ProSlide Technology

ProSlide Technology

Industry	Manufacturing
Founded	1986
Founder	Richard D. Hunter
Headquarters	Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Area served	Worldwide
Products	Water slides
Website	www.proslide.com

ProSlide Technology is a Canadian manufacturer of water rides and water park resorts. They manufacture both traditional slides and innovative rides such as water coasters with conveyor belts, funnel-shaped Tornado slides, and Bowl slides. More recently, they have received some additional attention for being the first water slide manufacturer to build a water slide that is launched with the aid of linear induction motors.

History

Coming from a background of alpine ski racing, Richard D. Hunter founded ProSlide Technology Inc. in 1986. As of 2013, Hunter still serves as ProSlide's President and CEO; he is responsible for designing many of the products that ProSlide offers, including the Tornado, HydroMAGNETIC, CannonBowl, and Behemoth Bowl.^[1] ProSlide maintains a continuous ProSlide Product Development Program with the goal of allowing their clients to continue adding new ProSlide products to their water parks each year.^[2]

During the early 2000s, ProSlide has manufactured the majority of the water park industry's award-winning rides. For example, in 2005, three of the top five Golden Ticket Award winners for Best New Ride for 2005 (Water Park) were rides manufactured by ProSlide.^[3] The Black Anaconda at Noah's Ark Water Park, which placed first, was a ProSlide Rocket; the third-place Typhoon at Six Flags New England and the fifth-place Funnel of Fear at Michigan's Adventure were ProSlide Tornados.^[3] ProSlide also had two of the top three winners for Best Waterpark Ride in 2004, 2005 and 2006, with Holiday World and Splashin' Safari's Zinga (ProSlide Tornado) and Zoombabwe (ProSlide Mammoth) coming in second and third, respectively; Master Blaster, a water coaster at Schlitterbahn New Braunfels made by NBGS International, won the award.^[3][4][5]

Current products

ProSlide debuted three types of water slides in 1987, which they continue to make today: Twisters, Kidz, and Plummets, which are all types of body flumes. In 1989, the first ProSlides using inner tubes opened (Pipeline). More recently, they have built 4-person family slides (Mammoths), funnel-shaped slides (Tornados), bowl-shaped slides (Bowls), and uphill water coasters (Rockets).

• One of ProSlide's first products, the Twister, is a classic body flume water slide that carries riders one at a time. As their name implies, they frequently incorporate twists and turns into their layouts. The first Twisters opened in 1987 at Mont Saint-Sauveur in Quebec and Adventure World Theme Park (now known as Six Flags America) in Largo, Maryland, USA; both parks opened 4 Twisters that year.^[6] The following year, Disney's Typhoon Lagoon opened its three ProSlide Twisters.^[6] Twisters have become ProSlide's most popular product, with 607 installations as of 2007 and more Twisters opening each year.^[6]
• Like Twisters, ProSlide Plummets are body flumes. However, they consist of a vertical drop only, followed by a long, flat segment to help riders decelerate. Often over 70 feet tall, Plummets are frequently the tallest ProSlide slides in a water park. The first Plummets opened in 1987 at Aquapar Magog in Quebec and Six Flags America, respectively; as of 2007, ProSlide has installed 227 Plummets.^[7]
• In addition to their Twisters and Plummets, ProSlide also debuted their children's water slides (ProSlide Kidz) in 1987, which are miniature versions of Twisters designed for young children. Initially, they were installed more frequently than the full-size Twisters; as of 2007, there are 302 installations of ProSlide Kidz.^[8]
• The ProSlide Pipeline is a water slide that carries riders on 1-to-3 person inner tubes and is ProSlide's second most common style, with 330 installations as of 2007.^[9] The Pipeline has both open and enclosed sections; many have water curtains at the beginning and/or end of their enclosed sections. The first ProSlide Pipelines opened in 1989 at Fantasia de Agua in the Dominican Republic and Waldameer Park in Erie, Pennsylvania.^[9] Throughout the 1990s, several large park chains started opening new ProSlide Pipelines, including Cedar Fair, Six Flags, and Wet 'n Wild. A variation of the Pipeline is the Atomic Coaster, which uses 2- to 3-person tubes.
• The first ProSlide Racer opened in 1994 at ProSlide's Mont Cascades Waterpark in Cantley, Quebec; over 200 Racers have been installed in the years since.^[10] Racers consist of one wide slide with dividers between the lanes and are designed that riders can "race" to the finish if ride operators send all of them down the slide at the same time; riders slide down a Racer headfirst on foam mats. A more recent variation of the Racer is the Octopus Racer, which debuted at Kings Island as the Coolangatta Racer in 2004 and allows riders to start the ride on separate slides going different directions, taking a downward spiral in enclosed sections before merging onto a traditional Racer toward the end of the ride.^[11] Most Racers have four to eight lanes; Holiday World and Splashin' Safari opened a 10-lane Racer in 2005.^[10]
• Wet 'n Wild in Orlando, Florida, opened the first ProSlide Mammoth in 1991.^[12] The Mammoth was the first ProSlide slide that riders rode in 4-person tubes and is a larger-scale version of the Pipeline. Mammoths initially appeared in Wet 'n Wild, Noah's Ark Water Park, and Anheuser-Busch-owned parks and have been built for several Six Flags, PARC, and Cedar Fair-owned water parks in the 2000s.^[12] Enclosed Mammoths are known as Dark Mammoths; some have lights in their enclosed parts.
• The first ProSlide Bowl, a ProBowl, opened at Golfland Sunsplash in 1999.^[12] ProSlide manufactures four kinds of Bowls: ProBowls, CannonBowls, BulletBowls, and BehemothBowls. All four types consist of an enclosed flume which terminates in a bowl; riders travel in a spiral around the bowl (using centrifugal force to stay on the bowl's wall initially) before dropping into a splashdown pool.^[13] ProBowls are enclosed body flumes which end in a bowl with an open top. CannonBowls and the larger BehemothBowls accommodate 2- and 4-person inner tubes, respectively, and have a common exit in their centers.^[13][14]

Aerial view of the Tornado at Darien Lake.

• Since the early 2000s, ProSlide has gained much recognition for their Tornado, a 4-passenger, 50- to 75-foot-tall enclosed slide which ends in a large, often multicolored funnel. Riders travel back and forth in the funnel several times before exiting into a splashdown pool. The first Tornados, Tornado at Six Flags New England; High Anxiety at Mountain Creek Waterpark in Vernon, New Jersey; and Zinga at Holiday World and Splashin' Safari, opened in 2003.^[15] Zinga, in particular, won a Golden Ticket Award in 2003. Since then, many Six Flags, PARC, and Cedar Fair parks have added Tornados, which they have often named Tornado.

The Super Tubes Hydrocoaster (a LIM-powered ProSlide Rocket) and The Green Room (a ProSlide Tornado) at WhiteWater World.

• ProSlide's Waterslide Version of a Roller Coaster is the Rocket, an uphill water coaster. The first three Rockets opened in 2005 at Noah's Ark Water Park (the snake-themed Black Anaconda), Six Flags New England, and the Great Wolf Lodge in the Pocono Mountains.^[16] These three Rockets, as well as another one that opened the following year at the Great Wolf Lodge at Niagara Falls, used conveyor belts for their uphill sections. (In contrast, the water coasters made by NBGS International, who started building their water coasters at Schlitterbahn parks in the 1990s, use jets of water to blast riders up the hills.) More recent ProSlide Rockets, starting with the Super Tubes Hydrocoaster at WhiteWater World in Australia, have used the ProSlide HydroMagnetics system of Linear Induction Motors placed throughout the ride to launch riders up the uphill sections. HydroMagnetics uses Force Engineering LIM technology, which first gained recognition in the amusement park industry as the power behind launched roller coasters such as Flight of Fear and Speed - The Ride. ProSlide Rockets with HydroMagnetics are the first waterslides to use this same technology, which allows for more flexibility and efficiency in running the waterslides' uphill sections than the previous conveyor-belt system did.^[17] In addition to the Supertubes Hydrocoaster, ProSlide also built a LIM-propelled Rocket at the Great Wolf Lodge near Kings Island in 2006; in 2007, LIM-launched Rockets will open at Naju Lake Waterpark in Korea and at Kentucky Kingdom.^[16][18] ProSlide recently opened the longest watercoaster Holiday World's Wildebeest in 2010.^[19] The newest Mammoth will become the longest Water Coaster in the world opening in 2012 at Holiday World.^[20]
• ProSlide started working with indoor waterpark resorts in the late 1980s. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, they have been the major provider for attractions in many indoor waterparks, including the Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari Resort chains.

Golden Ticket Award winners

• 2003: Zinga, Holiday World and Splashin' Safari (ProSlide Tornado), Best Waterpark Ride^[21]
• 2005: Black Anaconda, Noah's Ark Water Park (ProSlide Rocket), Best New Ride (Water Park)^[3]
• 2010-2013: Wildebeest, Holiday World and Splashin' Safari (ProSlide Rocket), Best Waterpark Ride^{[22][23][24][25][26]}

References

External links

• Official website
• Industry awards for ProSlide products