what do you think of SeaSteading?
Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by Squidly-Diddly, Feb 20, 2019.
Likes: 13, Points: 18
dsigned O.R.C. Hunter
midlifecrisis said: ↑
Technology enables economies that wasn't affordable before.
I have no idea if this would lower maintenance cost enough to make such things possible, and possibly the concrete gets heavier in this exposure with seawater, making it not work at all.
But a self healing hull would be a neat thing to build your seastead, or even fancy houseboat out of.
Roman concrete is not the current state-of-the-art in concrete mix design. While I've been out of the game long enough that there are probably some advances I'm unaware of, I can give you a run-down of what you could build.
So-called "Roman" concrete makes use of another reaction that's different from the reaction in Portland cement called a pozzolanic reaction. Details aside, what's important for our purposes is that you can add about 15% pozzolanic material in place of portland cement and get something like the best of both worlds. Also of significance are two other advances directly related to concrete: fiberglass rebar and polyvinyl alcohol fibers. The former more or less eliminates the problems associated with ion infiltration with standard steel rebar: rust. When iron (steel) rusts, the volume expands significantly, which is basically the end of your concrete. So fiberglass ensures that even if your concrete does allow ions to interact with your reinforcement, it's not going to royally mess your concrete up.
PVA fibers address two of the biggest historical flaws of concrete: brittleness and strength in tension (which are related issues). It works much the same way as other chopped fibers do with one major difference being that it has a really strong chemical bond with concrete, so pull out strength becomes more or less a non-issue. This is something of an oversimplification, but I think for the sake of understanding how it benefits the concrete it's "good enough". One final note about PVA fibers is that they contribute to the ability of the concrete to self-heal by essentially keeping it together, and allowing the concrete to re-bond.
One final area of interest is lightweight concretes. There are a few different ways to achieve this, including ultra-lightweight aggregates and foaming agents (making aircrete), but the upshot is that you could build in bouyancy chambers that would make the vessel very difficult to sink.
dsigned, Mar 1, 2019
Likes: 76, Points: 28, Legacy Rep: 10
Location: Columbus, GA
JamesG123 Senior Member
dsigned said: ↑
Setting aside political and sociological feasibility, I think the designs as proposed are generally ill conceived. If I were building a large platform that needed to be seaworthy, I think I would go with a panamax (or super panamax) version of a swath hull. I think this is advantageous not simply if the seastead wants to go somewhere (e.g. to run away from a hurricane), but also simply if it's anchored, it allows the ship to orient itself to provide a minimum drag profile. Current panamax cruise ships can house roughly 3000 people for a non-trivial length of time. I'm guessing full time living (without regularly taking on large amounts of provisions) would decrease this number somewhat, but with some sort of non-fossil fuel based propulsion (e.g. a combination of wind, solar and nuclear) I think you could conceivably have a long-term living situation for 1500 people. While that's well short of something like a 5-6 million person city, it's significantly larger than anything larger than a retirement community currently, and there's no reason you couldn't build a bigger one, it just would have to stay in deeper water.
I think trying to colonize Antarctica would be more practical. lol
The extreme costs of such an effort requires extreme motivation/justification. About the only things that would qualify would be some kind of military advantage (Chinese SCS bases) or the extraction of some rare and valuable natural resources (oil, deep sea minerals etc.). Surely not an old folks home.
This then drives how you actually go about doing so. Floating? Submerged? Steel? Concrete? Its all speculation and a million variables engineering and business-wise that have to be considered.
JamesG123, Mar 1, 2019
JamesG123 said: ↑
You're mistaken about the old folks home:
Senior Living at Sea | The Cruise Web https://cruiseweb.com/senior-living-at-sea/
Thats not an old folks home. That is the cruise lines filling the excess capacity on their ships.
Likes: 156, Points: 63, Legacy Rep: 304
Location: SF bay
Squidly-Diddly Senior Member
Most of SF Bay would be covered in houseboats, floating roads, parking lots and 7/11 stores if not for NIMBY laws.
And that could include full water/sewer etc hookups and insurance.
Squidly-Diddly, Mar 1, 2019
Squidly-Diddly said: ↑
That is an artifact of the distorted real-estate market and a bunch of marinas in a sheltered bay does not a seastead make IMO.
Likes: 1, Points: 3
midlifecrisis Junior Member
So this information was only lost if you were a geologist or archaeologist, but working civil engineer in marine environments have been familiar with much of this stuff for years.
However I was in Seattle when the Lake Washington Bridge sunk, so I know that the amount of stupidity needed to cause something to sink is in great supply.
midlifecrisis, Mar 1, 2019
I'm thinking if allowed to "run wild" (with only sewer/garbage being required) the developments would organically start edging into deeper and rougher waters (cheaper but more problematic "real estate") and The Market (including Underwriters) would figure out how to solve problems.
Although going from sheltered swallow flats of SF Bay to just outside the Golden Gate a pretty huge leap. But I could see anchoring old cruise ships about a 1/4 mile out and running ferry service to SF.
Setting aside the fact that there is at least one cruise ship I found in about five minutes of googling that does indeed cater exclusively to people looking to retire abord full time, you're also neglecting the fact that you're simply wrong. Condos are for sale on cruise ships and are being actively marketed at people as an alternative to a traditional retirement community. I don't know if you've priced those kinds of places lately, but suffice to say a lot of people are paying for resorts anyway, and a cruise ship is able to be competitive with all inclusive resorts (which is what a lot of old folks home are, in effect).
I'm not exactly in the market. I guess it never occurred to you that since '08 the cruise lines have had entire ships worth of excess capacity. Marketeers baiting Boomers into pissing away their children's inheritance or what could be better used for charity on living in "luxury", at least until the money runs out, then they will wind up in real old folks homes where their social security only gets them a shared room and lukewarm food.
KarlH Junior Member
I think trying to colonize Antarctica would be more practical.
Already claimed. It's MINE.
KarlH, Apr 8, 2019
Location: Belgium ⇄ The Netherlands
Angélique aka Angel (only by name)
Oh well, then I claim the earth's waters that yet are regarded to be international.
And of course I also claim all planets and space outside of the earth.
BTW, why is this planet called earth, while most of its surface consists out of water ?
Fan of the Tally Ho project by the Sampson Boat Co.
boatdesign.net/threads/tally-ho-holding-out-for-a-hero.57334
Angélique, Apr 8, 2019
Likes: 138, Points: 43
Dejay Senior Newbie
Oh I love the idea of some kind of SeaSteading utopia. Crashes with reality hard though. Damn reality! And I think such a community would have to adopt some social democratic principles in order to flourish.
There was an article posted here recently by Lim Soon Heng of the "Society of Floating Solutions" (love that name) about naval architecture to replace land reclamation.
Maybe business cases could be made for boat building, loading / unloading
Or for power generation from solar and wind farms (kite sails?). Maybe hydrogen production.
Or maybe in the future we'll see the technology to sequester carbon out of seawater which could make a business case.
There has to be a reason or motivation for doing something other than just because you can. For most people anyway and especially for groups of any size.
I do think this speaks to a primal motivation of humans to settle new "lands". It doesn't have to make sense, it's just what we do. People are willing to go on a one way trip to mars!
At least with crowdfunding, if you could make a plausible business case and put a good presentation on e.g. kickstarter for something that aligns with the values of enough people, you would get a lot of funding just because it's cool. Or maybe for a 2 week long stay with the ability to "buy in".
It would have to produce something or offer services and be profitable in order to work, but with crowdfunding it wouldn't have to be more profitable than doing the same thing on land.
But it's probably all way too expensive.
Dejay, Apr 8, 2019
I'm not sure SeaSteading is more romantic than cruising, and here's eg a typical day out of the life of a cruiser.
Dejay likes this.
Sorry I clicked on the link but it was too long and boring to read
Well yeah, reality...
Traveling on a cruising sailboat is definitely more romantic and interesting! I think the appeal for this would be more of a sustainable and somewhat independent community. It should be large enough to be significantly cheaper than cruising and allows for economies of scale and working together for maintenance and building and maintaining things. And more entertainment. You'd need a school and doctors too. Less of an adventure.
< Prop pitch (again...) | Vertical Sailing Craft to circumnavigate Antarctica at 1 knot >
Atlantian Piercer (Seasteading Ship Concept)
IvoryO, Sep 28, 2018, in forum: Boat Design
cracked_ribs