The Seasteading Institute

Reply To: Lasse Birk Olesen

[quote=Lasse Birk Olesen]

I'm not saying you should build the seastead on the ocean. But building a seastead on land to handle 10 meter waves is a different story than building a seastead to handle 5 meter waves.

Waves are probably the single most powerful and price-raising force you have to deal with on the ocean. The energy carried by a wave increases by the square of it's height so just doubling the wave height from 5 to 10 meters results in quadrupling the factor of units of energy from 25 to 100! Your seastead has to be able to withstand this force. There have been reports of even large ships being, not just turned over, but crushed by waves.

There is no doubt that it will be an easier engineering task to design for calm waters and it will be much cheaper to build as well. This means that the ultimate goal of the Seasteading Outpost, to build a functional seastead for international waters, can be achieved sooner if it is built with direct access to calm international waters.

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I feel like I'm talking to a wall on this topic, so I'll address it one more time then I don't want to hear anything more about "wave height being a factor in Seastead Outpost location". Lasse, you are right about wave height being a HUGE factor in seastead design. Seasteads I imagine will need to be able to deal with very large waves as they will travel the globe. This is a factor for seastead design. This question has NOTHING to do with where a group of 'steaders settle to work on seasteading designs and technology.

Either way, the point is moot. Belize has one of the largest barrier reefs in the world sheltering her waters. Wave height rarely rises above 1 meter and is often at half that height. Further, we may be locating in a sheltered lagoon which opens into the caribbean sea (international waters access is mandatory), which further reduces waves in our operating area. The Caribbean in general has tons of "sheltered areas" due to the proliferation of islands so in the event of a storm we'll have several nooks to choose from to wait out the weather.

So to summarize: Wave height is a factor for seastead design and has nothing to do with the location of a seastead outpost. Even if this factor was determined to be an important one, Belize has low waves (especially where we're looking) so the point is moot either way. Now this thread can get back to the work of building a seastead outpost in Belize, I don't want to see anymore posts about wave height. Those posts should be directed to another thread like this one:

http://www.seasteading.org/interact/forums/engineering/structure-designs/defeating-waves-through-size

Personal questions should be directed to my private messages. Let's keep these threads focused on topic. Want to bring up another topic? Make a thread and post a link to it on this one if it is relevent.

Live Well!

-Jason

Reply To: Lasse Birk Olesen

[quote=Lasse Birk Olesen]

Pastor_Jason, from what you say it definitely sounds like Belize is a good place to do this. But I don't understand your reply to the wave issue which you posted on the blog. You wrote:

[quote]I think anyone talking about "wave issues" doesn't understand the idea of a seastead outpost. We're NOT in the ocean, it's on land. Once a seastead is made it can float to where-ever.

For the record, Belize doesn't have much waves. The country is loaded with lagoons and sports a fantasticly huge coral reef and series of atolls that serve as breakwaters. We've got plenty of space to float in "sheltered waters" down there.[/quote]

I replied:

[quote]Jason, these lagoons and atolls you mention, do they contain any international waters? The reason I suggested the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea is that they are both big enough to have international waters in them.

You say that the ultimate goal of this project is to build an oceanworthy seastead and send it to international waters. I'm just saying that getting this final step done will be easier in the Baltic or the Mediterranean rather than the Carribean, because the waves are significantly smaller. There may be other more important reasons to pick Belize anyway, but I don't think you've adressed this point yet.

[/quote]

Can I answer your question with a question?

What is it about less waves in the ocean that would make it easier to build a seastead? I assume that most of the construction of a large platform will be done on land and launched, similar to any other ocean going vessel. Waves don't even compute in the construction process. If waves are an issue, why not find a location near the doldrums... the ocean gets as flat as glass some days.

Belize is a good location for a seasteading outpost. The outpost will work on seastead technology and hopefully build a seastead. If you find Belize on a map you'll see that it is completely open to the caribbean sea. Once a seastead is built it can sail/float anywhere. As for "international waters", that's where we want seasteads to operate... not where we want to construct them.

It seems as though the problems you are looking at are putting the cart before the horse. Development of a seastead design and engineering issues need to come before worries about eventual location of the seastead (international waters and minimal wave issues are just some of the factors that will go into this decision). The purpose of a seastead outpost, like the one operating in SF Bay area, is to focus on developing seastead tech. Belize is a good spot for this.

Live Well!

-Jason

Reply To: Lasse Birk Olesen

[quote=Lasse Birk Olesen]

[quote=Patri]How is it international waters if it is 2km from an existing country? 12nm is 22 kilometers of territorial seas.[/quote]

I believe it's a special treaty signed to allow ships to pass from the Atlantic into the Baltic sea without having to enter territorial waters. Admittedly I just read about it on a personal homepage, but I've sent an e-mail to the Danish sea authorities to hear if they can confirm it. Will post here when I get a reply.[/quote]

I received a reply from the authorities and I was mistaken. The strait is governed according to the UN Law of the Seas Part 3 which means ships or platforms staying in the same place is under state jurisdiction.

Pastor_Jason, from what you say it definitely sounds like Belize is a good place to do this. But I don't understand your reply to the wave issue which you posted on the blog. You wrote:

[quote]I think anyone talking about "wave issues" doesn't understand the idea of a seastead outpost. We're NOT in the ocean, it's on land. Once a seastead is made it can float to where-ever.

For the record, Belize doesn't have much waves. The country is loaded with lagoons and sports a fantasticly huge coral reef and series of atolls that serve as breakwaters. We've got plenty of space to float in "sheltered waters" down there.[/quote]

I replied:

[quote]Jason, these lagoons and atolls you mention, do they contain any international waters? The reason I suggested the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea is that they are both big enough to have international waters in them.

You say that the ultimate goal of this project is to build an oceanworthy seastead and send it to international waters. I'm just saying that getting this final step done will be easier in the Baltic or the Mediterranean rather than the Carribean, because the waves are significantly smaller. There may be other more important reasons to pick Belize anyway, but I don't think you've adressed this point yet.

Reply To: Lasse Birk Olesen

[quote=Lasse Birk Olesen]

About Øresund: I wasn't thinking about blocking ship lines. If the international waters trail is 490 meter wide, a seastead could easily use some of it without blocking any ships. Because I doubt there are freighters this wide.

[/quote]

At least one ship either way. Then there are safety margins. Of course it 'could' work, technically, but it sounds like trouble.

Reply To: Lasse Birk Olesen

[quote=Lasse Birk Olesen]

While a shorter term goal of this project is to establish a community and build a small model for the lake, the ultimate goal is to build a seastead to launch in the ocean off the coast of Belize, right? Have you looked into the waves there?

From the coast of Belize there is wave fetch all the way from Africa. I think you will have very big waves which will make the seastead more expensive and harder to build.

An alternative could be going for a location with access to sheltered international waters like the Mediterranean Sea or the Baltic Sea. Next to the first, you could set up in a very inexpensive African country. Next to the latter, you could set up in a fairly inexpensive Eastern European country.

The Baltic Sea almost never have waves larger than 4 meters. In some locations they are usually around 0.5 meters while never above 3 meters. I've collected some info on the wave height in the Baltic here: http://wiki.seasteading.org/index.php/Ephemerisle:Location/Europe

Or, in the Øresund waters between Denmark and Sweden there is a 490 meter wide trail of international waters that freighters use to get to the Baltic countries. But the distance between the countries are only 4 km. This means you could be only 2 km away from two different coasts with two different cities but still be in international waters.

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Very good points in my opinion. Superior weather conditions, better connection to the real world, and still low expenses. The baltic region is supposedly very libertarian, which should facilitate our goals further.

Not sure about the latter point though: youd probably get in some sort of trouble if you start blocking shipping lines. International waters or not: people are going to get pissed.