Failure to communicate

Careful waveless, with your fertile imagination, you might be a rich man some day!
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I like 18 century europe, I am so regret that I come here too late.

I made too much dream in 18 century europe, I would go to forest cut a tree to make a boat with my son. today ......

 

re: #7. I believe we're at a point where it is technically feasible to do such a thing. Yes, there's a lot of engineering hurdles involved in building what would be the largest mobile structure ever built by humankind. But the technology exists, and it could be done. Making such an endeavour politically and financially feasible in today's world would be different. There's a good reason the Federation of Star Trek does not have money- such feats would be simply impossible in the current economic system. But budget issues aside, I think it's something that can and should be done.

On shape/size, a note: Toroidal could be cool, ya. I'd really like to see a full 2500m runway though, especially since the whole craft could rotate to always point the runway windward... and thus point the lagoon entrance leeward... would work pretty well I think. Perhaps a streched 'theta' shape?

Re: OTEC. It's possible, yes; but when you're dealing with a temperature difference of only a few degrees as would be the case on the type of conshelf you'd put one, thermodynamic efficiency is horrendously poor. I'd be more in favour of wave and solar energy systems, both of which are well proven.

Re: #9. Sorry Sean, the Yanks have already come in force for our water, and our oil, and now have more or less full control over both. (Take a really, really close look between the lines of NAFTA, the energy treaties, the border waters treaty, etc. and you'll see what I mean.) And a floating hippiemobile? Bring it on!

Re: #14. I did a few rough studies on things a bit like that back in high school, actually.... hmm, and why am i not surprised to see a Doug Drexler credit on that thing

Keep the ideas coming, folks.

 

Actually, there is a really great business plan that makes this not only economical, but inevitable. I am an entrepreneur. I have a masters degree in business. These floating habitats would be a huge money-maker. How? Well, to start with, on my blue toroidal ship shown in an earlier post above, there is 10 million square feet of deck space. So there will be apartments, hotels, shopping centers, restaurants, etc. But it will also be an entertainment complex allowing people diving and water activities including water slides, and seeded hanging reefs which can be accessed by diving or viewed through below surface windows like in the large aquariums.

The center is a lake which is protected from the open sea. It is protected from large ocean predators by a circular net that hangs below, acting as a sea anchor and to hold the artificial reefs made with the Hilbertz process. From an island positioned in the center of the lake, the reefs, seeded with endagered species, will be a breeding ground for replenishing reefs world wide. This vessel will also be a deep ocean marine research and renewable energy research center. It will utilize solar electric and wave generators. 500,000 square feet will be set aside for educational purposes, so there will be a lot of thoughtful purpose and energy as a part of the community. Like a college town.

Well, I see your point, but do we really want all that noise? I think we get transportation from high speed cat ferries, cruise ships, private vessels and helicopters in an emergency.

OTEC actually only makes sense on a floating vessel in the tropics. (But the tropics would be a good place to put one of these. Then you get nice weather.) Because the huge pipes required have a straight run to the 3000 foot depth necessary to pump cold water without too much parasitic losses in the pipes. These guys figured it out more than 20 years ago. Plus as I said earlier the 100 megawatt plant generates 3,000,000 gallons of potable fresh water daily. http://www.seasolarpower.com/

Being a toroid, the ship could be built in uniform manageable sections and floated to their assembly point. The Dutch are already doing such huge maritime construction projects for making underwater automotive tunnels.

A second smaller toroid spaced at a distance and separated from the ship by laced spoke-like ropes and hydraulically coupled to the main hull could capture wave energy by using pumped water to compress air bladders in the very bottom deck. The second (wave generation) ring can also be where other vessels tie on. Their mass can add to the energy capture.

Any thoughts on the best materials for something like this? I was thinking composites because you can make molds for essentially identical sections which get customized in place. But aluminum would be good or maybe ferro cement.

How about free mooring for a week to the outside of the ship?

 

There are two kinds of people in this world - Those who live life enjoy life and get on with it and every body around them. They go to sea!

There are those who talk a lot, think a lot do damn all, have all sorts of minor predjucies and generally are miserable because they do not understand the K.I.S.S. principal. They do not go to sea!

simple really

 

Thus...

Hello...

The simple and stupid go to sea...

I have forgotten the question...

SH.

 

Obviously you've never been to sea - your ancestors no doubt did when we deported them, but prison ships don't count!

Communicating is going out the window, methinks. The message is simple to seafares - landlubber!

 

Hello...

I have never been to Looes either where I shot these photos... http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/3238/sort/1/cat/500/page/2 ...

Or to Camden lock on High Street in London or to Little Venice same... http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/3235/sort/1/cat/500/page/2 ..

I never did go to Copenhagen to shoot photos of those Schooners... http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/3230/sort/1/cat/500/page/3...

And I am truly a land lover... http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/2861/sort/1/cat/500/page/4 ...

I don't huck 60 hours a week refitting a Norwegian trawler into a silk purse...http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/2902/sort/1/cat/500/page/4 ...

And I only started sailing 21 years ago in a Parker 505... http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/2541/sort/1/cat/500/page/6 ...

You have the wrong guy officer...

Cheers - have a Royal Pint and Pastie on me...

SH.

 

Free mooring for a week... count me in! Hopefully I will have shed the land lubber life by then and can roam about on my 40 foot sportfishing sail cat. I'm all for the neutral flag as well, being disgusted with politicians, beurocrats, legislated safety, loss of individual freedoms, exhorbitant taxes (Boston Tea Party anyone?) and the American way of life spiraling down the commode in the name of higher stock returns. Let's call the community "Independence" in honor of the American Founding Fathers who are all rolling over in their graves in disgust. Oh, right. We were supposed to keep politics out of the forums. I'll take me forty lashes now mateys.

 

Perhaps it would be nice to be able to flag one's ship with the U.N. and not have to associate with any one country. So many different feuding governments around that it can be hard to choose one's own way of life.... flag your ship in the US and your registration fees go towards bombing civilians overseas; flag it in Libya and your fees go towards soldiers to keep the peasants in line; etc, etc..... Freedom of the seas seems to be a thing of the past.

 

But back to the sea-city thing....
In the tropics, OTEC might be viable. But I'm not sure I'd want to be there in storm season. Riding out a hurricane is not my idea of a good time. New Orleans would probably agree with me on that count. But if you can find an area with enough temperature differential that doesn't get too nasty a cyclone, it might be pretty good. Also, in about 5 years, polymer solar cells will be up to 30% efficiency and down to about a tenth of their current cost if current trends continue. Perhaps large-scale solar? Farms of cells floating behind the vessel/city?
I wouldn't be too eager to be moored to the outside of one of these things, but the toroid shape would give a lagoon in the middle that would be calm. (In anything less than 200-footers, a kilometre-wide toroid would be essentially solid land.)

 

funny i was thinking of a euro flag but UN should be even better
its a pitty freedom in general seems to be a thing of the past
but no politics here or the whip comes out i hear

 

Everything you say would be true, except for the existence of..........
The Pacific High. No I am not talking about Maui Wowie, but a permanent weather feature of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California. See the map attached.

The Pacific High (or anti-cyclone... it's the opposite of a hurricane). A place where the water is flat, the sky is blue, the winds are minor to non-existent, and it is eerily quiet with no echoes whatsoever. And it is the largest concentration of ocean collected solar energy on the planet. And it is in international waters. It's kind of like the earth's anologue to the red spot on Jupiter. No one has claimed it or settled it. It is on average between 500 and 1000 miles in diameter.

Let's see, we got 10,000 Boatdesign.net members.... If we each chipped in a hundred bucks....

But if you have a sailboat, you'll have to motor in.

 

Hi everybody

This whole idea sounds quite Verneian (as in Jules Verne) to me.
(Maybe Bill Gates can afford it. Give him a call.)

I had a story concept a few years back about a zillionaire who builds an ocean liner and bequeaths it to the UN. Shortly after its launched, commisioned, and on its shakedown cruise, the UN is evicted from New York and ends up dissolving. The officers, bureaucrats and crew suddenly find themselves lost at sea. For various reasons, they cannot return to their various home countries.

The ship JOZEF CONRAD travels about the globe, sometimes doing humanitarian work (because they want to) and sometimes transporting troops (because they have to). The setting is in a global distopia whre global corporate capitalism has failed (remember Soviet Communism?) and the world, with its disintegating climate and unchecked polution, has turned into an all against all as nations and fractions of former nations fight over whats left of global resources.

The ships crew and compliment are in a constant struggle to keep thier bunkers full and their galleys stocked as they go about the world as unarmed knights of peace trying to bring hope back to a beleagered planet.

Mighty cheerful stuff, eh.

Hardly the makings of aTV series.

Bob

 

Here's a good word for the day --

Vacilando

 

I'm not sure I'd pick Tristan Jones as an exemplar. The guy had serious problems with telling the truth. Even though he apparently had enough real adventures to write about, he preferred making up stuff. Read Wayward Sailor by Anthony Dalton... but only if you can stand to see the feet of clay under the prostheses.

I like the Pacific High idea, but unfortunately the concept of "international waters" is essentially dead. Due to the war on drugs, the United States now has a policy of boarding any vessel it wants to, no matter where it is. It would be very easy for the government to extend that policy to those with which it disagreed for any reason, especially in these days of fear and paranoia. I'm sure an autonomous sea-going habitat could easily qualify as a "terrorist haven" if someone wanted to drum up a pretext.

Ray