Shoot the Rapids opening delayed at Cedar Point

john peck said:
The water has only been in the pools for a few days now, I would guess they found a problem while testing.

Rides are never the same on paper as they are in real life.... ask any engineer.

It was really a rough winter in Ohio this year, too. Lots of cold, lots and lots of snow.

This is one of the more mild winters we have had.It was in the 70' in march.

It was an average, to above average temp wise as seen here.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2009/feb/feb09.html

Interesting how the Intamin probably voted most likely not to open on time did at Kings Dominion. It is a bit surprising because I'm sure they have had to put up a lot more over worse winters in the past.

Ummm...that's the report for February 2009.

Look what the Winter of 2009-2010 brought (based on NOAA and related pages):
o Record snowfall nation-wide for the month of December, 2009
o Above-normal snow cover extents for January
o Snow cover in January ranked #6 overall since 1967
o The NOAA snow and ice cover map shows snow cover over the Sandusky area almost continuously from December 10 to March 12
o February had the third largest snow cover of any month since 1967
o Average temperature December-February in Northern Ohio was about 1-3 degrees below normal
o Near normal precipitation average for December-February is misleading due to below normal precipitation in January (60%) and near and above normal precipitation in December (100%) and February (125%).

It has been a pretty nasty winter. Nastier in Central Ohio than up on the North Coast, but it has been a nasty winter all over. Particularly compared with last year. March was nice, though...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

tservo said:
Interesting how the Intamin probably voted most likely not to open on time did at Kings Dominion. It is a bit surprising because I'm sure they have had to put up a lot more over worse winters in the past.

The opening of I305 came at the detriment of the rest of the park.

Bummer. I was looking forward to attending my first media day event. The timing was perfect for me too. Now I can't make the new date (unless they bump it up by a day). Shame on me for looking forward to it so much.

Jeff said:
I would not likely peg the blame on Cedar Fair beyond their recurring insistence on using Intamin.

In a sarcastic way that was my point. I would LOVE to see more parks buy products built from Mack or other under-represented manufacturers here in the States. I realize there are many factors that go into a decision to purchase but come on already Kinzel & Co.!! When a coaster has to have a whole element removed and section of track redesigned doesn't that tell ya something? When another ride has to spend a whole summer being welded holding it together and the ride program reprogramed to reduce stress doesn't that tell ya something? I won't even go into Dragster, or what happened on Superman/Steel Venom, or people flying out of Intamin rides, or or or...aawww forget it.

I was around for the original Shoot The Rapids, and if I recall correctly it was an in-house design (?). My vision for a reincarnation would have been to go with a Mack with some of the better elements borrowed from Ripsaw Falls. Now that would have been a great ride for Ohio.

Who cares about this ride? If it's closed, people can get almost the same kind of ride experience over at Snake River Falls. It's not a log flume, something that they said this was a replacement for; it's adding to the destruction of the classic Paddlewheel Excursions ride, and now it's not even going to open on time? What a bunch of goofballs.

There, I said it. Cedar Point is run by a bunch of goofballs. :)

re: the height requirement

It was mentioned on a blog post a couple weeks ago that the req. would be in near the beginning of May. It's the first comment

http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/fun/blog/2010/4/19/In_the_Park.cfm

Is it a stretch to say the delay is related?

I'll be there Saturday, so I've been watching the weather. Supposed to be 65 and partly cloudy...which means it'll feel just a bit cooler at the park. It always is from my experience...which means WAY too cold to ride this sort of thing, at least in my book!

I do plan on getting some pictures though. =) But yeah, when I got the email today about this, I wasn't really going to cry about it.

In engineering we call it- World as Drawn vs. World as Built.
Very rarely do both meet on the same plane. If everything worked how it was drawn we wouldn't need consultants;)

It would seem like a timing issue on Project Managements part for not scheduling in some time for error/fine tuning. Starting to test 2 weeks before curtain call is just asking for trouble.

According to an article in today's Sandusky Register the boats were too long fore the ride. HTF does that happen?

http://sanduskyregister.com/articles/2010/05/11/front/doc4be82bf01b51e937174743.txt

Seriously... The boats are too long?

Because the engineers were too high...?

So if the boats were too long, did they not crest the lifts properly, did they get jammed in a tight turn, did the bow or stern hit the pullouts on the drops, or all three?

Definitely seems like an issue between the guys who built the boats and the course designers.

So the boats were contracted out to a third party and not built by Intamin (or whoever normally fabs Intamin's products)...Sounds like Sandor needs to get on those contractors. ;)

maXairMike said:
So the boats were contracted out to a third party and not built by Intamin (or whoever normally fabs Intamin's products)...Sounds like Sandor needs to get on those contractors. ;)

Not if they built them to the plans that were furnished............

After reading the Sandusky Register article I have only one thought: Why is Kinzel the representative on the topic? I thought he was the CEO and should be dealing with more important things like refinancing debt, working with investors to resolve issues, setting strategic goals for the future, working with GM's on new revenue enhancement ideas, etc etc etc.

This is again another blaring example of Kinzel & Co. still not "getting" what their role(s) in the company should be. Let your PR/marketing department at Cedar Point handle Cedar Point...that's what you pay your GM and Directors to do. Micro-managing by putting your nose in day-to-day details is not helping anyone and frankly makes everyone's job that much harder.

They forgot to convert metric to imperial measurements!!!!!!!!
Wouldn't that be funny.

Since when is answering questions from a reporter "putting your nose in day-to-day details"? It's not like Kinzel called them. You would probably give him crap as well if he declined to answer the questions.

The boats are too long? Seriously? It's no wonder they don't have a height limit yet...they didn't even know if the boats were built to spec. That is, well, unreal.

And, is it just me or does anyone else think that is going to be one heck of a line with only four boats? I haven't seen the speed of the water through the trough but how long is the ride time going to be?

This harkens back to Avalanche Run. I've heard stories through folks I consider reliable that one of the biggest reasons that ride was more "dull" than expected was that the "bobsleds" were built longer than the manufacturer recommended. The story is that Kinzel insisted another row of seats be added to increase capacity. Making the bobsled longer changed the dynamics of the ride to the extent that it would not move as freely through the trough. If you ever had a chance to ride the bobsled ride at Opryland you wouldn't believe it could be the same type of ride as Avalanche Run.

The boats are too long. Man, that is classic.