Texas' Barracuda Strike sets new record for family coasters
The third - and tallest - installation of the inverted family coaster in the U.S. opens this weekend.
Barracuda Strike opens officially on Saturday at SeaWorld San Antonio. The Bolliger & Mabillard inverted family coaster reaches a height of 90 feet, making it the tallest of the three coasters of this model that parent company United Parks has bought and installed over the past three years.
The coaster drops riders to a top speed of 44 mph on the edges of the park's central lake. From there, riders skim across tree tops and then dive again into several decorative elements on the 1,800-foot track.
Technically, Barracuda Strike is SeaWorld San Antonio's second B&M invert. But 1997's The Great White is hardly the family model, with five inversions and a height requirement of 54 inches. Barracuda Strike has a height requirement of just 42 inches and zero inversions.
Here is the front-row POV:
Barracuda Strike follows last year's Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge at Busch Gardens Williamsburg and 2024's Phoenix Rising in Tampa.
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Replies (4)
It is concerning that B&M, which had the long-earned reputation of producing the smoothest coasters in the world, are now producing some of the bumpiest, roughest, rattly coasters over the past 3-5 years. You kind of expect faster, more intense designs to be less smooth, but B&M is deliberately building smaller, more family-friendly designs that are almost as rough as SLCs or Arrow loopers. When you can see how rough a coaster is just from a POV, it's never a good sign for the in-seat experience. I'm beginning to think that B&M made too many sacrifices in their designs to make their coasters more affordable, and unfortunately parks are getting what they are paying for. The only B&M installed in the past 5 years I've ridden that has not been rough is Pipeline at SWO.
This looks like a lot of fun. Texas Stingray, Great White, and Steel Eel are the grown up coasters and now this with the rescue coaster give it some nice variety and levels to this parks lineups.
Gotta make the drive out there to check it out sometime this year!
This looks like it should be the best of the B&M family inverted coasters and really pushes the boundaries of what I'd still consider to be a family coaster. Unfortunately, early reports are that it might run the worst of the three United bought for some reason, which is strange because almost everyone agrees Big Bad Wolf was back to the old B&M standard. Either way, it's not something that's going to get me back to San Antonio, but next time I visit the park I'll definitely take it for a ride or two.
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If I were United i'd be pissed at how rough this is. Should've gotten a Vekoma.