WindSeeker Closed

liebevision said:
You accidentally added a zero to "5 feet"

Ha! qcb (quietly chuckle in my brain)

Coasterkyle said:
I wouldn't be surprised to see all the Windseekers get this Evac contraption.

Coasterkyle, I feel a little slow here. What does that mean? The Evac contraption? How would this work too?

Evac was short for Evacuation from the ride.

I'm assuming that if Windseeker were to get stuck they would bring out this platform (I imagine it’s in two halves) put the two halves together and it hooks onto the tower somehow to travel up and down the tower. And the two ends of this platform comes up underneath a set of seats and they release the harness to let the guests on this platform. then they lower it back to the ground and repeat the process till all the guest are safely on the ground.

And with any luck they will never use it. I can't imagine that process being significantly faster than the manual lowering process, with the added disadvantage that with all the attention on the potentially hazardous evacuation of people who are in no danger, nobody will be working on getting the ride down...

This has to be something that some government agency cooked up. Either that, or the Windseeker design is more badly flawed than I ever thought...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I completely agree^ I would rather sit in those seats, safely and rather comfortably strapped in than get on that little metal death box.

I think in California that government agency is DOSH or DASH or something like that. I know they have a reputation of being somewhat over the top at times from what I've heard. This evac platform may be a California only thing, it will be interesting to see if it shows up on other Windseekers.

Personally, I'd rather wait in the seats until they manually lower the ride than stand in that cage like thing hundreds of feet above the ground.

Unless that cage is somehow always attached to the ride, I don't think it's worth it. Lets hope its not always attached, WindSeeker is a beautiful ride, we don't need that yellow thing.

Wait, so what exactly does that yellow contraption do?

It's a rescue recovery vehicle. After it's assembled at the base it's connected to the maintenance cables and raised up underneath the seats. The riders are evacuated into the baskets and then lowered to the ground. Yes it does seem like something that was forced upon Knotts by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, Permanent Amusement Ride Division. It's a little better than what Seaworld San Diego used to have to do when the Skytower would get stuck in the upper reaches. They'd have to send a crew up along with the FD and then they'd lower the passengers one at a time with a rig similar to what the Navy used prior to helicopters to move crewmen from ship to ship out at sea.
DOSH's main concern is to get the riders on the ground as soon as possible. People panic, no matter how much you tell them that everything is under control. Remember the coaster at California's Great Adventure. The park had everything well under control and was bout to get the train back into the station. Then someone on the train panicked and called 911 and the Santa Clara Fire Dept showed up and took over. The evacuated the riders with snorkel truck, which took the better part of the afternoon. This is the kind of thing that DOSH doesn't like, because it all comes back to bureaucrat who needs to protect their rear end

It was explained several posts up. It is stored away somewhere, and if the ride gets stuck and it's needed, then it is rolled into place, and somehow gets attached to the ride structure. On each end of the arms is an open topped cage. It rises up the tower and pulls up under 2 pairs of seats (each pair directly opposite each other since the 2 arms of the contraption go in opposite directions, which means a total of 4 people can get out of their seats and into a cage at once, one pair on one side of the ride and the other pair on the opposite side of the ride.) So if you're sitting up there, stuck, the yellow thing rises up from the ground until you are basically sitting on the seat inside the cage. Then the locks release and you hop down. I'm not sure what the capacity for each box is but I'm sure it's not big enough for everyone. So after a few people it will probably get lowered and the people can get off. Then it will rise again except this time rotating slightly so that way it rises over the next seats. Repeat this process until everyone has been evacuated.

Which seems like it would be much easier to just lower it. By the time it gets rolled over, assembled and travels up the tower, they could have it completely lowered. At that point you can't even take everybody at once.

You would think, but remember this one was stuck at the top with a full load for five hours last Fall. Thus the rescue rig is born.

Giving the Windseeker's short (but considerably marked) track record this rig could replace everyones most dreamed of fantasy - getting a rollback (or worse IMO - getting stuck at the apex) on Dragster.

Putting in a Windseeker was a bad idea from the start at Cedar Point. It's a good ride, but putting it on a penninsula next to the beach where it is subject to high winds on a regular basis didn't show much thought. The view is great, but there but no one was asking for something like this. It seems there was a blip in the industry that almost every Six Flags or Cedar Fair or Bush Gardens park needed some sort of tower ride to compete now that the coaster war of the 80's - 90's is over.

I can see them enclosing it somewhere in the future like they did with Disaster Transport. The ride would be safer (easier evac), less prone to downtime, and if they added special effects - could be the dark ride so many of those on this blog are asking for.

An enclosed WindSeeker, 300 feet tall would look terrible on the beach. That would be a nice idea for something maybe a third of its height. Also, its not just Cedar Point that has had the problems. It's everyone else too.

So you chop off 200 feet - it does not need to be that tall if it is enclosed. And - it seems that Cedar Fair Management had no issues enclosing Avalanche Run with an eyesore of a box on the beach that lasted quite a long time.

The other parks have had issues with their Windseekers (that is why they are all closed now) - but they are not subject to the lake created air turbulances that Cedar Point has - which result in even more downtime. Kings Island seems to have put theirs in a good location because it has the best track record given the natural hilly nature of the landscape.

The location really matters for a ride like Windseeker. Can you imagine using that rig if you got stuck in sudden high winds?

I can't wait to see the contraption that is made to rescue the rescue recovery vehicle! ;)

And.....I can't believe enclosing a ride on the beach, let alone windseeker, has even been brought up in conversation! :)

The Knotts ride is also subject to high winds. There is a weather condition that is common to Southern California that is known as a Santa Ana, or sometimes Santana. It is hot dry winds (usually, although we do experience cold Santa Ana's) that come off the deserts,often gusting up to sixty miles an hour or sometimes more, and accompanied by very low humidity. Usually they can be predicted within twenty-four to thirty-six hours of happening.

If you enclose Windseeker, what is the point of even making it go up? You can just let it run at ground level in the dark, if the tower was enclosed you wouldn't even know the vehicle was off the ground.

SteveH said:
And - it seems that Cedar Fair Management had no issues enclosing Avalanche Run with an eyesore of a box on the beach that lasted quite a long time.

That was so long ago that Cedar Fair barely even existed. You would never see that these days.

its not getting enclosed! hah. that wont ever happen.

and as far as the comment about the wind. Really placement would not matter at Cedar Point. no matter where you put it, its going to get hit by high winds, its not like we are talking 20 miles across to slow the wind down, its not even a mile wide, so nothing is going to change the wind patterns at 300 ft all that much more then a few mph +/-