Windseeker construction cam up!

Is it just me or does that hole seem a tad shallow for a 300+ foot tower?

At that point, I'm not entirely sure why they dug a hole in the first place.

I'm beginning to think Mondial only copied the visible part of the ride and forgot about the parts you can't see.

Right? I mean, the hole is probably 5 or 6 feet deep, but if memory serves, StR's footers were far deeper, or at least appeared to be.

I don't know what you guys are worried about. I'm sure Windseeker will be perfectly stable. It's not like any ultra-tall attractions at Cedar Point have ever unexpectedly collapsed or anything...

Reason #3 why I won't be doing anything other than watching this thing. :)

If you check out Kings Island's page for WS and look in the gallery, the foundation seems a lot deeper, and well....round.

http://www.visitkingsisland.com/public/park/rides/thrill_rides/windseeker.cfm

KI's foundation doesn't appear significantly deeper to me (assuming that guy in the hole is standing on the bottom).

I want to say I remember at one of the CoasterMania Q&A's them talking about building on a sandy peninsula, mostly that anything tall has to be built on a big wide "floating" footer, kind of like a huge paperweight with a pencil stuck into it. I'm not sure if building on/near the beach would make this the only way to go.

I guess we'll find out. I'm sure they'll pour a lot of concrete like they did for Wicked Twister. In fact if you look at Wicked Twister, the footers don't seem too deep for that either even though it's a short circuit roller coaster.

That's probably where the new entrance is going.

TimChat2 said:
I want to say I remember at one of the CoasterMania Q&A's them talking about building on a sandy peninsula, mostly that anything tall has to be built on a big wide "floating" footer, kind of like a huge paperweight with a pencil stuck into it. I'm not sure if building on/near the beach would make this the only way to go.

Building on sand only reinforces the need to dig down deeper and get to the bedrock to lay your foundation. Sand shifts, and building on the surface of it is never a good idea.

As mentioned above Wicked Twister did not feature deep footers either:

http://pointbuzz.com/Photos/Photo.aspx?id=1319&tag=wicked+twister|construction

At the 2001 CoasterMania Q&A Monty Jasper addressed the question of building Millennium Force's footers:

"Generally speaking, and I'll start out by telling you that the soil conditions here are basically sand. You have to go very deep to get to bedrock...60 feet. We're built on a sandbar here, if you can imagine that. So we have to go with what are called 'spread footings.' So the short answer to your question is that from 7-10 feet is all the depth that we have on any of the foundations on Millennium Force. If you can imagine taking a pencil and nailing a block of wood to the bottom of it, and standing it up on the desk, you can see that pencil would stand straight up with that block of wood underneath it supporting it. It would be very stable, it wouldn't tip over, or anything along those lines and that's essentially how Millennium Force is built. It has huge concrete foundations that are shaped like blocks underneath all the lift columns."

See: Dave Althoff Jr.'s transcript of the event at http://capital2.capital.edu/admin-staff/dalthoff/adventures/tr2001/...mania.html

So it seems the hole dug for WindSeeker is on par with other projects in the past.

There's a huge difference between a coaster and a tower, from a height-to-width ratio perspective. Sure, MF isn't going to tip over, mostly because it's spread out over a huge portion of the peninsula (far wider than it is tall). Even WT is probably as long as it is tall. WindSeeker, on the other hand, looks to be at least 5 times as tall as it is wide.

I'm not suggesting they don't know what they're doing. I'd just love to know more about their reasoning.

"If you can imagine taking a pencil and nailing a block of wood to the bottom of it, and standing it up on the desk, you can see that pencil would stand straight up with that block of wood underneath it supporting it."

Thats more than enough reasoning.

Not for me it isn't. :)

How big is the pencil? The block of wood? How dense is the wood? How dense is the pencil? With what degree of precision must perpendicularity be maintained between the pencil and block of wood?

I could go on. :)

On the Kings Island Blog, they mention (12) - 30 ft deep columns, under the platform, maybe, Cedar Point isn't that far yet.

KI is definitely further into construction. I'm assuming mainly due to their earlier opening.

djDaemon said:
Reason #3 why I won't be doing anything other than watching this thing. :)

I'm curious. I know you've said before that you can't really ride the spinny rides as much any more, and I think that may be your first reason, but if you were able to, do you think the other reasons/concerns, like the seats becoming detached from the ride or the tower falling over would really prevent you from riding this?

I guess I'm sort of on the fence about riding this bad boy and it's a little alarming if some of the Cedar Point vets actually think there's a worth-worrying-about chance of dying on the thing.

I'm sure my concerns aren't warranted, from the perspective that several of my common activities (driving, crossing the street, hanging around Detroit, etc.) probably put me at higher risk than this (or any) ride would.

That said, yeah, my #1 reason I won't ride is because I'd probably set the record for most dispersed vomit in the history of mankind before the ride was halfway over. My #2 reason would be that riding WindSeeker simply seems... more likely to end badly than, say, a ride on a coaster, based on how the carriage is designed. And if the footer for the tower is indeed that shallow, there's reason #3.

Again, these concerns are probably not the most logical. But my apprehension about WindSeeker, warranted or not, is growing. :)

Well, my first impression was I would not go on it.- too tall, too weak.

Then my wife said she definately wants to go on it, keep in mind her biggest ride is Mine ride or DT, I can't get her on Iron Dragon...

Her favorite ride, Wave Swinger.

So I guess I have to suck it up and ride it with my wife... :)