Opening on 2 July, the multi-inversion coaster Sik has sent reverberations through the roller coaster fraternity with this eagerly-anticipated attraction.
And Sik goes around at a lofty pace, featuring a variety of thrill-seeking moments. Its stomach-busting ten inversions include a vertical loop, two cobra rolls, two corkscrews and five heartline rolls.
Sik looks menacing with its silver track with black pillars piercing into the sky. Apart from the inversions, a highlight of the ride is the coaster passing through the underground sections where smoke billows out to great effect.
The end of the attraction provides that added boost with the twists of fate to its riders that is the heartline roll before banking left alongside a fully renewable lake. The feature is part of the attraction’s sustainability as carbon net neutral with solar panels used to help power the ride and water source heat pumps in the newly-created lake. The riders then return into the station entrance after a mind-bending 65-second journey.
The ride has novel origins based in South America with the track coming from Brazilian theme park Hopi Hari in 2011.
Operations Executive, Phil Pritchard of Flamingo Land gave InterPark the lowdown on Sik.
InterPark: Technical specifications of the ride
Phil Pritchard: “Riders will be sent in a spin with the 10 times of inversions towards the end of the ride. The ride has a cable lift hill to take rides faster to the start of gravity. Its main height reaches 33-metres (108.3ft) and shoots around the track at up to 86.9km/h (54mph). Sik weaves around the Intamin Tri Track pulling 3G’s and has an overall length of 875-metres (2,870.8ft). 24 riders are allocated to a single train with an hourly capacity of 1250 passengers with a smooth lap bar being the rider’s restraint.”
IP: The 10-inversion section
PP: “Constant but smooth train Inversions throughout the 875-metres of track from full loops to cobra rolls and barrel rolls where positive G forces are followed by negative G forces.”
IP: Challenges of the build
PP: “The footprint of the ride was an exact fit into the available plot of land that we had available. Installing a major roller coaster project through the COVID-19 pandemic was in itself a major challenge. Our biggest challenge ‘by far’ was the 2-year excavation and building of 2 deep trenches 36-metres long x 5-metres wide x 7-metres deep for the train to travel through our two underground tunnels. Our water table is only 1-metre below ground level so digging deep holes and stopping them from flooding throughout the two years was very difficult.”
IP: Partnership between SikSilk and Flamingo Land
PP: “Both businesses are very successful brands in North Yorkshire so the long-term friendships that had developed between the respective owners resulted in this natural opportunity.”
IP: Intamin were chosen as the ride manufacturer
PP: “Intamin are of Swiss origin and the engineering, quality and reliability are amongst the best in the world. This of course complements the partnership of Flamingo Land and Sik Silk.”
IP: Reason for building SIK
PP: “Sik was a golden opportunity not to be missed. Everything about this project was right.”
IP: Describe the attraction in 1 word
PP: “Sik.”
