Rage is the largest new coaster this season in England. Yet this, the sixth Euro-Fighter ride from Gerstlauer, is actually the smallest yet from the German manufacturer, comprising just 361 metres of track and a footprint of 60 x 38 metres.

As with previous Euro-Fighters, the ride is characterised by its vertical lift hill and beyond-vertical first drop. Rage is a new landmark on the skyline for Adventure Island and offers its riders - briefly - a superb view of Southend and its Thames Estuary/North Sea surroundings.

Located by the entrance to the world's longest pleasure pier (1.33 miles), Adventure Island began life as Peter's Pan's Playground. Acquired by the Miller family in the 1970s, managing director Philip Miller expanded the park in 1995 by taking over a disused boating lake at the other side of the pier, virtually doubling the facility in size. Adventure Island was born.

“It was a massive investment,” recalls general manager Robert Roberts, “we had to build sea defences and tunnel under the pier. As a park we suddenly has a lot of room, but because we'd just paid all this money for the sea defence work we didn't have a lot left over for rides.”

That first season at Adventure Island, new additions included a snake slide, some bumper boats and a log flume. Considerable investment has been made since, however, with new attractions on both sides of the pier including two Zierer rollercoasters, Green Scream and Barnstormer; a Pinfari MiniMega Coaster; Tivoli Enterprises Move-It, Orbiter and Scorpion; Zamperla Disk 'O' and Sky Drop; Sonacase Twister (Pharaoh's Fury); Zierer Wave Swinger and Viking Boats ride; Modern Products Flying Jumbos; two Tidal Wave wet slides from Interlink; and a number of rides built in-house including Beelzee Bob's Trail, Drop 'n' Smile, Sk8borda and Fireball.

Via the park's parent company, The Stockvale Group, the Miller family now also runs two other Southend attractions, Adventure Golf, located above Adventure Island's well-themed Jungle Jive Café, and Sea-Life Adventure, acquired from Merlin Entertainments in 2000.

Log Flume, So Long

Rage replaces the park's Log Flume, an Intamin ride that has now been sold on to Scandinavia. “We thought long and hard about it, the Log Flume was our most popular ride, it operated for 11 seasons, but it needed major refurbishment,” says Roberts. “Anyone that's got a Log Flume will tell you that it's high maintenance. We wanted to put in a bigger coaster, and we looked at where we could put one. We either had to loose the Log Flume or take out four other rides. We will put a water ride back in eventually, but our biggest problem here is space.”

By adding Rage and taking the Flume out, the park has actually gained a little space. The new ride is finished in yellow and pink, a particular preference of Roberts. There's no theming at present, but some decoration will be added later in the season. The park explored the option of licensing a well-known superhero for the coaster, but decided the money would be better spent elsewhere and created its own, Captain Rageman, who makes character appearances throughout the park (see panel right).

After cresting the 23-metre tall lift tower, riders on Rage plunge back down at an angle of 97 degrees, and then straight into a 19-metre loop, followed by two further inversions, an inline loop, heartline roll, a right curve and helix section, before hitting the brakes. Only the lift hill is bolted to the ground. The rest of the ride is built on a base frame, because the ground in this part of the park, so close to the sea, isn't particularly suited to foundations. Of course, it also gives park management the flexibility to move the ride in future should they choose.

The coaster comes equipped with three 8-seater cars, which are dispatched individually. “There's never more than one car on the track at any one time,” explains Roberts. “Gerstlauer spent the best part of a day explaining to me how it would increase capacity and still be safe if we used more than one car at a time, but for my own piece of mind I don't ever want to have the risk of collision. There are some coasters out there with very advanced control systems that have still had smashes. We get about 750 passengers through an hour, that's good enough for us.”

This was the first time Adventure Island had dealt with Gerstlauer, after several years of gentle persuasion by agent Coen Niewenstein. “I went to their factory to have a look and it really impressed me,” recalls Roberts. “Mr Gerstaluer was Anton Schwarzkopf's control systems man, and the people he has got there are all ex-Schwarzkopf [Gerstlauer occupies the firm's old premises in Münsterhasuen]. Then they took us to ride a Euro-Fighter in Belgium, I talked to the park's maintenance people, took a general look at the ride, and we decided to go with them. I'm glad we did, because they've been very good, very professional and very helpful.”

If the crowds that visited over the recent Easter break are anything to by, Rage is delighting guests too. Attendance at the park has grown by around 150% since the Adventure Island expansion in 1995. However, as admission is free and not even gated, it's hard to know exactly how many guests visit each year. “We quite often get asked, but it's hard to say,” Roberts informs us, “a million, million-and-a-half, something like that?” Miller reckons the figure could be even higher, but of course neither really know. All they can really use as a starting point is wristband sales.

What Roberts is sure about is that the park is holding its own, ranked as the most visited attraction in the East of England. “A lot of people in the industry will tell you that the last few years have been tough and, from the feedback I get, I'd say we are doing well compared to other people. We've just had the best Easter ever!”

Year-round Adventure

Despite its seaside location, Adventure Island is actually a year-round operation, opening every weekend throughout the winter. It helps with the staffing levels amongst other things.

“It's been like that for about nine years now. After closing in the winter, we could never hire the staff and train them to the standard we would like before we opened. So now we have a core staff, we keep all the managers on full time, and when we get to Easter we have lots of staff that are ready to go, and just bring in extra staff as needed. It also helps with maintenance on the rides, because if you have any machinery and you turn it off and let is stand for three months you get problems.”

Reduced price wristbands are available in winter, and on a nice weekend people come from local towns like Dagenham and Romford, or even London. Adventure Island is actually the only amusement park with a direct rail link to Central London, and to entice visitors from the capital, the park offers free train travel to those buying a wristband in advance, a successful promotion that has run now for a number of years.

Although guests can also buy tickets, most opt for the wristbands and the park prides itself on a fair pricing structure based on height. Mini Bands, Junior Bands and Big Adventure Bands are available, ranging in price from £7 to £20. One of the criteria for the new rollercoaster was that guests as small as 1.2 metres - the lower limit for Big Adventure Bands - could ride.

“The wristbands are much easier for cash control, but from the public's point of view it's very good value because we've got 35 rides, including walk-round shows. What we pride ourselves on is that we do not have any queues. When I take my family to other parks, the worst thing is the queuing. We like to serve guests quickly, and even if we are not getting any more money because they have already bought their wristbands, customer satisfaction is so much better if people get more rides.”

'We also build our own rides!'

Although the rides of Gerstlauer and other European manufacturers feature at Adventure Island, a selection of attractions were actually built in Southend-on-Sea itself.

“I remember looking at rides in factories and thinking 'that's not really how I would have done it',” says Adventure Island general manager Robert Roberts. “I'm from a fairground family and we've always made bits and pieces, children's rides etc.”

The first ride he built at Adventure Island was the Beelzee Bob's Trail multi-level dark ride. “I was having a conversation with [managing director and Stockvale Group chief executive] Phillip Miller and told him I thought I could build a dark ride and he said I could have a go. It started off just as a Ghost Train, but over 14 or 15 months it just got bigger as we went along.”

Currently park guests can enjoy attractions including the American Whip, Cow Jump (a Miami/Magic Carpet-style ride), Sk8borda (pictured above right), Fireball (a Ferris Wheel-type construction) and the Drop 'n' Smile tower, all built on-site. The park is limited only by the size of its workshop, which is located beneath the Barnstormer rollercoaster, which is why all the constructions so far have been family rides.

Aided by a six-strong maintenance crew, and with input by art and design manager Paul Clapp, much of the ride building actually goes on in the summer. “In the winter we are busy with maintenance schedule,” says Roberts, ”but in the summer once we've done the daily inspections in the morning there's not a great deal to do unless something goes wrong, so that's when we do a lot of the fabrication. We've been busy this winter dismantling the log flume, but we may build another ride in the summer.”

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