Korsan Adasi 20th September 2018

ViaPort is a relatively new shopping and entertainment complex located on the Tuzla waterfront in south-eastern Istanbul. It features an aquarium, a bowling alley, a cinema, a marina, restaurants, retail, and a small theme park with nineteen rides and attractions. Construction work on the site began in mid-2013 with the reclamation of some sixty acres of land from the Sea of Marmara, and continued over a two year period leading to a grand opening in July 2015. The place was developed and continues to be operated by Via Properties, a local conglomerate with interests in landmark buildings across Turkey as well as a shopping mall in upstate New York.

Korsan Adasi occupies seven acres of space, though it feels somewhat smaller than the headline number would suggest, as well over half the land bank has been devoted to two roller coasters, both of which have been supplied by Intamin. The larger of the two is Red Fire (#2525), a LSM-launched design European enthusiasts will recognise as a clone of iSpeed. This installation has two upgrades over the original. The first is the removal of the mid-course block brake, a minor tweak that sacrifices a little potential throughput in favour of improved pacing. The second is a redesigned restraint system with a lap bar instead of overhead harnesses, and this alteration improves the experience quite a bit.

I managed to claim one of the back seats for the first ride of the morning, and though the launch felt powerful enough we came to a virtual standstill on the fifty-five metre peak. One puff of wind would have been enough to send us back the way we'd came, but it wasn't to be; the ride proceeded as normal. The next two trains out of the station did roll back, much to the delight of all on board. The staff decided to close off the back row for a while to reduce the overall weight, and that did the trick; a number of trains made it round the course. It was then reopened, resulting in a third stall and its closure for the balance of the session. (One lucky club member was on board for all three misfires, making him the target of more than a little jealousy.)

The ride is excellent, and arguably one of the best launched coasters Intamin has built. Unfortunately there are two things that keep me from giving it a perfect score. The first is operational: under normal circumstances secured glasses cannot be worn on board, and though we managed to get this restriction lifted for our group after the first few minutes of ERS it nevertheless constitutes a significant negative for those of with less than perfect eyesight. The second is a slow barrel roll that comes towards the end of the layout: the train moves through this at walking pace, and as a result riders' full weight lands on the lap bar restraint in exactly the same way each time. This isn't a particularly big deal on the first lap or even the second, but after a while repeated landings on the same bruise start to become actively uncomfortable. Megan wasn't all that bothered by this, clocking up an incredible twenty-four laps over the course of the day; I decided to retire after twelve.)

It was shortly after the session finished that the automatic lens cover on my camera lens began to stick, marking the third time in as many years that I'd encountered a hardware fault on my PowerShot G7 X Mark II, and the second time where my pictures were compromised part way through an extended trip. On this occasion two of the four corners on the image were being partially obscured, and though the result might have impressed the Instagram generation it was not something calculated to please an avid photographer. After some experimentation I figured out two methods to work around the problem, one using a fingernail and the other an aggressive shake, but both were suboptimal, and simple forgetfulness cost me a number of shots over the remaining days of our trip.

Our group moved en masse to Spinning Coaster (#2526), a figure eight decorated in multiple shades of blue. While writing this report I decided to trawl through the sixty-four versions of the ride with photographs on RCDB, and though my results are far from scientific I can report that green is currently the most popular colour with fifty percent of the market. Blue takes a strong second place with twelve global installations, followed by a tie between red, orange, and brown for third place. (In recent months Spanish showman Vicente Bañuls has apparently acquired two versions of the design whose only distinguishing feature is their colour; red and yellow. Those will present an entertaining conundrum for coaster counters.)

Our third stop was at Family Coaster (#2527), a near-clone of Mine Train Ulven with a redesigned (and radically tamed) first drop. The ride was fine, though out experience was marred by a completely ridiculous operational quirk; after three laps in quick succession the staff told us that we would be required to take a fifteen minute break before we could ride again, an arbitrary and utterly insane regulation that made a total mockery of having a pay-one-price admission deal. My mood was already shot because of my camera, and this additional embuggerance didn't help in the slightest. After making our frustration clearly felt we took seats in the empty front row and proceeded to simmer quietly while the operators chatted and played games on their mobile phones. When they eventually decided to do their jobs we were treated to an experience that was good, though not good enough to justify an entirely artificial wait.

The club had allocated five hours at the park, which was more than ample given that there were virtually no other guests around. Some of our group members decided to take a taxi to other nearby family parks, something that I'd have considered myself had we not already arranged a full day sweep of the area for the weekend. I spent a bit of time walking the length of the shopping mall to get a feel for what might be on offer, and I also passed a very pleasant half hour in the air conditioned comfort of the aquarium, apparently the first in the world to be divided into zones themed to different climatic zones. (I didn't notice this particular design feature until I read about it in the guidebook, and I rather suspect that I wasn't alone in that.)

My last hit was the Marina Eye, a twenty-one car Ferris wheel that stands just outside the park gate. This is not included in the regular gate price, but we were given a single ticket apiece as part of our club admission deal. The cycle time was pretty short, consisting of just two laps, though it was just about long enough to snap the overheads that I wanted.