AT: Jeffrey Seifert
VANCOUVER, B.C. — WhiteWater West, one of the leading designers and manufacturers of water park products, is doing a year-long celebration to commemorate its 40th anniversary. WhiteWater was founded in 1980 by Geoff Chutter, a former accountant. Chutter saw his first waterslide at the age of 28 when conducting an audit for a park in Kelowna, B.C. Seeing the potential of this type of recreation, he decided to take the plunge, realizing that he was still young, and if it didn’t work out, he could always go back to accounting.
Chutter started WhiteWater in the town of Penticton, B.C., establishing the WhiteWater Waterslide and Recreation Complex as one of North America’s first water parks. Using the experience he gained building and running that park, Chutter started a company to share that knowledge with those who were interested in building their own parks. Now 40 years later, that company has grown to become one of the world’s most recognized and largest providers of everything water park related.
Looking back on the past 40 years, Chutter, WhiteWater’s founder and CEO, still remembers where it all started: “When I opened WhiteWater Waterpark in 1980, I didn’t imagine we would become the industry leader it is today, and I’m humbled. Four decades later and WhiteWater is a designer and manufacturer of over 100 incredible attractions, which can be found in thousands of parks all over the world. Even after all this time, the motivation remains the same, I’ve always wanted to see families have safe, healthy fun together, and alongside with our clients, we continue to achieve that.”
Forty years ago, waterslide manufacturers were few and far between, so WhiteWater constructed its own slides for the park in Penticton. Soon afterward, other parks came calling, and as business grew, WhiteWater acquired a fiberglass manufacturing plant and a few years later added a local engineering firm.
Throughout its first decade, the company continued to grow. In 1987, Chutter partnered with Andrew Wray from Barr & Wray North America. Barr + Wray had established itself in the U.K. as one of the leaders in fluid handling and conditioning, providing pools and spas along with water filtration equipment, and pumps. Wray, with a degree in mechanical engineering, began designing wave generating equipment while working alongside his father at Barr + Wray. He brought the technology to Canada with his company Barr & Wray North America. By joining forces, WhiteWater was well on its to becoming a one-stop shop for everything and anything water related. Wray become WhiteWater’s chief business development officer and a key partner at WhiteWater West Industries.
Following that merger, WhiteWater continued to be on the lookout for new technology. That led WhiteWater to either acquire, form partnerships or license products from Interactive Water Play in 1995, FlowRider in 1998, Prime Play in 2001, and Master Blaster technology from NBGS in 2003. The year 2005 brought the acquisition of SCS Interactive, and the following year a licensing agreement was reached with Aqualoop to market and manufacturer the world’s first looping waterslides. The latest partnership, announced at the 2019 IAAPA Euro Attractions show, was a licensing deal with wiegand.maelzer to manufacturer the rotating SlideWheel. The deal was later modified giving WhiteWater exclusive rights to market the product. As part of that development, Rainer Maelzer joined the WhiteWater team in June 2019 as a consultant.
Aside from acquiring technology, the company has developed several innovations utilizing its own talent base. In 1988 WhiteWater added in-house architectural design and master plan services. New corporate offices were opened in 1995 in Kelowna, B.C. and the following year a 90,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility was added. One of the first-ever themed waterslides, Black Hole, was developed by WhiteWater. Opening in 1990 at Wet’n’Wild parks in Orlando and Arlington, Texas, the spaceship-themed slides featured black enclosed tubes with running lights, fiber optics, fog and sound effects. Introduced in 2005, Boomerango with its wall-climbing reverse fall has become one of the company’s favorite attractions. A decade ago, WhiteWater introduced the MegaTube series of waterslides including Constrictor, Python, Viper and Rattler, offering riders on rafts high banking oscillations in huge, 20-foot-diameter enclosed tubes. Taking that concept a step further is the massive Anaconda waterslide that has six-passenger rafts climbing the walls of a cavernous channel nearly 15 feet high. Other innovative attractions include the AquaDuck slide installed on the Disney Dream cruise ship, which featured a Master Blaster slide with clear acrylic slide sections, and FusionFortress, a complete all-in-one water park play structure.
At IAAPA Expo 2018, WhiteWater introduced its new Vantage program, which integrates technology from a variety of systems to revolutionize guest experience in a water park. The Vantage system can help guests customize their experience in the park by communicating through an app downloaded to their phones. Once at a park, guests sync their app to a supplied RFID wristband. A quick scan at the start of the ride then enables personalized lighting or sound choices on the slide. Depending on what services are integrated, the system can be used throughout the day to provide locker access, food and drink, and even guide the guests to certain areas of the park or alert them to shopping specials. Wireless transmitters throughout the park provide real-time data to both guests and operators.
The app also provides feedback to the park owners, and with the demographic information entered into the app, owners can determine which attractions are popular with which demographic group at certain times of the day. For instance, the Vantage system can let owners know that a certain high-thrill attraction is popular throughout the day with teenagers, but parents ride it only once at the beginning of the day. This type of real-time data, both immediate and long term, can help determine future attractions.
The latest attraction to come from WhiteWater was launched while most of the world was in a pandemic lockdown. With the popularity of surfing increasing dramatically all over the world, the time had come to produce wave pools dedicated to surfing. Although the technology has been around for decades — Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon wave pool, installed in 1989, is able to produce surfable waves — a new product called Endless Surf, creates a dedicated surf pool. The wave generating machine can provide an endless supply of different types of waves with instructions from a computer. Its heart-shaped pool design is scalable in size, with a maximum width of 1,000 feet in a five-acre pool. The machine can provide waves in both directions from the center of the pool, with a wave lasting up to 26 seconds from the beginning to the end of the ride. The pool can accommodate 75 surfers at a time, with waves potentially getting pumped out every eight seconds.
Although WhiteWater can provide a complete package from concept, design and construction all the way to the finished product and continued maintenance, it also works with several well-known design partners such as Aquatic Development Group (ADG), Water Technology Inc. (WTI), Cloward H20, JRA, Ramaker & Associates and Falcon’s Creative Group.
What started as a single water park in 1980 has grown to become a global industry powerhouse with a team of more than 600 individuals with offices in North America, Barcelona, Dubai, and China. WhiteWater has been an industry leader and innovator for decades. Its products and services can be found at thousands of venues including theme parks, cruise ships, indoor and outdoor water parks, hotels and resorts all around the world. The company has been recognized for its excellence and commitment to safety with IAAPA Brass Ring Awards, Thea Awards, Leading Edge and Amusement Today Golden Ticket Awards.
This article appears in the MARCH 2021 issue of Amusement Today.
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