Jaws of Life : Knott’s Tries Update With HammerHead Ride

In an effort to shore up flagging attendance, Knott’s Berry Farm on Thursday announced plans for the late-March launch of a new thrill ride called HammerHead, which will send riders plunging and spinning 80 feet toward a grotto filled with sculpted sea creatures.

The new ride is part of a multimillion-dollar make-over of the park’s faded Roaring 20s section, which will be transformed into a beach-themed area to be renamed the Boardwalk.

In addition to the new ride, the area will feature restaurants, games and entertainment centered around ocean themes and Southern California beach culture. The shark-themed HammerHead will make its debut March 30, while the rest of the Boardwalk entertainment should be unveiled by June.

“Our research showed that a beach theme would be more appealing to our visitors,” Knott’s Berry Farm spokesman Bob Ochsner said of the plans to scrap Roaring 20s. “It’s one of the primary reasons people come to Orange County.”

Knott’s attracted 3.4 million visitors in 1995, down 10.5% from 1994 and almost a third lower than the 5 million paying guests who passed through the turnstiles in 1990, according to Entertainment Business magazine.

Industry observers say the remake is a logical decision for Knott’s, the oldest theme park in Southern California, with some of the buildings dating to the 1940s. The Boardwalk marks the first complete overhaul of a themed area since Knott’s began charging admission in 1968.

“Theme parks must constantly upgrade their properties to keep the customers coming back,” said leisure consultant Jim Benedict of Management Resources in Tustin. “Roaring 20s has been there for quite some time. It may have needed some new flavor.”

The ominous-looking HammerHead is actually a modern version of a traditional European ride known as the RotoShake.

Standing 82 feet high with capacity seating for 42 guests, the HammerHead will plunge riders--upside-down and sideways at times--toward a water-filled pool surrounded by sculpted sharks, mermaids and other water creatures.

Although the HammerHead is not a water ride in the traditional sense and won’t dunk riders under the surface, Ochsner said ride operators are already figuring out ways to get guests wet through a fountain mechanism linked to the pool.

“At the bottom of the ride we can literally tickle their faces with water,” he said.