2013 wood coaster crop has been seeded...

In addition to the previously-discussed GCI coaster for Fun Spot Orlando, there are three others showing up on RCDB as new for next year.

Happy Island in Tianjin, China is slated to get a TGG ride, pretty much standard statistics-wise.

The other two, however, are pretty interesting....

One is slated for Ocean Kingdom in Guangdong...the aspect of this coaster that many will find "remarkable" is that the ride as proposed would make it the longest wooden coaster on Earth....(cue the wailing about the disrespect shown to The Beast now). The ride has been displayed on RCDB for quite a while...somewhat surprised no one has mentioned it before.

The last one (for now)....Silver Dollar City. This is actually the reason I decided to start the thread. The only "detail" released thus far is that it's RMC design...some will cheer, others might hiss - I'm excited. The park has been needing a wooden coaster forever....and it's finally getting one. :~)

And a permit has been approved for a woodie at California's Great America.

With regards to the one at Ocean Kingdom, I remember hearing a rumor that the Chinese government cut funding for the project. In any event, I never heard a manufacturer attached to the project.

RMC total makeover of Rattler is a story Im hearing the bird singing.

...and why would that be a good thing?

Yeah I do t get that at all...

Having said that, if it's half as good as NTG, it'll be a great ride.

rollergator said:

One is slated for Ocean Kingdom in Guangdong...the aspect of this coaster that many will find "remarkable" is that the ride as proposed would make it the longest wooden coaster on Earth....

Well fiddly dee! China has passed us in just about everything and now they're overtaking us in coasters?!? *pout*

I've been trying for a few years to do all the wood coasters on the planet, and if everything goes to plan I should finish this year with two left.....

.....then the new for 2013 rides end up being sufficiently far apart that not even I can manage to fit them all in the same trip! BAH!

Oh boo hoo. As a travel nut I'm totally envious of your passport stamps :-)

Poor Richard. If I only had those problems. :)

nasai said:

...and why would that be a good thing?

Tekwardo said:

Yeah I do t get that at all...

Having said that, if it's half as good as NTG, it'll be a great ride.



I mistakenly deleted the post, but the gist of it was that even if the ride isn't great it will still rank highly because of it's proximity to Powder Keg. It was tongue in cheek, but I meant it as an "in the shadow of greatness" kind of deal. I'm glorifying Powder Keg. King Midas and his golden touch.

It's kind of like how John Starks was a mediocre basketball player, but playing with Patrick Ewing led to inflated opinions of his game and overall talent. Powder Keg is Patrick Ewing.

I didn't think people liked powder keg that much either.

I love Powder Keg, except for the ending. I wish more parks would get these smaller air-launched coasters.

That's interesting, Andy. I've always heard the contrary. (And it's my fourth favorite steel coaster.)

Well, maybe it's just because it's not on the CB100, though that may be due to lack of riders. It is 38th on the 2010 Mitch Hawker poll. I liked the ride well enough, but the pacing on the ending section, specifically the lift, seemed really awful.

Update on Silver Dollar City's RMC wooden coaster: looks like it will have an inversion, though I wonder if it will be classified as such or if it will be instead considered an overbank. Even if it's the latter, that would be a first for a woodie, correct? I mean aside from New Texas Giant, which isn't technically wood anymore. Still, the banking is much more severe on SDC's.

photo 1
photo 2

I know I've participated in many a "is it or is it not an inversion" convos on CBuzz over the years, but that's just about as inverted as inverted gets.

There's some back and forth on this, but *if* the most ambitious reports I've heard prove true, then no one will doubt whether or not its an inversion.

Wood coasters are unpredictable in how they traverse the track. I just hope they know what they are doing so we do not have another SoB, or even MeanStreak situation. Perhaps this will not be built traditional wood track, but something like The New Texas Giant or El Toro.

The track involves a much thicker steel plate where the track meets the wheels. It's not quite the clearly-not-a-wooden-coaster stuff on TNTG, it's not quite the topper track we've seen on some other wooden coaster retrofits, and it's not quite the pre-fab Intamin stuff. I believe. There's some pretty good closeups of the track on the sites tracking the construction. I'm not an expert on this sort of thing but it's clearly not what you'd see on a GG or GCI ride.