Cedar Point's Windseeker will not be ready for opening day

Well, I haven't heard of anyone here that has put up a multi-million dollar ride on time, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I read that St Louis didn't open their Starflyer with the park and it looks about half as big.

My guess is that Cedar Fair lost some of their high crane work days to high winds.

And Six Flags lost some of their tall crane rental days to Cedar Fair. 8-)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Maybe there is something going on with the ride itself and the manufacturer.. I mean come on, all 3 are opening late? Kind of odd...

RollerCoasterGod said:
...yeah it rained...big whoop. It's a pole in the ground!!

Well to be fair, its a pretty big pole.

Maverick1983, Canada's Wonderland, Kings Island and Cedar Point were all affected by the same unrelenting rain we had in April. Knotts, the 4th park getting the ride, would likely have had the best shot at opening on the original schedule. But, that was out the door once they decided to not put it where the Observation tower is.

And with KBF it's that much less of an issue, considering the park has no 'off' season, and hence no Opening day.

delan said:

RollerCoasterGod said:
...yeah it rained...big whoop. It's a pole in the ground!!

Well to be fair, its a pretty big pole.

That's what sh..nope, can't do it.

Dammit, Mike. I was gonna say that, and at least I would have followed through!

Here's a photo of what Cedar Fair apparently calls "bad weather".

http://www.screamscape.com/html/cw_-_windseeker_0.htm

<insert jokes here>

It does not look like CP's has received this new hardware yet. I have no idea about KI's, but they might be installing it today from the looks of things.

Not to poo-poo the Windseekers too terribly much, but when you suspend the seats with chains instead of a long rigid beam, the issue that those dampers correct is not really... present.

*Opinion admittedly skewed by lingering disappointment that these aren't Starflyers. Sigh.

I am disappointed that they are not real Starflyers as well, but Cedar Point has a problem with high winds closing rides down, and each ride has a certain wind speed that they can safely operate in. It's just a wild guess here, but I think that maybe Windseeker can operate in a higher wind speed than Starflyer can. I'm all for keeping rides open as much as possible.

At least they didn't buy an Intamin again. lol Downtime city!

I heard about those shocks recently...that still doesn't mean that bad weather wasn't the proximate cause of the delay: these rides are essentially prototypes which means that if there is a delay in getting them assembled, that translates into a delay in beginning real-world testing, which translates into a delay in fabricating and installing the fix for the real-world problem that did not show up in the modeling.

Notice that while the rides are delayed, the delay is really not significant given that not so long ago, most new rides at most parks were scheduled to open Memorial Day weekend, with Cedar Point the notable exception to the rule. At the moment, last I heard, it looks like they expect to make Memorial Day weekend with all three rides.

Personally, I wonder why these things are able to swing in a fore-aft direction at all; I figured it would be a single-axis pivot at the knuckle on the end of the sweep.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Yeah, I wondered the same thing. ;)

I will be very impressed and thrilled if they open by this weekend Dave. I don't doubt CW's could open. But, have they even started to install these at KI or CP? How many hours of testing do they need to perform before they can open to the public?

I think they're installing them at KI currently. I don't know why they would continue running the CP or KI ones without them once they realized they needed them at CW. The only reason I can think of is that this would not be considered a major change for testing purposes, so any testing they have done prior to them being installed is considered in the total just as if they had been already installed.

At this point, I would doubt the KI and CP versions being ready by Memorial Day weekend. The earliest I would expect is the first weekend of June. CW, however, seems on track to possibly open this weekend.

maXairMike said:
I don't know why they would continue running the CP or KI ones without them once they realized they needed them at CW.

Different building standards between the countries perhaps.

That being said, the adjustment only appears to be an add on, and not a complete part replacement. Maybe they anticipated the need for them, but were uncertain as to how much buffering was needed.

That's true, but those are like the door mechanisms that can be adjusted, right? It also sounds like KI at least is adding them as well, so I would be surprised if the only one to not get them is CP. There was also word of CW testing with the seats tethered until they got the dampers, and KI and CP have been testing with the seats tethered as well.

According to CW's facebook page, as of about an hour ago... Windseeker is open.

Personally, I wonder why these things are able to swing in a fore-aft direction at all; I figured it would be a single-axis pivot at the knuckle on the end of the sweep.

Maybe just to deal with stresses of spin-up/spin-down?