it was a journey that pushed bagnold, his men and the cars to their very limits.e with them. it was all rationed. water, i think it was three pints a day — one at breakfast, one at lunch. all for drinking. you washed in the sand, you washed your plates and stuff in the sand. they travelled thousands of miles across the featureless terrain. bagnold invented a sun compass which enabled them to navigate with incredible position. they never strayed more than a mile from their intended destination. the experts proclaimed it couldn't be done. and not, i think, because he wanted to show them who was the master, butjust because it tickled his fancy that maybe, with clear planning and with the right equipment and stuff, there could be a way. when one of the cars broke down, it was cannibalised for spare parts and abandoned and they're still out there somewhere, buried among the dunes. the vehicles would often get stuck in the sand, and each time bagnold and his team would find ever more ingenious ways of extricating them. it looks as if they were using strips of metal that