A minor disaster

Saturday morning Andrew hooked up the float while I caught Coolie to load up for XC training. Everything was normal, I loaded Coolie with no problems as per usual and checked the float was connected properly, checked all the lights were working and hit the road.

Hen is always ready to hit the road!

We were travelling along a busy highway in mid morning weekend traffic just under the 100km limit. We went over a bump in the road and I expected to feel the float move behind the car... and I did, just a little bit more than I expected. At first I thought a tyre had blown, but my rearview mirror told a whole other story.

The float had become unhitched from the car.

Even just thinking about it makes me feel sick. It was one of the most frightening things I have ever had happen. As soon as I knew there was a problem, I had the hazard lights on and had started slowing the car down as soon as I heard the noise. Once I realised what had happened I stopped as soon as was safe. We were on a bridge and just to make life that bit harder, there was no emergency lane. I couldn't pull off the highway.

Andrew and I got out of the car and and assessed the situation. Coolie was slightly panicked but fine. He had to stay on the float no matter what. There was no way I could unload him. The front of the float was on the ground, and had been dragged until we hame to a stop. Everything was still hooked up but the brakesafe pin had been pulled out and had helped us come to such a quick yet gradual stop. As far as we could tell the only damage was to the jockey wheel which seemed to have taken most of the dragging. 

That bolt was pretty flat

We always carry a caravan jack but it was too high to fit under the front of the float. Before we got much further, a very kind man pulled over and offered his help. We readily accepted and he had a bottle jack. We quickly jacked the float up enough to put the jockey wheel down and re attached the float.

The next exit was about 200m up the road so we pulled off and into a servo nice and close where we checked everything out.

First thing I did was reassure Coolie. He was no worse for wear and was confused as to where we were.  Then we checked over everything and made sure the lights and brakes were working, and if anything had been damaged.

Poor hose got a bit scraped up too

By some miracle the jockey wheel was the most damaged and some of the wire connect had been worn away too. Somehow the wires that were no longer present didn't affect the function of the float and after a quick tweak everything worked just fine.

There was no damage to the underside of the float, and other than the jockey wheel no indication there had been a mishap. We had a good look at the hitch and could see no reason as to what had happened. The hitch had been locked into position, and pinned so it couldn't just pop off. The hitch can't be locked into position and you can't put the pin in unless everything is sitting correctly. Andrew had checked before we left that it was locked in, and when I checked everything looked normal.

After a deep breath and a bit of sugar we headed very carefully to our destination. I put it out of my mind and had a really productive and fun ride. When we were done Andrew, Bec and I checked everything over yet again and then we headed home. We popped the reverse camera on so we could see if there was any movement while we travelled. It all looked fine. Most boring television ever.

Badass

I have never been so relieved and happy to get home before! Once we had unloaded my dad came out and once again we all tried to work out why this had happened. No one had a clue! Like I say, once its locked and pinned it shouldn't be able to come off! I am paranoid too because I have seen a friends float come off their tow ball before, luckily after they had pulled into the car park!

At this point I would like to say we maintain the float very well. We check everything every time we hook it up. It has new tyres, the brakes get checked regularly and we make sure everything is rated properly. Also, we had gone over a lot of bumps up to that point. We had stopped and started, and turned corners. I would have thought that the place where the float was most likely to come off the car would be as we went down the kerb pulling out of the driveway.

Thursday we had it booked in to get a service to see if the professionals could work out what went wrong. They checked EVERYTHING and gave the float a service. They couldn't find anything and commented on how well serviced the float is. The guy said he has only heard of this happening one other time in 10 years for no reason and said that the only way it could have happened was that it wasn't locked in properly. Except that that wasn't an option, since it was locked and pinned.

We decided to get a new tow ball for the car, and a a new hitch for the float. The trailer guy said he wouldn't have worried but for peace of mind and since my two precious horses have to go in there we did it anyway.

I guess I am mostly writing this as a warning for other people. We are diligent about float maintenance. We are careful in always checking that things are correct. I am VERY paranoid about things going wrong. We make sure that the tyre pressure is right, it gets checked before every event. The hinges get greased, the wheel bearings maintained and I regularly look under the float to make sure all is as it should be.

We are careful, yet we still had a really bad thing happen. Thankfully we were prepared and wouldn't have had a problem re hitching if the very kind man hadn't stopped. We know what we need to do should things go wrong.

I am so thankful we had everything we needed to keep us safe. I am thankful that Coolie is fine, that no one rear ended us on the highway while we were stopped. I am glad there has recently been a new law out into place that means that cars have to slow down to 40km/hr passing another vehicle with it's emergency lights on. I am happy to say other drivers were careful and courteous to us.  I am relieved it happened in the middle of the day, in a populated area where we could have gotten more help if we needed to. I am glad we had Coolie, not Henry, or both the horses on board.

I hope it NEVER happens again. I just wish I knew why it happened in the first place, So everyone, triple, quadruple check everything!

Gotta keep these kiddos safe!