Floating Islands
With
satellite phones it is becoming
reasonable to
vote with your feet
by living and working anywhere, even the ocean.
Traveling the ocean you don't have to pay property taxes or income taxes, which could save
many families more money than it cost to live on the ocean.
Our idea is to make a boat that is sort of a wide moving platform. It will be
solar powered for low operating costs. We are aiming for a price around
$100,000 for our first model. It will be much easier to operate than a sailboat. Much lower
cost to operate than either a fuel powered boat or a sailboat. It will be
so stable that we call it a "floating island" instead of a boat.
Basic design is a triangle with a leg coming from each point. Support cables
go from the end of each leg to the other 2 points on the triangle.
On the end of each of the 3 legs is a pontoon. Two of the pontoons are angled so that
they are in a straight line, one following in the wake of the other. The 3rd
pontoon is parallel to these. The pontoons have the same shape at each end and
can go either direction, which makes this a type of Proa.
Along with solar/electric it will also work well as a kite powered boat.
To stear we will move the kite attachment point forward or backwared.
So no rudder is needed.
Personal work
- Human IPO
- wavebreak design and experiments in waves
- writings on seastead wiki
- making vegetable oil from seaweed.
Seasteading
We liked the term Single Family Seastead but The Seasteading Institute has
been excluding anything less than 100 people from their seasteading contests
and focused all their effort on 100+ person seasteads. It is as if they
have defined seastead to mean more than 100 people. So we have decided to
call our designs Floating Islands. There is lots of good stuff in the
seastead wiki.
Amazingly, they don't even link to the wiki from their home page.
Solar Ships
There have been a number of
solar ships.
Communications
If you want to be 200+ miles from any other country,
communications is a bit tricky.
Troposcatter
Toposcatter can propogate signals using the troposphere.
It uses higher power and more complicated electronics.
Has been mostly used for military and offshore oil rigs.
Electronics are getting cheaper all the time, so not so expensive now..
- wikipedia on troposcatter
- TM-20 Troposcatter Modem by Radyne
- troposcatter intro
- another troposcatter product
- General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies troposcatter products
- Comtech Systems Troposcatter and
also here
Satellite
Satellite has a delay that is bothersome.
Fiber
Laying a fiber is expensive but could be done if economy can justify it.
Starting Your Own Country
Existing Country Sizes
Existing Cruise Ship Condos Plans
Cruise Ships for sale
Cruise Ships
Offhore Oil Industry
Catamarans
High-Tech boats
- Wam-V big so stable on the ocean but light and easy on fuel
- SeaPhantom Helicopter speed at powerboat price
- FLIP Ship - rotates into a stable parking position
Fast Catamaran Ferries
Other Ships / Barges
Note that a 400 foot long and 100 foot wide barge has 1 acre of surface area. Used these seem like
$2+ mil. Ocean front land on a nice taxhaven can cost you $2 mil/acre.
Condominiums - Residential cooperatives
Floating Islands
- Wikipedia on Floating Islands
- Spiral Island
Reishee Sowa - nets, soda bottles, dirt, and magrove trees
- Uros
Wikipedia Links
- Wikipedia on Ocean Colonization
- Wikipedia on Micronations
- Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States
Floating / Wavebreak tech / Wave Attenuators / Docks
Ocean Data, measurement, etc
Buoys and Floats
Sargasso Sea
Ocean, waves, fish, and Seaweed
Misc
Floating Houses
Marine Fenders
ISO Containers
We could have containers that we put on individual foam mats for
people to live in their own space, but that we could quickly load
onto a container ship to move if hurricane coming.
Simulation Software for floating structures
- AutoDesk Inventor - used for wam-v.com design
- bmtfm.com - consulting / engineering
- Abaqus Aqua add-on can do floating platform structures with wave loading 401-727-4200
www.abaqus.com
-
SAP 2000 - Computers & Structures Inc for simulating whole structures
Only on Windows
-
Pro/ENGINEER popular simulation software used on supercomputers
Can simulate structure, but also fatigue
Has a "Pro/Engineer Shipbuilding Solutions"
-
Calculix free unix Finite element simulation software
-
intergraph.com design, analysis, visualization
used in oceania.org images
more than 10 years ago
I/STRUCT - marine structures
I/FEM - finite element a
- cgFLOAT designing floating breakwaters - simulates wave load on simple pontoon structures
-
List of general purpose Finite Element codes
-
List of Finite Element codes for ship design
- Keywords: simulation, floating structures, marine architecture, naval architecture, ocean, waves, finite element, CAD, floating breakwaters, floating platform structures, ocean engineering, Wave Loading and Motion Responses, Water Wave Dynamics
- google
- Interesting software - hard to order in english
- globalmaritime.com - consultants for hire
- marintek
Structural Aluminum Plate
Steel Plate
- Cost is about $0.50/lb
- Steel Structures Painting Council
- Stainless is $2600 for 4 by 10' and 1/2 inch thick 866.5 lbs or $3/lb
- Clad Steel - stainless only on outside - interesting
When welding you have to first weld inside steel then outside stainless
So welding is at least twice as much work.
One place put cost at 70% of stainless steel
Seems like it should depend on thickness
Cable / Wire / Rope
- POLYPROPYLENE - strong and very cheap $0.11/foot for 4,000 lbs - floats
- SUPER POLYPROPYLENE - very strong and cheap
$0.11/foot for 4,600 lbs - floats
- Spectra Rope
- Spectra Rope - covered - pricing
- stainless steel wire
1/2 inch is 45.8 lbs per 100 feet and 20,520 lbs minimum break strength
5/8 inch is 71.5 lbs per 100 feet and 31,500 lbs minimum break strength
- word list
- 1/2 inch stainless steel is about $5.76/foot in 1000 foot lengths
If wires every 12 feet for 600 feet then 50 sets.
If each set is 4 wires of 120 feet average then 24,000 feet.
At $5.76/foot that is $138,240.
Marine Supplies
- wholesalemarine.com
- westmarine.com
Barge Runway
On Saba they have a runway with
1300 feet of which under 1000 are "usable". Getting a few big barges
and putting them together might be reasonable.
Could have a cable that planes hooked, and a catipult, to make it like a
normal aircraft carrier.
STOL Airplanes
With a
STOL airplane
you might use an even shorter runway. For 2 person airplane
a single 400 feet barge may be enough.
- Peterson 260SE 400 feet - Cessna conversion
- QuestAircraft.com Kodiak 700 feet - 1700 ft/min - 3325 lbs useful load - 1075 nm range - 8 passengers 2 crew
- mountain goat
The Mountain Goat can cruise at 160 MPH and
have a stall speed of under 30 MPH if lightly loaded and 40 MPH with load. It has a
range of 800 miles at 155 MPH. Seems like trying for 10+ years to get investors to
pay for FAA certification.
- Sky-Maxx
- others
- Anatonov An-3 biplane - 12 passengers or 4,000 lbs cargo -
Antonov says 9 passengers
and 500 meter runways
About $500,000
- DeHavilland DHC6 Twin Otter
1000 foot runway - 19 passengers - 150 nm range
- Islander500 meters with 6 passengers
- STOL CH701Sport Pilot Kit Aircraft - ~100 foot takeoff
More than 400 flying.
- STOL CH8014 person version of CH701
- German Stork 1936 - under 100 foot sometimes - could fly as slow as 32 MPH and cruise about 100 MPH
There is
more info on barges as runways.
Could always use a parachute or grab a cable to shorten landing distance. And a launcher could
be used for takeoff. So you could sort of make your own aircraft carrier infrastructure.
Novel ways to land airplanes
The Brodie Flycatcher uses a cable.
Seaplanes - Flying Boats
Living on the ocean it might be possible to have wavebreaks
around an area to make a sort of seaplane runway. Might only
need to get rid of the chop and not the swells. In WW2
flying-boats were used to rescue downed airmen. So landing
in the open ocean is possible. Landing on a part of the
Sargasso Sea with any kind of wavebreak should be almost easy.
For a small seaplane a catipult launch could be easy as well.
So even if waves were rough you could run to a doctor if needed.
"Various methods were used to quiet the waves for seaplanes. Warships
that carried scout planes would make a fast, wide turn to calm the
water, and the scout landed in the calm spot. The Germans set up a
system for crossing the South Atlantic where the seaplane was refueled
at sea. The refueling boat laid down oil to calm the water, then towed
a mat behind it, onto which the seaplane taxied and was brought up
close for refueling. " from rec.aviation.military
All Composite Flying Boats Available Now
I like composites since salt water does not seem to bother them.
I like "flying boats" since add-on floats have lots of drag and hurt
gas milage and range.
- Seastar Amphibian also
US distributor and
Edra Aeronautica in Brazil (english/airplanes/super-petrel).
paturi in Brazil
169 sold, 500 hours to put together, they can sell finished plane for $60,000, can make in Brazil and get pilots license too, biplane
- seawind.biz
Now under $400,000 but seems used to be
under $200,000 4/5 seat, 980/1,460 miles
there is a
seawind pilots site
-
Glass Goose Biplane amphib - 2 seats, 1,100 miles
Started as mods to SeaHawk
has a yahoo group
Other seaplanes
- Antilles Seaplanes is making an updated Grumman G21 - 9 passenger plane
but has been
coming soon since 2005
- Seastar Aircraft looks like seawind - not sure how real - not much on site
- Lakestar Aircraftlooks like seawind - not sure how real - not much on site
- lsa-aero Freedom Amphibian - Spain
- Shearwater/Seaflight Composite but seems still in development
- Searey part fiberglass, part cloth, some rivets, ...
-
SeaDragon 1/2-seat, 480 miles, only pictures of 1 with no wheels not flying or in water
- SeaHawk
SeaHawk instructions did not explain removing peal before
attaching wings
because it was biplane with big alerons, pilots flew
after losing a wing.
- Osprey by Sirius AviationWood flying boat - more than 500 flying
- Aerocat composite with composite floats
- aeroadventuresinc.com / sea-plane.com Ultralight flying boats and floatplanes
-
Coot
- Republic seabee
-
Seaplane Manufacturers
- aircraftdealer.com seaplanes
-
Lake has made aluminum seaplanes for 50 years only FAA approved in production today
Names like Lake Buccaneer, Lake RENEGADE, Lake SEA FURY, Lake SEAWOLF
Some used prices here
- seaplanes.org
-
List of flying boats and seaplanes
- Spencer Aircar wood - about 40 flying
- Widgeon WW2 twin engine flying boat
- PBY Catalina1935+ sizeable plane
- Mermaid
- airshark kit, 4-seat, 200 mph, 2000 mile range
- Hydroplane.ru 2 small pull engines above high wing
- Amfibie StorchSweden - comes with floats
- Avidair.com - Airdale Flyer Companytraditional looking floatplane
- page with bunch of seaplane pictures and des
Seaplanes other
- 329 Amphibian Design for catamaran float with 2 people in each half
Interesting design but I worry that where the spray from the 2 hulls
hits together some will splash up into the engine. If the front of the
hulls came back, and the engine forward to ballance, some catamaran design
could be made to work (ducted fan or no).
- global plane search.com find planes for sale - glass goose, seawind, etc
- rec.aviation.homebuilt
- InterFlightOcean.com seaplane design firm - interesting designs