The Parkz Update: Sea World, June 2013

Parkz ventures to Sea World on a particularly wet day to check out construction of Storm Coaster as it starts to tower over the park.

Image: Parkz. Sea World's Storm Coaster starts vertical construction.

Update By Parkz
11 June 2013

Storm Coaster construction

Storm Coaster parts still fill the Sea World car park, while many have made their way to the construction site.

The crest of the coaster – its tallest section – is now in place and gives an idea of the sheer size of this new ride.

Storm Coaster now edges out Sea Viper as the tallest ride in the park.

The first drop gently banks into a sweeping curve.

Roller coasters are generally assembled in an order based on site accessibility. The builders must be careful to not box themselves in or restrict movement.

The top of the lift hill plateaus, giving the vehicle time to clear the lift hill chain before accelerating down the drop, so as to reduce wear on the chain dog – the mechanism that engages with the moving chain.

This curve comes after the initial drop. The roller coaster portion of the ride is essentially a 540º spiral into the final splashdown.

Given the large and heavy nature of the ride's vehicles, the coaster section on these water coasters can't navigate tight sections of track. As a result this sections feature very wide banked turns.

A lone support that will form part of the lift hill.

There's no shortage of track scattered around the construction site.

Supports are raised into place on their respective footings one by one.

Narrowly bordered by the Flume Ride, Jet Rescue and the Skyway, it's nothing short of a miracle that Sea World were able to squeeze an off-the-shelf ride model into such as tight space.

The redesigned Flume Ride snakes its way through the Storm Coaster's supports.

Before the ride's wet finale, the track makes a subterranean dive in this trench. Exposed steel reinforcing along the edges of the trench shows where a headchopper effect will be built over the track.

Walls being built to contain the water cascade effect that will surround the final airtime drop.

Sides being built for the main trough that will take up almost the entire show building.

The sides of the main trough are formed by lining these prefabricated steel segments vertically against each other before filling with concrete.

The actual flume trough is a moulded concrete structure. Seen here is the final turn into the station. Gaps along the right side will be fitted with a steel grill that allows the draining of the surge of water that boats create as they hit the final splashdown.

The station area is slowly coming together. The flume trough drops off here to house the conveyor belt into the station.

Pipe fittings. It wouldn't be a water coaster without water...

The prefabricated sides await placement along the straight run into the lift hill.

Flume Ride closure and maintenance

The Flume Ride remains closed while construction takes place directly over its path.

Interestingly, the ride's shortened course resulted in a couple of boats being removed from the ride to ensure proper spacing and efficient loading and unloading.