Pirate Adventure

The prates in the pirates in the barrels replaced this? Loved how the fire exit was clearly visible next to them. Same throughout the ride, pirate scene, fire exit door clearly lit up!
Martin Smith its ironic that there was a fire exit next to the scene that caught fire. Do you know what caused the fire? Am I correct in thinking a factor in the closure of Pirate Adventure was that it failed its last safety inspection regarding fire. I hope The Looping Group can address these H&E concerns and refurbish the ride with modern technology. If Drayton gave Pirate Adventure the treatment Piraten In Batavia at Europa Park got following its fire it could become a 5* Dark Ride. Drayton Manor could do with a premier Dark Ride to compete with Alton Manor at Alton Towers. Alton Manor is easily the best Dark Ride in the U.K. I know it’s off topic but I would say Alton Manor is very similar to Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris.
 
I found the book in question
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Pirate adventure construction video
 
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Martin Smith its ironic that there was a fire exit next to the scene that caught fire. Do you know what caused the fire? Am I correct in thinking a factor in the closure of Pirate Adventure was that it failed its last safety inspection regarding fire. I hope The Looping Group can address these H&E concerns and refurbish the ride with modern technology. If Drayton gave Pirate Adventure the treatment Piraten In Batavia at Europa Park got following its fire it could become a 5* Dark Ride. Drayton Manor could do with a premier Dark Ride to compete with Alton Manor at Alton Towers. Alton Manor is easily the best Dark Ride in the U.K. I know it’s off topic but I would say Alton Manor is very similar to Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris.
I think it was an electrical fault (But I could be wrong)
 
Even back then they were keeping there rides a secret with no info on the walls.
I thought that. It must have been a pretty big construction project just to keep everyone guessing I was also thinking they must have putvtje scenery in before they finished cladding the sides of the building. There aren’t any big loading doors apart from that sliding shutter around the back. always wondered what was in there!
 
I did this 4 or 5 years ago,...pretty much to how it was in the ride. I did this from memory having worked on the ride many years ago. You can see the scene placement. You can see the queue line layout too in a very pale brown, starting by the Burger Kitchen wording on the bottom left of the photo.

Directly before number 1 on the track, the light green bit of straight track. That is the lift hill, I forgot to add it to the key.
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Pirate Adventure had a sister ride called Los Piratas at a park called Bellewaerde, the rides were different, but they did share some props and audio. Los Piratas opened in 1991, it was removed a while ago, but ALOT of the rides shared ALOT of things as they were designed and built by Goldings Attraction Design (now Space Leisure) immediately after one another. The drop height was also identical between the two, about 3.7 meters in height from the top level until the bottom. The angle was shallow though, which made the boat travel less steep, for longer, combined with the dark it made the drop feel much bigger than it was.

I then found the actual track layout for Los Piratas, it is 95% identical to what I put above. I will trawl through old videos and work out if it is, based on looking at the roof beams on videos which can help you work out the direction of the track relative to the building.

There are just minor differences to the track layout between the two, at second part of the ride, in the battle and cave scenes to be specific, the rest of the rides shared an almost identical layout throughout, just totally different scenes. I do not think the rides could share a totally identical layout, due to the shape of the buildings not being able to accommodate the bits at the end, but they are both very, very similar.

For context, where you can see the bridge below in Los Piratas, that turn of the track under the bridge, is exactly where the bar scene would be on Pirate Adventure, with the bridge coming immediately after.
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I'll work on an updated version of the layout, based on information I now have....watch this space. I do have the layout in very basic 3d that I made in Blender. Might see if I can add some more details and basic scene layout to it, just have not had the time to do it recently with work.

Some photos here of Pirate Adventures sister ride. Some more photos here.

Some stats both rides shared though:
Height Difference between the top and bottom pools: 3.7m
Track Length: 250m7
Speed: 0.5 meters per second.
Capacity: 2 million litres of borine treated water.
Propulsion: 30x 1.2kw submerged trough pumps.

Misc: Most animatronics were pneumatically powered from a single large air compressor that ran compressed air pipes throughout the attractions to computer controlled valves to power the movements to the animatronics.
Thank you for this, interesting to see the layout of what was where. I wonder if there is an actual schematic that shows all the extra bits the visitor never saw, like where all the electronics and Audi rooms where. No doubt there were locker rooms etc.. I only wonder as on you tube there is a video where John wardley goes ‘upstairs’ in the haunted house at Alton towers where there are walkways etc where the staff could keep an eye on people in the ride. The pirate adventure must have had something similar.
 
Thank you for this, interesting to see the layout of what was where. I wonder if there is an actual schematic that shows all the extra bits the visitor never saw, like where all the electronics and Audi rooms where. No doubt there were locker rooms etc.. I only wonder as on you tube there is a video where John wardley goes ‘upstairs’ in the haunted house at Alton towers where there are walkways etc where the staff could keep an eye on people in the ride. The pirate adventure must have had something similar.
I would love to see a schematic, not sure if it would be worth trying to reach out to DMR. Alton Towers Haunted House video was done in partly to preserve the rides rich history by Euro Theme Park archive.

I know Drayton Manor have mostly removed this at the park now, but schematics could help with say recreating the attraction in computer 3D, something I am very slowly working on.....haven't made too much progress in 12 months due to a promotion and heavy work commitments, but it is still in the works. Schematics would HUGELY help with something such as this.
 
I know in the queue line at the top as you turn right into the station area there was a door to the left and it was unlocked once and I had a look and it showed a big staircase back to the ground and you could see the boats as they left the area where you exited the ride to go into a un themed area and traveled back round to the lift hill back into the station.
I’m sure Dan would explain more as if he worked on the ride was in this area a lot.

I would love how they got the boats into and out of the maintenance area and how many boats fitted in there as many times I saw the back of the boat sticking out of the black cover.
 
The area you are on about Andy is this here.

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You can see the lift hill just about in this photo. The boats left the exit station, turned to the right, went up this hill and straight into the loading station....you can also see the doorway you would have looked through.

The maintenance area was rather simple. I can't remeber how many boats it would fit, but it was to the right just after you passed the woman getting water poured over her head. You could move part of rhe metal guide channel out the way to direct boats into this area. There was a small crane to remove the boats out the water and out of the channel. This area was immediately behind the doorway you can see from the train.
 
I found the book in question
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Pirate adventure construction video
Is it possible to
I found the book in question
View attachment 5750View attachment 5751View attachment 5752
Pirate adventure construction video
upload the
The area you are on about Andy is this here.

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You can see the lift hill just about in this photo. The boats left the exit station, turned to the right, went up this hill and straight into the loading station....you can also see the doorway you would have looked through.

The maintenance area was rather simple. I can't remeber how many boats it would fit, but it was to the right just after you passed the woman getting water poured over her head. You could move part of rhe metal guide channel out the way to direct boats into this area. There was a small crane to remove the boats out the water and out of the channel. This area was immediately behind the doorway you can see from the train.
I found the book in question
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Pirate adventure construction video
Is it possible to upload the whole book? I don’t know if it’s a copyright infringement seeing as they are giving it away for free? Just the chances of ever getting one will be close to zero!
 
Is it possible to

upload the


Is it possible to upload the whole book? I don’t know if it’s a copyright infringement seeing as they are giving it away for free? Just the chances of ever getting one will be close to zero!
Wouldn't be copyright infringement but not sure how doable it would be to upload the whole book to the site depending on how many pages it has.
 
Wouldn't be copyright infringement but not sure how doable it would be to upload the whole book to the site depending on how many pages it has.
Without going off topic you will need to be really interested in the peel family who originally owned the land and the history of the Bryan family to really enjoy the book as 3/4 of it is about them.
 
Without going off topic you will need to be really interested in the peel family who originally owned the land and the history of the Bryan family to really enjoy the book as 3/4 of it is about them.
Ah ok, I thought it was about the history of the theme park itself! I bet the Bryan family have hundreds of photos. They still have an interest in the park don’t they. Anyway, that’s off topic. I did find a while ago a newspaper article on the pirate adventure when it opened and there was an interview with I think Colin Bryan and there was some mention of having to dig a well to get the water to feed the ride. I’m not sure if I’m mixing up information there but I’m certain that was what I read.
 
Ah ok, I thought it was about the history of the theme park itself! I bet the Bryan family have hundreds of photos. They still have an interest in the park don’t they. Anyway, that’s off topic. I did find a while ago a newspaper article on the pirate adventure when it opened and there was an interview with I think Colin Bryan and there was some mention of having to dig a well to get the water to feed the ride. I’m not sure if I’m mixing up information there but I’m certain that was what I read.
I thought it was about the park itself as well. Would be nice if somebody could piece together a good video or possibly even book about the whole park's history. (sorry for off topic)
 
It starts off about the Peel family and all about the house that was originally on the house. The only surviving bit is of the clock tower by the tower suite. The clock itself is in the Zoo tea rooms as that was originally the peel family museum.
George and Vera Bryan went to Disney in the 80s and after that visit gave them the vision for turning Drayton Manor Zoo and Amusement park into a full on theme park. With the Jungle Cruise, Jungle Palladium and Pirate Adventure added.
 
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