Shoot the Rapids 2012

The ride works, it is the boats that don't. So, technically, it would be SINK THE BOATS

The boats don't work after two years, and multiple reworks. What's wrong south this picture? Oh Intamin, I forgot.

The boats won't sink if you don't give them much time to do so. :) StR has always seemed like a contrived flume to me. It has the steel track, chain lift hills, anti-rollbacks, lap bars, and higher capacity of a coaster, but it cries itself to sleep because it's a flume. Set it free; let it be the Aquatrax it wants to be. ;)

Ffej said:
I wonder if there is a balance warning or something coming up? There has to be a reason for all these odd loading patterns.

It seems to me, from second- and third-hand descriptions, that the boats are being loaded, at which point the ride op makes a visual assessment of whether or not the ride is balanced, and if not, how balance may be achieved. Which results in people being asked to move.

As for your dream, well, it's never a good idea to take naps right after you take LSD.

;)

But seriously, even if you could find a firm willing to accept the risks involved in such a project, I suspect your estimate of the cost is off by a factor of 5+.

Sorry, the LSD had made me so tired. ;)

Isn't StR already amphibious though? The boats appear to be designed to run on steel tubular track already, with necessary up-stop wheels, etc.

The ride would pretty much be done except for adding tubular steel above 40% of the flume and using pure gravity from the first drop. I don't see how that'd be $25 million or more personally.

I'd consider Kennywood's $4.6 million Phantom's Revenge overhaul or New Texas Giant's $10 milion overhaul to be more challenging on paper honestly.

Sink the Boats is good, but the acronym is wrong. Maybe just Sink the Rapids (STR).

Ffej said:
The ride would pretty much be done except for adding tubular steel above 40% of the flume and using pure gravity from the first drop. I don't see how that'd be $25 million or more personally.

I think it has less to do with the work required than it does the risk assumed. I can't imagine Intamin would take the project on, nor do I think CF would hire them to do so. That would leave the work to another company, right? And if another company modified the ride, they'd be assuming all the risk if something were to malfunction, even if the malfunction were Intamin's fault.

I can't imagine a company would assume that risk for free. Though the work done on the rides you mention does seem to contradict my thoughts on this. Who knows?

But really, that's beside the point. The ride seems popular enough, so why bother investing any money into it? Where the return on investment?

It was my impression that while riding Pilgrims Plunge, the boats were very unsteady. needless to say, they were not balanced and tipped heavily to one side and had a lot of contact with the sides of the flume. I think the only saving grace on that ride is the elevator ride up that allows much of the water taken on to be released mid ride. Maybe this isnt just a StR problem but an overall boat problem while using these boats in a flume like area.

Surprise, both rides are made by Intamin.

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I remember the original Shoot the Rapids had boats with seating very similar to the present Shoot the Rapids. They always seemed to have stability problems with the boats on the original ride also. One year, they reconfigured the boats to have inline seating like a traditional log flume and the stability problems disappeared. Probably not a solution for the new Shoot the Rapids since they want lap bars on that ride, but I just find it interesting that both versions of the ride had boat problems.

Sounds like we have an STR curse!

djDaemon said: The ride seems popular enough, so why bother investing any money into it? Where the return on investment?

See, my perception might be skewed on StR based on my visits. For the record, every visit to CP since the opening (probably around 15 times), I have not seen more than a couple or two trickling onto the the boats here and there. Most of my visits the ride is cycling empty boats or closed. I admittedly do not visit CP much during July or August, when the ride should be most popular. Probably 3/15 of those visits have been those hot months, but it was still the same scenario.

But, if StR is actually popular in these hot months, I'd agree with you to leave it alone. I just don't want to see this $10.5 million ride carry on for a decade if there's not much interest; I'd rather see them try things to make it better. It has a sound system right (why did they remove the music again)? They can play roaring motor boat noises to make it feel REALLY fast. ;)

See, if they were going to install an AquaTrax, I'd rather they just start from scratch, rather than be limited by using parts of StR. SRF, at nearly 20 years old, sits on a nice plot of AquaTrax-friendly land. :)

SRF is one ride you almost never hear any love--or loathing, for that matter--around here.

The line this weekend was past the railroad tracksevery time I passed.

As for the ride, it might be nice to move some of those props from paddlewheel over to the adventure island side of StR. The theme for StR was originlly based off of the story being told in those paddlewheel scenes. It might be nice to include them and at the same time spruce up that the float from the 1st drop to the waterfalls.