You will connect 50 hexatoons in a rhomboid shape to form a “base” platform 130 sq m, to start. Then you will keep adding and connecting more hexatoons on TOP of that, so the structure will grow multidirectional, in beam, length, freeboard and draft, basically, ad infinitum, if you want. At some point, you said that you will “ballast” it by putting rocks on top, and “terraform’ a little. Pls. correct me if I’m wrong. If so,..
IMHO, the following will be your best bet:
- Limit your growth to a certain size, around 200′ LOA per platform, I would say.
- Plan for several (multiple) platform of that certain size.
- Since they are modular, you can raft them up or float them separate, as an arhipelago, in 100-300 yards distance of each other.
Why this:
- In the initial phase when you are growing from 50 hexatoons to “X” @ 200′ you can DP this structure using your crew boat as a tow boat.
- When you are done with the initial phase and 1 such module is completed, install an engine on it.
- I know I said a diesel, previously. On second thoughts, you would be better off with electric thrusters. (if you can find some good, used cheap ones – they tend to be expensive,..:) The reason for that is that anyway you need a genset aboard. You can buy a little bigger one in terms of output so you can run the thrusters and have enough power for the onboard consumtion. In general, generators are much more economical then an engine in terms of fuel consumption. In the future, if business is good, buy some solar panels, wind generators, inverters and power and DP will become free, one day.
- Repeat process to any numbers of modules you can afford to built this way.
- Raft them up or run them separate, up to you.
No matter how many you build, now you’re set. If you raft them up as a huge floating island, your individual thrusters can keep DP it, no matter how big. Depending on the wind and sea conditions, you might be able to DP by just running 30% of your numbers of thrusters if calm, thus saving money. Otherwise, it will cost you a fortune to keep that baby in place,…If you run them separated, it’s self explanatory.
I would be very carefull how much weight (rocks) I would put on top of these hexatoons. @ 1.7 tons for 50 they are light. You might want to at least water ballast the bottom layers in order to lower the metacenter a bit.
i got sumthing even better than that.
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X,… I hope you understand the size of that structure. 3.5 km x 1 km,…and that would be built of steel. Since your hexatoons are much lighter, you are looking at 5 if not 7,8 times the size of that, and maybe billion$ in the making….Just want to make sure we are on the same wavelength here…. Where is the money coming from? That’s a lot of farmed fish to sell in 3 lifetimes,…
I think you’re missing out the part where these things are stacked to increase buoyancy. We’re looking at 1,200,000(-/+10%) hexatoons stacked 6 layers deep in a rough upside down trapezoid shape. At 15kg per hexatoon, and adding the concrete and granite, you’ve got the 40 million ton figure. And no, if you look carefully at my later posts, you can estimate the final cost at about $100,000,000.
King Shannon of the Constitutional Monarchy of Logos.
my design that was on the km scale was 10km by over 6km. i concluded it would be in the trillions of dollars to build. $100M is hard to believe for anything on that size scale.
____________
My work
“Leadership and do-ership are not the same thing”
shredder7753 2 years, 1 month ago.
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