WindSeeker Closed

It really depends what they find in the investigation over in Cali. Who knows how long that will take...

The question is: Why wasn't there a thorough investigation after CP's incident with the cables blowing out of the channel and getting jammed up.

While randomly getting stuck for 4 hours would be highly unpleasant, seeing cables jammed up, plastic pieces breaking off, AND getting stuck for hours seemed far more severe to me.

I think somehow the media never caught 'wind' of that, and Cedar Fair got a pass. This time, the rides are under a microscope.

That's an awfully big microscope. ;)

djDaemon said:

RideMan said:
I don't think the height is really a factor here.

So, do you know the failure mode, or are you speculating?

You should know my by now: Of course I'm speculating. If I knew, I probably wouldn't be able to talk about it. :)

That said, the parks have attributed previous of the failures (the Cedar Point and second Knott's failures excepted) to the safety system, noting that no actual failure was found. In the case of the Cedar Point incident, apparently the failure was so blindingly obvious that no further investigation was necessary.

It's kind of like the collision on Superman at SFNE back in 2001. After it happened, not only did the other Superman coasters continue to operate, they continued to operate with two trains. That told me that the cause of the incident was immediately obvious, and that it was a part failure, not a design fault.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

It was a loaded question, admittedly. :)

What I suppose I was getting at is that it seems that with the power and support (and whatever else) cables that need to be "handled" by the ride present the most obvious risk of operational failure. And as the height increases, so does the quantity of cables (and whatever else) that need to be "handled". Hence, as height increases, so does risk of operational failure.

Note that I use "failure" in a loose sense, as I understand that the ride can break down without anything actually failing, per se.

In this light, I'm not convinced it's fair to compare, from a perspective of downtime, the WindSeekers and Starflyers, considering the recent batch of WindSeekers are much higher than the majority of Starflyers.

From what I understand (which can be incorrect), is that the safety systems keep turning on and e-stopping the ride. They will most likely have Mondial come out and redesign the safety system.

Brandon: Regading cables, it's worth noting that the Windseekers are much more complex rides than the Star Flyers. The restraint detection loop alone is eight times more complicated. My guess is that Mondial's control system is tracking a lot more issues than Fun Time's system is. That is not related in a significant way to the height of the ride, but to the overall complexity of the ride. Windseeker has a much heavier gondola, a much bigger passenger load, and a more complex monitoring system. It appears, though, that its error handling may need some revision. The safety system detects that something is out of spec, and responds by locking up and shutting down, but apparently not offering an easy way to recover (again, speculation).

You bring up an excellent point about failure modes. Hmmm...how about we propose a standard: that we accept that "failed" and "broken" have different, related meanings? I am not sure I like that as a standard distinction, as it is almost as confusing as the different uses of "operator"...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Ffej said:
But how much is that capacity really needed though? Almost every time I've been on Windseeker, the ride is only a small fraction full. As a result, it appears that they have to worry about balancing the load by directing riders to particular seats.

The lower capacity might have worked out better on a majority of the days, and it seems that people find the Starflyers more thrilling, as the ride was intended to be.

With the influx of activity in that area next year, the extra capacity will be a good thing.

I found it odd on my last ride that apparently some restraint wasn't down far enough, but they didn't appear to know which seat. They just started going around and pushing all of them down further, which did little beyond making a lot of people uncomfortable.

I agree with that Jeff! It was to the point of the ride op wandering around checking for which restraint(s) werent closed "all the way", she threw her hands in the air because she had no clue why it was tripping up the sensor.

Thats kinda nerve wracking...

Ya I've noticed also that if they unlock one restraint, it unlocks all of them so they have to re check them all.

A false negative is far less concerning than a false positive. :)

Is there any word on whether or not WindSeeker is back up and running or not? I know someone above said it'll likely be closed all season but we'll be there Friday & Saturday and I was really looking forward to getting to ride this year! We missed out last year :(

^No word yet. Seeing as how CF has closed ALL the WindSeekers, and doing a very thorough investigation; I'd say these rides are closed for the rest of the season. I'm sure once CF finds the problem, new parts will have to be shipped and replace the faulty ones. Even if the CP WindSeeker were to be open, you still have the lake Erie Autumn winds to deal with, which would cause the ride to be closed nearly all of HalloWeekends even if it were "open."

Just saw that WEWS newschannel 5 in Cleveland has a segment dedicated to Windseeker and It's recent problems. They are airing it tonight at 11. They claim to have the "scoop to what's really going on with Windseeker."

Interesting. I don't usually believe that, I didn't believe the register had the inside scoop on CP 2013. Turns out they knew it all

Windseeker is the new Dragster. Always malfunctioning, and getting pampered with all the attention. :) I hope they don't plan on taking it out of the park before next year, due to all the problems ans delays it has.

Wait...a public news channel is doing a special on WindSeeker and its problems, claiming to know all the gritty details?

The ride itself isn't particularly newsworthy, and no one was injured or endangered. Sure it got stuck longer than the normal break down, but besides enthusiasts, who is this special targeting?

I'd think they'd find much higher viewership with a special on a kitten that could do flips or something.

It wasn't a special, it was a 2 minute 30 second segment on the news. As popular as Cedar Point is in Northern Ohio, why wouldn't they devote a little news resources to a ride that has had problems at multiple parks?