but I'd have to call that one a "hardship".

This was quite a few years ago, and I hadn't been driving all that long...I think I put that tarp back on the trailer at least 6 times before I got it buttoned down.

I've learned a few tricks since then...the best one being, use the wind to your advantage. It can actually hold the tarp on the trailer if you play your cards right.

 

Actually after reading your whole post...I'd call it a hard lesson learned.

Sounds like a lot of work...

Ahhhhhhhh........You see Grasshopper, Even a truck driver can learn.



The first time I ever tarped was in 1974 when I had been driving for about a year. One day as I was leaving the yard the boss came out and said "You're gonna need tarps for your load back!" They're over in the shed, The mechanic will show you."

That was all the tarp training I got!

So I went and got the tarps and they gave me a bunch of rope (Not rubber rope...Rope!) and off I went!
The load was shredded scrap paper in bales and In my infinite and all seeing wisdom I decided that it didn't look all that bad and that there was no reason to tarp it.
So I left L.A. and was headed up I-5 towards the San Fernando Valley and Man"O"Man you never saw so much confetti blowin' off a load in your life! And there was NOWHERE to stop and tarp it so I thought in my infinite and all seeing wisdom...."How long could it possibly blow this bad? It'll stop soon!"

WRONG!

So I stopped at the J's Coffee Shop (Remember them old timers?) at the Magic Mountain PKWY. exit and pulled into the parking lot and got the tarps out.

First off they weighed about 5,000,000 pounds and I couldn't figure out how I was gonna get them on top of the load so in my infinite and all seeing wisdom I figured I'd just unroll them and tie a rope to the corner and drag'em up there...All of this while all of the drivers in the coffee shop were watching in amazement this idiot kid trying to tarp his load in the 100 degree heat and a brisk wind.

After a while a couple of them came out (laughing) and asked me if I needed a little help getting them over the load...I said, HELL YES!!!

So they helped me get them spread over the load and get the corners lashed down and then said....C-Ya, You need to learn the rest on your own so you'll remember it!

It took me about 2 hours and a lot of creative swearing to get them tied down to my satisfaction and all I can say is that I wish someone would have taken a picture of it because it was the UGLIEST TARP JOB IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!!!
It was also about 15 feet wide when I was rolling up the highway.


After that day, I asked some of the old timers at the company for some tips and I learned a lot in the next few months...


But that first one...It's funny as hell now but at the time it SUCKED!!