what do you think of SeaSteading?

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by Squidly-Diddly, Feb 20, 2019.

  1. KarlH
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    KarlH Junior Member

    Same reason Greenland isn't called Glacierland. Have you ever tried attracting colonists to a planet when they know that they'll need to build the equivalent of Sealaunch just to get back off of it?
     
  2. KarlH
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    KarlH Junior Member

    Thanks for the excellent post, dsigned.

    A while back I spoke with a guy who built several ferro-cement boats, and he mentioned some interesting things about the mix:

    - There was an additive to keep it from reacting with the zinc galvanization on the rebar and hardware cloth reinforcements.

    - He added a small amount of a foaming agent to improve flexibility.

    - The retained moisture in the washed silica was estimated by weighing a sample, boiling the moisture out, and then re-weighing it.

    The metrologist (not METEORologist) I trained under was a mat-sci expert with a casual interest in foamed cement for boats/floats, but his main focus was metals. So it is cool to hear from someone who keeps up to date and knows more details.
     
  3. fallguy
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    fallguy Senior Member

    When I think of seasteading, I think of the development of Florida's low sandy areas. Like Mara Logo....which I sort of assume low and sandy..could be wrong.

    It costs a lot of money to build near the sea, but living on a floataboard is no panacea to expensive.

    The economics are limiting.
     
  4. JamesG123
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    JamesG123 Senior Member

    That's why you only attract people who don't want to leave. ie; "MarsOne". They got tens of thousands of apps BTW.
     
  5. Dejay
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    Dejay Senior Newbie

    And now they are 7 billion who fell for this false advertising and can't leave this so called "earth"!
     
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  6. Dejay
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    Dejay Senior Newbie

    Would be interesting to compare the economics of a skyscraper vs a floating island with the same space. Of course nobody normal can afford a private apartment in a skyscraper either.
     
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  7. JamesG123
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    JamesG123 Senior Member

    That is an interesting comparison. Skyscrapers are driven by the scarcity and expense of land in specific locations. Similar to manmade islands or filling in coastal shores. I can see where if there are points in oceans where there is similar demand, a floating "city" could find a valid case. The problem of course is that even a skyscraper is more secure and cheaper over the long term than a floating thing. so...

    Well... supposedly only two fell for it.
     
  8. Dejay
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    Dejay Senior Newbie

    One way to make the economics better could be to start with a platform on which you can manufacture the individual modules in international waters, importing all the raw materials from a nearby city. That way you don't have to pay import duties or payroll taxes or VAT.

    You could even create a local cryptocurrency. You could create currency to "borrow" against future profits. Which of course requires the community to produce something be profitable / sustainable in the future.
     
  9. dsigned
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    dsigned O.R.C. Hunter

    If I were building in shallow water, I'd sink concrete pilings at the very least, and possibly dredge (like China's doing with the islands). The reason to do sea steading, imo, has to do with being able to be essentially independent from current government structures (e.g. not pay income tax). That means being offshore, and being offshore means you need to be mobile, which means you need a big boat, rather than a simple float.
     
  10. KarlH
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    KarlH Junior Member

    Yes, pity those suckers ;)
     
  11. Dejay
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    Dejay Senior Newbie

    I swear I wasn't looking for anything but this article just popped up on reddit:

    The UN is supporting a design for a new floating city that can withstand Category 5 hurricanes https://www.businessinsider.com.au/un-floating-city-housing-hurricanes-2019-4?nojs=1

    Apparently the UN is supporting building one of these cities, of course funding is still missing. The reddit thread is 95% upvoted so there is definitely interest.

    I'd be curious if a structure like that could realistically withstand hurricanes though.

    I'm also worried about them talking about this "pulling water out of thin air" scam.

    They are also talking about: "Biorock, a material created by exposing underwater minerals to an electric current. This leads to the formation of a limestone coating that’s three times harder than concrete, but can still be made to float."
     
  12. KarlH
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    KarlH Junior Member

    SWATH International had some interesting design articles when they were still around. One area they covered was keeping the weight of the superstructure under control, since SWATH needs wider beam to avoid being mushy in the roll axis. The superstructure also tends to be higher above the waterplane to take advantage of the hull's ability to ignore small waves. An alternative that they never build AFAIK was a trimaran in which only the middle hull had a reduced waterplane.

    There was a recent Youtube series about a "seastead" off of Thailand that consisted of a small fiberglass house bolted to a deep, apparently water-ballasted buoy.

    What about a super-deep monohull?
     
  13. JamesG123
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    JamesG123 Senior Member

    What taxes? You are in international waters as a sovereign state/individuals (tin-foil time!). Individual residents and visiting workers might be responsible for paying taxes back to the government that owns them, but there is no reason why you would need to.

    Well, yeah. Otherwise it won't be even if you have a rich guy leave you a big endowment.

    Crypto.... I guess probably. But it would need to be moderated as most are far too volatile to be actual currencies. Probably two blockchains, one held to a fixed rate as semi-fiat currency and credit medium, and the other left wild and the defacto stock shares for the entire seasteading enterprise.
     
  14. KarlH
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    KarlH Junior Member

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  15. Dejay
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    Dejay Senior Newbie

    Just watched that youtube channel and that was rather depressing on multiple levels! And for the prices they want for that spar house (150k?) you might as well buy a sailboat.

    Maybe to build structures with this kind of stability the costs are just this high? I thought steel was relatively cheap and that seems like a relatively small and simple structure. Just going by the number of welds.

    That SWASH trimaran concept could fit well with a hexagonal vessel as a module to dock to each other. And hexagons look nice. Squares are more boring but I figure a typical SWATH would be less complex to build. In any case a swath module could at least function as a real boat.

    I wonder if in the far off future the seasteading nation of the squares will be at war with the hexagons. Not because of some kind of ideological difference, just because they are not compatible with each other. Just geometrically :)
     
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