sailsjs 1.0 model attribute type date columntype datetime error out in sailsjs

After more digging, found a ticket about this on https://github.com/balderdashy/waterline/issues/1497

The fix for the datetime issue to use ref instead of string:

attributes: {
    id: {type:'number',  required: true},
    'release_date': { type: 'ref', columnType: 'datetime' }
  }