Cedar Point has announced a new attraction for the 2010 season.
Shoot the Rapids, an all-new family water ride, will rise above the park's Frontier Trail area on a 2,100ft (640m) track, with visitors travelling through a wooded area and around an 'illegal still' used for brewing sweet-tasting elixir. Surprise water elements and special effects will be a feature and the park warns that 'guests will get wet!'
Travel will be aboard one of ten ten-passenger fibreglass boats, with riders seated in five rows of two and secured by individual over-the-head lap bars.
En route round the circuit, the boats will ascend two 25-degree lift hills. The first and largest hill will be 85ft (26m) high and drop riders down onto Millennium Island at a 45-degree angle. The second hill will be 49ft (15m) high and end with a dramatic 'shoot' through water rapids and rockwork.
Park visitors on the Frontier Trail will be able to watch from dry land as riders complete their trip down the final drop.
Shoot the Rapids will cost more than US$10.5m (£6.4m, 7.3m euro) to build and be the most expensive water ride ever constructed at Cedar Point. It will have a capacity of approximately 1,200 riders per hour, with the ride lasting three minutes.
The ride was designed and manufactured by IntaRide LLC of Glen Burnie, Maryland, US, the same company that built the Maverick, Top Thrill Dragster and Millennium Force roller coasters and the Thunder Canyon river-rafting ride.
