Yes! The boat is not propelled by water, as the original PotC rides are. Instead, it is conntected to and controlled by a track below. Shanghai's Pirates is the first use of this ride system. You said Hong Kong instead of Shanghai btw.
I'll go into more detail. Well, I said it was connected to a track. I lied. It is connected to two tracks. The front of the boat is connected to one and the back is connected to another. When both tracks are on top of each other, the boat moves forward like a normal boat would, because the front and back are moving in the same direction. But when the two tracks split, the back of the boat moves on a different path than the front.
That allows the boat to rotate. Any boat can turn, but these boats can rotate. And they can move sideways or move while rotating. They can also move backwards without having to go through a Maelstrom-style path-switch thing. Additionally, since there is precise control over the boat, there should be no unintended backups at the end of the ride and no boats bumping into each other. And there are no visible walls/barriers (in fact, none at all) that your boat is being restrained by. I haven't ridden it myself, so I'm sure there are some cool benefits of the system that I'm missing. But that's a lot right there!
Here is the permit:
http://www.google.com/patents/EP2505241A1?cl=en
In the ride, for example, the boat rotates while moving at the first Jack Sparrow animatronic scene. The boat faces the scene the entire time, and therefore, the scene is in front of the riders rather than to the side. Gives everyone a better and longer view of it. The boat also rotates while moving in order to directly face the curved screen during the "going underwater" scene, which makes the effect far more convincing.
Here's a map showing the path of the ride and which way the boat faces at all points.
View attachment 146523
So you lose out on the free feeling of a water-propelled boat, but I think that loss is made up for by so much more.