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Dive Into the New Age of Horse Float Design!

Technology

It came to our attention that a lot of great technology has been passing the industry by.  One of the biggest has been in suspension design. In order to reach the heavy load requirements for Horse Floats, designers, engineers and manufactures have focused on strength and not on the ride it provides for the horses.  Long and short trips can be distressing for our horses and the end result of that is a horse that is not itself when we arrive at our destination.  This leads to long cool down periods or overnight rests are required to get ready for a ride.  With our independent Cloud 9 Air Ride your horses arrive in comfort, relaxed and not fatigued! 

Having the Cloud 9 system then lead us down the path of Loading horses and the weight of loading ramps! If we have air suspension we can drop the float down hard onto the ground.  This feature gives us two major advantages. 1 The float feels solid and safe when loading. 2 We don't need a ramp, ramps are difficult and clumsy. They are either too light and the horses fell unsafe when they put their feet on them or they are too heavy and we struggle to lift them.  Our Auto load system negates all of that.

Then we turned out attention to structure. We want these floats that we spend so much money on to be insulated, cool in summer and warm in winter. We also want them to be strong and last our lifetime.  To do this we adopted Structural Riveting in conjunction with Structural Insulated Panels (SIPS) this allows us to laser cut and CNC fold all components of the structure. Then using structural rivets we get stronger joints, connection of materials, using a tried and proven structural engineering technique's proven in the Aviation sector for a millennium. This will out last any welded joint, and because there is no welding we don't need to go back and hot dip galvanize the folded cold galvanized sheet, saving massive time in constructing but providing a structure for life!

Cloud 9 Air Ride Suspension System

Air Ride in a NZ design, 4 independent axles on air bag technology.  This technology has been proven extensively in the trucking industry but never before used in smaller domestic applications until now. This is the smoothest ride you will ever get for your horses, allowing them to relax and arrive at the destination cool, calm and collected ready to ride! The Air Ride system comes with its own Smart phone application that allows you to lower the float to the ground for auto load, raise the float to standard ride height for travel but also allows you to lift the float higher for those off road situations where ground clearance is needed to get out of a paddock or site at an event. The App also controls your 4 axle electric braking system from the car while your driving.

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Auto Loading

A Key feature to our Air Ride suspension system is the ability to lower the horse float to the ground. This provides a ramp-less entry for our horses that is firmly on the ground making entry solid and quiet as they enter the float. No more horses shying away at the sound of the ramp and no more ramps to have to pick up from the ground.  At the touch of a button you can lower the float to load and then reset the float to ride height for travel again all within 20 seconds either way.

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Weldless Aviation Technology

The reason aviation airframes have survived to be flight worthy for 100's of years is riveted weldless construction.   Riveted joints in an aircraft  are stronger and more durable than welded joints.  This is because, when two components are welded together, only the exterior of the components are joined together.  When riveted together the entire joint is supported. We have adopted this technology to or entire structure creating a stronger more durable frame for life.

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Fully Insulated Interior

With the use of structurally insulated panels SIPS and our unique aviation riveted flashing system, we are able to provide you with a lightweight intensely strong insulated cabin for both the horses and riders.  Cool in the summer and warm in winter you can't beat 50mm of insulation!

Quad Laminated Floor

Floor design is a key element for us!

  • Strength - we wanted maximum strength without adding stupid weight to the float so a laminate of lightweight yet maximum strength and durability was essential

  • Sound - a solid sound that give reassurance to our horses as they load and travel

  • Life - It needs to last the life of the float without worry of it deteriorating. 

This list lead us to a quad Laminate of 2x 18mm H3 treated  marine grade plywood with a 1.6mm alloy sheet between and a 10mm rubber skin gives us 47.6mm of extreme strength and durability

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