Six Flags says its newest coaster will smash six world records at once, and it hasn’t even opened yet.
Quick Take
- Six Flags Great Adventure unveiled a new coaster called Bakunawa on July 28, 2026, set to open in 2027.
- The park claims it will break six world records, including fastest and tallest spinning coaster.
- Specs include a 382-foot height, 100 mph top speed, and an inverted launch.
- No outside group like Guinness World Records has confirmed any of the six claims yet.
A New Jersey Park Bets Big On Bragging Rights
Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey pulled back the curtain on Bakunawa, a coaster named after a sea serpent from Philippine legend. Reporters and fans had been guessing at “Project Purple” for months.
Now the park says it will hold six world records once it opens in 2027, replacing the site once ruled by Kingda Ka, the coaster it dethroned as tallest in the world back in 2005.
Ryan Eldredge, the park’s director of sales and marketing, spoke about the ride at the announcement, tying his name directly to the record claims. That matters.
When a named executive puts his reputation behind a promise this specific, it raises the stakes if the ride falls short. Six Flags isn’t hiding behind a vague press release. It’s making a bet in public, with a two-year countdown to prove it.
Six Specific Claims, Stacked Up Front
The park lists the same six records across every outlet that covered the reveal: fastest spinning coaster, tallest spinning coaster, fastest inversion, longest stall inversion, first floorless spinning coaster, and first upside-down launch.
The numbers behind those claims are eye-popping. Bakunawa is supposed to hit 382 feet tall and 100 mph, powered by three separate launches, one of which fires the train while it’s flipped upside down.
That last detail is the one turning heads among coaster fans. An upside-down launch is rare enough that most riders have never experienced one.
Combine that with a floorless, spinning train design, and you get a ride that sounds less like a theme park attraction and more like an engineering dare. Whether it delivers exactly as promised is still two years away from being tested by an actual rider.
Why “World Record” Claims Deserve A Second Look
Here’s the catch skeptics will spot right away: nobody outside Six Flags has certified a single one of these six records. No Guinness World Records adjudicator, no independent engineering body, no third-party verification appears anywhere in the announcement coverage.
That doesn’t mean the claims are false. It means they’re still promises, not proven facts, and the difference matters when a company is also selling season passes off the hype.
Construction on Bakunawa had only just begun when the claims went public, and the ride won’t carry a single passenger until 2027. Height and speed numbers, stall-inversion length, all of it rests on final engineering that hasn’t been tested under real conditions yet.
Amusement parks have a long history of announcing “world’s first” superlatives that later get refined, adjusted, or quietly dropped once construction wraps and inspectors sign off.
None of this means Bakunawa won’t deliver. Six Flags has built record-holding coasters before, and the specs described here are genuinely ambitious.
But people should treat “will break six world records” the way they’d treat any bold sales pitch: promising, worth watching, and not yet proven. The real test comes in 2027, when actual riders, not press releases, get the final word.
Its official! Bakunawa is coming to Six Flags Great Adventure in 2027
Claimed World Records:
-World's tallest spinning coaster(382ft)
-World's fastest spinning coaster(100mph)
-World's first upside-down launch (accelerating from 60 to 80 mph while inverted)
– World's fastest… pic.twitter.com/rTye0ExuRY— Coasters and Brews 🍻 (@coastersnbrews) July 28, 2026
Until then, the six-record claim stands as a marketing headline with real engineering behind it, but no independent stamp of approval. That’s a fair distinction to hold onto as the hype builds over the next two years.
Sources:
people.com, nj.com, usatoday.com, themeparktribune.com, en.wikipedia.org, sixflags.com
