WindSeeker Closed

Evacuation rig or not, this video shows how just fast conditions at Cedar Point can change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI27jlwNk2E

You cannot predict this sort of change because it can happen extremely fast. I am sure proceedures have changes dramatically since this took place, but there is still the issue of just how fast an evac rig could be deployed to unload a potentially fully loaded gondola. Add that in with the rest of the commotion in the park with such an occurance and it gets scary fast.

The choice of putting cookie cutter Windseeker rides at multiple parks wasn't well thought out (and a lot of that management team is still there). My thoughts for enclosing it are only seeds for thought as ways to preserve at least some of the investment spent thus far, and provide a creative path to the future. To me, a evac rig isn't the ideal solution by any streach of the imagination.

One would think that after the Vertigo disaster anything with towers would raise an eyebrow at CP.

The youtube comments on that video are hillarious

I hope that employee was fired on the spot.

Calling out the company for installing the same ride in different locations with wind as the basis of your argument is pretty silly.

I agree with Dave that the evacuation contraption seems completely insane. How is it possible that there's ever a scenario where you can't manually lower the ride? If that's possible, then why not address that problem instead of creating a risky mess with this other thing?

Or, contact Intamin, put some magnets on the carriage, some fins at the bottom of the tower, problem solved. Cut the cables, instant drop ride. Everyone gets off two seconds later. :)

From my understanding (and Dave chime in please) you just can't lower this manually until all the faults are cleared,(which I heard can't be done from the operator's panel) which is why it took forever to lower the one at Knotts. I agree entirely that the issue should be addressed and corrected, instead of coming up with this. However,like I've said, DOSH looks at things differently, which is what happens when you mix politics with their stated purpose.

I don't want to sound dumb on here, but this might work. Maybe this thing they are trying out will have it's own controls. This way in the event of Windseeker getting stuck, they can raise this platform up.

Jeff you can't use logic like that, you need to over-think and over-engineer a solution.

Jeff said:
Or, contact Intamin, put some magnets on the carriage, some fins at the bottom of the tower, problem solved. Cut the cables, instant drop ride. Everyone gets off two seconds later. :)

Sign me up to ride!

Jeff: that seems to be exactly what they did on the Star Flyer in Orlando. There are magnetic brake fins on the tower and magnetic calipers on the carriage. I don't know if that is the intent, but it *appears *that if they were to cut the hoist cable, the thing would work like a drop ride.

I don't know much about the nature of the failures on the Windseekers. But I have speculated in this forum that some of the delays may have been related to the need for physical confirmation of safe conditions at the top of the tower. The delays in bringing the ride down in *most* of the 'stuck Windseeker' incidents (though not the long one that Knott's had) are consistent with a reasonable estimation of the time required for a man to climb to the top of the tower.

I can only think of one incident in which a tower ride could not be lowered. That was an incident involving a Huss Condor where something inside the tower caused the counterweight to jam. The counterweight unable to go up resulted in a ride that could not come down. I don't know how they resolved it, but they did eventually get it unstuck, and the incident did not result in the decommissioning of the ride.

The inability to get the Windseeker gondola down should be far less common than the ability of a Dragster train to get stalled on the top of the tower, which we all know to be pretty much impossible.

That said, if it were impossible to bring down the Windseeker gondola, I wonder what they originally did have in mind. I don't think there are many snorkel lifts that can reach 300' up, and the seats are quite inaccessible from the tower...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Proximity to a big lake, at 300 feet - for extended periods, is always going to be a issue because of wind gusts that naturally take place between a warm land mass and a cool body of water. The longer you are at that height, the more chance for something that will trigger a fault due to sudden changes in wind speed and direction. That said, a ride like WS at CP is going to have more weather closures, and a higher degree of e-stops than at other geographical locations - althought these condition could potentially take place at any of the parks - just at a lesser frequency.

It also seems there is a condition that would not allow the gondola to be quickly lowered - and that condition took place at Knotts and resulted in a multiple hour stall where the riders were stranded at the top. We may never know what the cause was because Cedar Fair does not release that sort of information to the public.

And as for really silly ideas, adding fins to WS and cutting the cables to create a drop tower? The individual seat arms need shock absorbers as it is in normal operation to avoid collision into each other - whats going to happen when the gondola drops would be similar to jumping off a roof with an umbrella as a parachute.

There will always be a condition where you cannot lower the ride (power failures, counter weight issues, open lapbar indication, etc.) where someone needs to climb up there and inspect and evaluate first - and that in itself takes time. If you are exposed to the elements, riders get frustrated and potentially panic the longer they are stuck, and that can make the situation magnitudes worse.

There is more connecting the Gondola to the tower than just the support cables. All those lap bar sensors, LED's and lap bar unlocking devices would need to be severed as well. If you were even able to cut all those - (and the gondola survived the stresses of the drop itself) once you got down to the ground you would still be trapped in your seat (just like in the youtube video).

In concept, an open air experience at 300 feet is the basis for the thrill in this ride. If you ignore that, there isn't much else about the attraction that makes you want to ride it. Without a failsafe way to quickly end that experience should something go wrong - you end up with all of these rides grounded.

We're talking about the state of California. Enough said, where everything causes cancer. One of the most over-regulated states. Why do you think SSMM and Great America moved out DeJa Vu and Invertigo.

BTW great idea Jeff for a instant drop tower sign me up for test ride.

You, as usual, are correct as usual Dave that several times it requires a physical check of conditions before lowering.

First of all, be advised that if the ride were designed to allow for the gondola to be cut loose, that would be considered an extreme emergency condition, and the procedure would be one expected to cause severe damage to the ride. Once down, riders would still be secured in their seats until authorized personnel came along to let them out. But there exists a mechanism for doing that, in accordance with ASTM F2291-11:6.3.8. The only connections to the tower that would prevent the gondola from being lowered are the hoisting ropes. All that electrical stuff is carried in an umbilical that rides up and down (and in fact was the part that got smashed up when they had the incident at Cedar Point, said incident apparently unique among the Windseeker failures.

Of course, Mondial has not designed the Windseeker wi this kind of evacuation in mind. But I think it is worth noting at Funtime apparently did take such an option into consideration for their Star Flyer ride.

I would like to suggest another comparison, though.

Let's say you are riding on an elevator on the side of a tower, such as the CN, Stratosphere or Skylon. These structures typically have elevators which are generally conventional in design, but there is a really long distance between the first floor and the second floor. These are conventional elevators, meaning they are equipped with the Otis-style safety brakes that will lock them into place if the tension on the hoisting rope is lost. If one of these elevators stalls between floors and cannot be lowered, how do you evacuate it? And how are the conditions surrounding those elevators substantially different from riders on Windseeker (apart from being 700 feet up instead of 301 feet up)? Either way, you are out of the reach of ground rescue, and you are basically hung. In either case, the safety involves making sure there is a means by which the ride gondola can be brought down. It may take some time, but careful planning has been done to ensure that there is no reason the gondola should not be able to move, or can't be released to move.

Consider that while the passenger carrying means is hanging out in space, the gondola itself is accessible at any point on the tower by means of the exterior ladder. The full length of the tower is accessible by ladders, inside and out. And to someone skilled in the art, every safety system can be bypassed or overridden if necessary to get things moving. Mondial did not opt for the "cut rope to get people off in a big hurry while destroying the ride" option, but it appears that they did make an effort to make that step as unnecessary as possible.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I was joking about the freefall. Duh.

Not to mention the ride is supported by 12 cables. It was mentioned during construction that only 4 of those cables are needed to support the ride.

Here are some closeups of the rescue rig. ID tag on the cages identify it as built by Mondial
http://www.westcoaster.net/updates.php?updateCD=031513&page=11
Have we heard if this is going to be a one of, or is each of the rides going to be equipped with one of these?

Even if the ride gets stuck, I picture this being used only if a person absolutely needs down for a medical or some other emergency reason.

lol Wow...this rescue contraption is embarrassing for Mondial.

And For Cedar Fair's parks...what better way to get people freaking out in the media, on youtube, facebook, etc. than by having this sketchy-looking contraption rescuing people?

As soon as rescues using these rigs hit media and social media, it's the beginning of the end for the rides.

Mondial needs to get back to the drawing board and figure out a quick/safe way to manually lower these rides to make the problem invisible to most.

That would be a pretty poor rumor, since all of them operate under completely different legal jurisdictions.

I would love to see a demo video of exactly how this rescue device works, and how long it takes.

Once you add a person to the seat with their legs sticking out, getting that cage perfectly raised over the seat with potential wind looks something like one of those skill crane games. Only, you can't keep putting more quarters in if you miss.

Even if the whole process was perfectly automated, I'm not sure I'd trust it. I'd much rather wait several hours for them to lower the gondola with 12 cables and elevator brakes.