A GIANT coconut will soon be drenching swimmers with 600 gallons of water as the first part of Blackpool's new look Sandcastle Waterworld takes shape.

The Caribbean pirate style tree is the first of its kind in the country, and a team of experts from Texas-based NBGS International is busy putting the finishing touches to the 35 interactive features the new attraction will have.

The highlight will be the massive coconut bucket which will fill with water every 10 minutes before a whistle indicates that it is ready to pour its contents over swimmers below.

Children will be able to fire water cannons and buckets of water at each other and their parents, while a new multi-slide will have three different lanes for people to slide down.

The £1 million scheme is the first part of a £4.5 million project which, Blackpool Council hopes, will take the South Promenade attraction back to the visitor numbers it enjoyed in its 1980s heyday.

The attraction has had no major investment since 1988, and visitor number have fallen from a mid-80s peak of more than 600,000 to around 200,000 annually.

Keith Palmer, managing director of NBGS International, said: "This is a new product which has only just come on to the market in the past couple of years.

"We installed a different model at Alton Towers, but this is the first of its type in this country."

Sandcastle marketing manager, Michaela Moran, added: "All the staff are really excited by this big investment, which has been such a long time in coming. They are all geared up for the increased number of visitors we are expecting this year."

The second phase of the investment, due next year, includes a major overhaul of the building, including a new 'masterblaster' water slide, on which visitors will be propelled around by water streams rather than gravity.

"The masterblaster is a water slide which goes up as well as down," added Mr Palmer: "Nozzles of water will push you back up -- it will be like an outdoor roller coaster in a tube."