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belsaas

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Apparently the gondolas at Sea World San Diego were tripped by high winds and people got trapped on them, some above water attractions.

That would be terrifying!
 

Apparently the gondolas at Sea World San Diego were tripped by high winds and people got trapped on them, some above water attractions.

That would be terrifying!

The winds in the area created a power surge that tripped breaker shutting off power. They were able to pull the gondolas to the next support and use the emergency ladders on them to climb up and remove the guests. Far less dramatic then the headline implies.
 
Sounds easier than the process for BGW's skyride evacuation... seems building one over water and intertwined with roller coasters can make things complicated.
 
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Sounds easier than the process for BGW's skyride evacuation... seems building one over water and intertwined with roller coasters can make things complicated.
Glad the area HTR teams train up there regularly on it.
 
I totally forgot SDSW had gondolas. They're up there, too - probably close to 100ft or so. At one point in the gondola travel I seem to remember being over a fair amount of open water (could be just my faded memory). That would be terrifying to be stuck on, up in the air, sitting over water like that.
 
I totally forgot SDSW had gondolas. They're up there, too - probably close to 100ft or so. At one point in the gondola travel I seem to remember being over a fair amount of open water (could be just my faded memory). That would be terrifying to be stuck on, up in the air, sitting over water like that.


Your memory hasn’t faded. The gondolas do travel mostly over open water and the masts next to the marina are fairly high.

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Yeah. Eff that noise.


Other random SW memories. They had a theater show with water fountains. And that was it. Music. Lights. Choreographed water spurts. They also had an oyster pond where you could pay some poor lackey to dive in, get you an oyster, crack it open, and give you a pearl. All the while there was some failed radio DJ announcing a play by play of all this happening in real time. EXCITEMENT!!!111ones


Its amazing what passed for entertainment.
 
Yeah. Eff that noise.


Other random SW memories. They had a theater show with water fountains. And that was it. Music. Lights. Choreographed water spurts. They also had an oyster pond where you could pay some poor lackey to dive in, get you an oyster, crack it open, and give you a pearl. All the while there was some failed radio DJ announcing a play by play of all this happening in real time. EXCITEMENT!!!111ones


Its amazing what passed for entertainment.
Have you seen Mr. Ed? Well come to think of it... that is no dumber than any modern Sitcom...
 
Other random SW memories. They had a theater show with water fountains. And that was it. Music. Lights. Choreographed water spurts.
This actually can be very impressive when done well and at scale. Here's one of the countless fountain shows at Longwood Gardens near Philadelphia. This video only captures part of the entire spectacle because the full fountain garden area is about 500 ft x 500 ft... but this video does capture a lot. At about 1m:00s in the video, the fountains start showing a bit of what they can do. At about 1m:30s, the fountains start setting themselves on fire. A good show.

I doubt SW had all that, but still... but the "music, lights, water spurts" model can be pretty fascinating in the right hands.

Of course, Longwood also has had absolutely stunning dynamic projection mapping displays, as noted in an old thread around here somewhere. And the parks don't seem to have caught up to that either... So it may just be unfair to make the comparison.
 
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I was doing some poking around with google searches and came across an article on the Seaworld Skyride evacuation.... seems it was a bit more than a breaker trip.


sd-fi-seaworld-skyride-rescue-first-opening-20190219


If you look closely, the cable popped off the guide wheels. Cabin number 4 was secured with straps to the tower for the evacuation. Very lucky the cable fell inward of the tower and not outward which would have made for an even scarier time.
 
At Great Adventure we referred to this as an "Open Tower." There's PLCs on every single set of guide wheels on every single tower, if a PLC so much as detects there's no cable it's an auto E-Stop.

There's also something that's called the "E-Brake" that if triggered drives a wedge onto the cable at one of the bullwheels, it pretty much means the cable has to be replaced before the ride can reopen if that thing was activated.
 
After reading that article I took away two things....peoplem are already thinking about their lawsuits.....and the park was worried about the possibility of something like this happeneing if there were blankets in the cars. Even though that is the first time something like that has ever happened it may possibly be the end of that attraction.
 
After reading that article I took away two things....peoplem are already thinking about their lawsuits.....and the park was worried about the possibility of something like this happeneing if there were blankets in the cars. Even though that is the first time something like that has ever happened it may possibly be the end of that attraction.

That's the nature with all skyrides though. GAdv's would take about 8 hours to evac if both sides are running and the park would have to be shut down for it. Cedar Points would take about half that. BGW would take longer due to how poorly accessible some areas are in the park. The park was fully aware of the risks when they bought the ride, Von Roll made damn sure of it.
 
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