Who's new
Who's online
There are currently 0 users and 30 guests online.
Recent user registrations
Registered Users
Proof of concept seastead.
Mon, 06/09/2008 - 20:05 — nx2059
I'm of the opinon that the first major goal of the sea steading movement should be to build a proof of concept seastead from existing technologies. Instead of designing scratch built spar platforms, why not buy a used oil platform, or cargo ship? Attach renewable power sources to it (solar, wind, wave, etc..) and setup greenhouses to see if self sufficiency is possible. You can buy used cargo ships for several hundred thousand dollars, about the price of an expensive house. With this approach we could have a working seastead for an individual within the near future.
why ?
"why not buy a used oil platform, or cargo ship?"
Because it is still way too expensive even at several hundred thousand dollars, especially for a single individual.
If ferrocement is so cheap
If ferrocement is so cheap and wonderful, why doesn’t everyone use it?
Ah, a healthy skepticism - excellent. The answer is that ferrocement has a poor strength:weight ratio, hence is poorly suited to mobile applications like ships. Most marine structures are mobile and care about weight. There was a ferrocement boat movement in the seventies in the US (and earlier in New Zealand), and quite a number of ferrocement hulls have been built. But stronger, lighter materials like steel (for larger boats) and fiberglass (for smaller ones) are much more common.
However, non-mobile marine structures, like piers and docks, often are made out of concrete. So are some oil rigs, like the mammoth Troll A. So it’s not that ferrocement perfect for everything, just for large, non-mobile marine structures.
The problem is that a seastead isn't going to get cheaper. Oil rigs like the TrollA are HUGE, NON-FLOATING structures. If making a floating spar structure out of ferrocement was fesable and cheaper than steel for deep ocean structures, then all spars would be made of ferrocement.
Ferrocement is used, just not in spars
Ferrocement is much more common in tension leg platforms than spars, but then I've always favored multiple legged platforms over the single spar design anyway. I believe the use of metal over concrete in existing spars is due to the bending stress issues and additional building difficulty.
A single individual on a
A single individual on a "seastead" is a crazy person, not a bold statement of alternative lifestyle.
Government
If you don't have individual seasteading units, then you are going to have people in close proximity with no way out. With that being the case, you are going to get the same governmental problems associated with living on land. The great benefit of living on the sea is that you can live by others while still maintaining your independence.
Excellent point
That's a very good point. My initial objection was more aimed at spending all the research and development money for a single-person seastead. I think the incremental approach presented in the book is sounder: build a small scale demonstrator for mechanics, then a "baystead" demonstrating durability for a year with some basic utilities installed in, then try a hand at proper full-scale seasteads.
they already have single-person seasteads
they are called 'sailboats'. lots of people live on them (individually or with a couple other people) for years at a time.
i envision that most seasteaders will also own sailboats, so they can escape into their own space as desired.
Used Cargo Ships
Could you direct me to where you found a used cargo ship for a few hundred thousand dollars?
Cargo Ships for Sale
www.maritimesales.com/Ships%20for%20Sale.htm
Greece, for merely 1 example
http://portlandyachts.org/privatelabel/listing/pl_boat_full_detail.jsp?boat_id=1837156&listing_id=70472
There are quite a few ships in the under one million range of many different types from yachts to retired naval vessels, fishing vessels, steel, wood, powered, unpowered... In various states of repair from ready to live aboard and sail the oceans to needing TLC or new engines and complete haul-out.
The problem with a cargo
The problem with a cargo ship is that it is a ship. A proof of conept can be done any place, land or water as far as "off the gird" goes.
The problem with a ship is it has no width, and while a ship can move out of hte way of storms, or turn into them, a seastead (of any reasonable size) can not.
Remember we have to live hundreds of miles from other places, nations don't just let youset up shop in their territorial back yard. This means being in a place where there are storms and no harbors. We;'d need the "land" deck to be 50 or so feet aboe the water to not have the entire platform flooded by a storm (and possibly sink).
The other issue is of course safety. If you are on a ship (and living in international sea law) anyone with a rowboat and a drum of gasoline could sink the entire project. Make sure everyone is on their medication.
A proof of concept would need to be a scale model, not a non-realiztic test case If that mean concrete the walls should stil be 4 or 5 feet thick, with flooding/stop flooding chambers, etc.
Go for it!
If you find this route appealing, go do it! We're in favor of people trying many different approaches to seasteading. I happen to think that boats have significant disadvantages, as discussed here, but I'm happy to be proved wrong :).
My personal judgement is that the "best" structures, not counting cost (safest, most comfortable, most supportive of permanent dwelling by a community of people, seem like a new way of life, set us up for long-run growth) are large platform seasteads. But they are also the most expensive ($50M). If I fail to get funding for one, then I will fall back to a used cruise or cargo ship (Say $10M). I can't get that much funding, then I will fall back to Wayne's personal seasteads (say design & construction for < $1M). If I can't even get that much money, then and only then will I look into permanent dwelling on a boat.
But I encourage anyone with more urgency and a lower budget to go convert a boat for full-time ocean dwelling. There are some resources for this in our book's bibliography. If we get a big seastead built, there'll be a dock for you :).
Slightly Different Viewpoint
As Patri already knows, I have a slightly different viewpoint...
I think that a thriving seastead community will consist of a variety of different sized seasteads. There will be small seasteads for individual families and small offices/stores, medium sized seasteads for small businesses, medium sized stores, churches, etc. and large seasteads for hotel/resorts, shopping malls, large businesses, etc. Some people will show up in boats and used cargo ships. The aggregation of all these floating structures will form the floating community. I expect that design of the governance/legal/taxation system for such an aggregate community (where anybody can leave at any time) to be a very interesting.
I think it will be hardest to engineer a larger cost efficient seastead, so kicking off the large one first seems like a reasonable place to start. I see no reason not to engineer the smaller and medium sized structures in parallel with the large one though. A number of us have been focusing on the small structures already. The medium sized structures have not been getting much attention yet. I hope that will change over the next few monthes.
Just a slightly different spin on things.
One of benefits of small
One of benefits of small seasteads is property rights enforcement.
If the big seastead is owned by communnity, we'll have socialism with all its "benefits": The tragedy of the commons, rules, regulations and supervisers to make tenants care about the seastead, stratification of the community. So instead of enforcement of private property we would have political struggle for control over communal property. Yak.
If the big seastead is owned by a single capitalist, the tenants would have no insentives to enforce his property rights. To make tenants care about his property he would need rules and supervisers. The tenants would hate the rich bastard that charge such a high rent and forces his whims on the community. Even on land, such alienation and resent can lead to democratic revolution and nationalisation. Who would protect the capitalist in the open seas? He would have to appeal to external powers, with their Navy. They would help, but in exchange for following their rules and regulations.
So, whoever owns big seasted, we won't have private property rights, and we would have all state problems we wanted to escape.
While in a modular seasted, where everyone owns his detachable module, the property rights are enforced automatically, without socialism, politics and appealls to external powers. So I would vote for your "spin of things".
To cut cost of a family seastead, one can make them semi-autonomous: they would have only basic facilities and would normally float in vicinity of some bigger one, "the node", which would have more stuff: helicopter, doctor, grocery etc.
P.S. There seems to be a bug in the forum: while editing "delete" button sometimew works as "backspace".
boats vs. seasteads
The way I see it, there are two major hurdles facing the seasteading project: engineering problems and political/legal/sociological/economic problems. These are both major challenges. It's in keeping with the overall incrementalist approach of the project to try to solve these separately. Thus it makes sense to start an ocean based society first on board a ship, start working out all the details of how to run the society, how to make money, how to defend against pirates, etc. If those problems can be solved, we can then proceed to construct seasteads (which I agree are much better suited to long term habitation).
FWIW I and others agree.
FWIW I and others agree. Seasteads are technically cool, but probably unnecessary for trying to establish businesses and residences at sea. Ships could also be used for that.
Business Models and Engineering
Actually, coming up with business models that work is probably the next area of seastead risk mitigation.
Currently, the business models that work on the ocean are 1) fishing, 2) cargo shipping, 3) oil/gas exploration, 4) tourism (think cruise ships, sail boats, etc.) and 5) military.
We need to come up with new business models like 1) aquaculture, 2) ecco tourism, 3) low regulation medical surgery centers, 4) copyright free libraries, 5) low pollen environment for people with severe allergies, 6) oceanography research stations, 7) low tax off shore work ares for information workers, etc. I do not know what all of the business models are. Many of these business models can be tested by simply purchasing a used cargo boat and outfitting it for the task at hand.
It seems reasonable to me to do both engineering and business model testing in parallel. A used cargo boat can but used for a few years and then resold without much depreciation.
The political stuff will start to come after the we get a number of people living on the seastead full time. That should be a bunch of fun.
Military isn't really a
Military isn't really a business, unless one had a privately-owned navy. Military is more like a government-owned monopoly on force. However security is something that perhaps could be done privately. An example might be to provide private security escorts for ships passaging the Somali coast, strait of Malacca, Persian Gulf, etc. Anyone know the conventions on privately-armed ships?
The Strait of Malacca is so narrow that it's probably all in someone's territorial waters, so arms may be a problem, but in general passage should be allowed. You'd also be encountering police and military ships passing through there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Malacca
Malacca and Somalia are known for pirate activity. Apaprently the governments surrounding the Strait of Malacca have stepped up pirate patrols, and pirate attacks are decreased, but they're still happening.
High-pressure firepumps (water pumps) could perhaps be used to drive pirates away, but most big commercial ships already have those. The problem with firehoses on most ships would be the need to aim them manually. The pirates could simply shoot at the person aiming the firehose. A remotely aimed firehose, like on a fireboat would be much harder for pirates to defeat.
Googled some articles about private security escorts for ships. Naturally the government of Malaysia doesn't allow heavily armed escorts since it would actually be useful.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45535
http://www.marinelog.com/DOCS/NEWSMMV/2005may02.html
http://www.eaglespeak.us/2005/04/malacca-no-private-security-escorts.htm...
Military is a catagory
All I was trying to do, is identify broad categories of boats and structures on the high seas. Clearly, there are military boats on the high seas; hence, the category. I agree, the military is not a business in the traditional sense. The people who construct military boats and the people who operate them (military personal) clearly make a living do so, but that is not particularly relevant.