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| Manufacturer | Great Coasters International | |||||||||||||||||
| Designer / calculations | Jeff Pike, Karel Willemen | |||||||||||||||||
| Type | Wooden - Twin | |||||||||||||||||
| Riders per train | 24 | |||||||||||||||||
| Hourly capacity | 1750 | |||||||||||||||||
| Propulsion | Chain lift hill | |||||||||||||||||
| Water | Vuur | |||||||||||||||||
| Height | 22.1 metres | 22.1 metres | ||||||||||||||||
| Drop | 22.1 metres | 22.1 metres | ||||||||||||||||
| Speed | 75 km/h | 75 km/h | ||||||||||||||||
| Length | 787.9 metres | 787.9 metres | ||||||||||||||||
| Inversions | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||
Joris en de Draak is a wooden racing roller coaster located at Efteling in Kaatsheuvel, North Brabant, Netherlands. It replaced the Pegasus and opened in 2010.
History
Pegasus closed in 2009 due to high maintenance costs. Efteling originally had a motorbike coaster in mind as the replacement for Pegasus.[1] Joravision was hired to theme the ride, they came up with a dragon theme, where the coaster would fight an enormous dragon, using lots of special effects. This design proved to be too expensive, so the park created a new design in-house. They came up with a Booster Bike racing through shipwrecks, a theme that would complete the themed area of the Flying Dutchman, located next to the old Pegasus. This idea was eventually dropped in favour of a racing wooden roller coaster pitting water against fire.
It was revealed on 28 September 2022 that the coaster would close for a three month refurbishment. This refurbishment would include the ride receiving steel Titan Track from Great Coasters International and Skyline Attractions on its diving turns by Python.[2] Other changes included the repair of the animatronic dragon, which hadn't operated for several years. Efteling initially said that the dragon wouldn't get repaired anymore, but ended up changing this stance after big backlash from fans.[3]
Design
Joris en de Draak is a wooden racing roller coaster manufactured by GCI. It is one of three dual-tracked roller coasters that GCI manufactured, with the other two being Gwazi at Busch Gardens Tampa and Lightning Racer at Hersheypark.
Trains
5 trains with 12 cars per train. In each car, riders are arranged 2 across in a single row, for a total of 24 riders per train.
Location
The coaster is located in the "Ruigrijk" (roughly translating to "Thrillrealm") area of the park.
Etymology
Joris en de Draak is Dutch for George and the Dragon. The dagon is named Edna
Theme
The theme is based on the myth of Saint George, where a kingdom is under attack of a dragon, and the only way to keep him or her (the gender of the dragon is under heavy debate, Efteling itself call it a "he", while eggs are present around the animatronic, implying a "she") away from destroying the kingdom is by feeding it sheep. Until, one day, the kingdom runs out of sheep, forcing the dragon to demand a youg girl as lunch every day. This goes on untill the princess is next to be eaten, the king gets extremely worried and offers 1001 ducat to the one who can defeat the dragon. On this request, Saint George offers his services and defeats the Dragon.
Refrences
External links
- Joris en de Draak on the Roller Coaster DataBase.
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