'Nervewracking!' Classic pirate ship returns to Rainbow’s End

A brand new $7 million pirate ship has set sail at Rainbow’s End, her maiden voyage on Friday morning packed with screaming thrill seekers.

“It’s got all the classic features that people love and expect from a pirate ship,” Rainbow’s End CEO Susan Mudie said at the grand opening and ribbon cutting.

“She swings fore and aft, depending on which row you sit in you either can have a go all the way to the top and have a big swing. Or you can sit in the middle and enjoy a gentler ride.”

The old pirate ship, installed at the Auckland theme park in the mid-1980s, “crashed into rocks in the Manukau Harbour” in 2017, as Mudie put it.

“This one is kind of a step up from the last one, so she's got a much taller pitch... while she goes at the same 75-degree angle, for this one, you're sitting quite a few metres higher in the air than you were on the last one, which ramps up the thrill.

“When you go up to that top swing you're gonna enjoy a moment of pure weightlessness just before she … comes crashing down again from … just over 20 metres of height.”

Given the advice from the boss, first timers myself (40) and my son, seven-year-old Gus, get the optimal seat for thrill factor – one of five seats at the stern of the boat.

Mundie wasn’t kidding. The two-minute ride has our guts in a knot. Stomach in throat, Gus says he feels like he’s going to spew, he’s white as a ghost and shuts his eyes tight. I throw my arms in the air, screaming. When that feeling of weightlessness kicks in, instinct says to push your feet hard to the ground. It’s hard to trust the railing will keep our bodies in the boat as we look down from such an angle. But it does. And after about four or five huge swings, we start to slow down.

“I’m definitely not up for another go,” says Gus. But five minutes later I have him convinced to strap in next to me in a “gentler swing” middle row. “That felt much better..” 

The new ship cost “a smidge under $7 million,” Mundie says. That includes all the prep that goes into getting the ground right, paying for the foundation for the loading platform and the construction of the ship itself.

It’s 13 metres long and a bit over 15 metres high. The gondola weighs 7 tonnes and each of the four legs the boat is suspended on is a hefty 6.5 tonnes.

Once approval for the ride got across the line, work began on looking at specifications, standards and expectations. It took two years to build the ride, which was made largely in Germany. The steel work was done in an old tank factory in Budapest, the cladding constructed in Berlin. 

“The ship comes on a ship,” explains Mundie. Six humungous over-sized containers brought the ride over, piece by piece, in January. The site was ready in March and ground was broken. Three huge cranes going at once helped technicians move everything into position at the Manukau location - “like building a big Lego set”.

It was finished by August, then came things like gates, paths for maximum accessibility and landscaping (which is ongoing). Permits were granted this week, checking things like evacuation procedures.

With the ship, the park now has 21 attractions. The most popular is the nine-minute log flume, but the Stratsophere-spinning 360 degrees on a big pendulum – is the most thrilling if the pirate ship isn’t enough to get you going.

You have to be 110cm tall to ride the new pirate ship, and those under 120cm need a responsible caretaker to ride along.