What is Seasteading

If you use the concepts of Homesteading and take them one step further to where there is no country, government, or even a continent to call home, these are the extremes that face the new pioneers of Seasteading. The concept was developed more than a decade or so ago and is starting to become a reality. What is Seasteading?

Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea, called seasteads, designed to be environmentally responsible, with a large autonomy negotiated with host governments outside their territory which is 12 nautical miles.

There are all kinds of possibilities along with the dangers that all pioneers face. Whether they were crossing the plains to California or the Atlantic Ocean to the New World.

 

What is Seasteading?

 

On January 29, 2019, the first Seastead structure was assembled off the coast of Phuket, Thailand built by the company Ocean Builders. The single-family seastead, named XLII (pronounced “ixly”), is a spar design seastead where a small fiberglass platform sits atop a large steel spar in the ocean.

The steel spar is 20 meters long and 2 meters in diameter at 14mm in thickness. The bottom is ballasted with concrete and sand. The spar can be filled with water to lower it during calm weather and it can be pumped out to bring the height up so that the platform is positioned high above the waves.

This seastead is able to withstand 5-meter waves but will be sitting in the Andaman Sea where the average wave height is half a meter. The Spar was installed first then the Platform was brought out to the 12 plus nautical miles off the coast of Thailand. The whole project was built by a company called Ocean Builders. The dream belongs to a group of Silicon Valley investors and buddies, Patri Friedman and Peter Theil who developed The who have big plans for the earth’s oceans. 

Ocean Builders is a team of engineering focused entrepreneurs who have a passion for seasteading and are willing to put the hard work and effort forward to see that it happens. Ocean Builders is merely building the homes for the future seasteaders to live in. This is our focus and our mission. We do not make any judgments as to what types of communities or societies may grow from these seasteads, merely that we make it so that they can exist in the first place.

Under International law this puts us just outside of the territorial waters of Thailand but within their 200 nautical mile excusive economic zone. This means that we are not subject to Thailand laws other than those that deal with their natural resources drilling for oil, mining, etc. and no interfering with their customs and can’t act as a way to get goods and people into Thailand to get around their import and visa laws. As well as following the law of the sea which prevents “egrevious acts” such as murder, slave trade, etc.

 

   Seasteading Institute

 

The concept of Seasteading came in 2008  from Patri Friedman, who began highlighting his idea in Silicon Valley to build Seastead communities where you could essentially “vote with your home”.

This would allow for more experimentation in governance structures and advance governance in the same way that cell phones progress due to consumers having the ability to choose their cell phones. Patri teamed up with Peter Thiel and founded The Seasteading Institute (TSI). The idea of a floating seastead went from a single residence to a floating city or community.

Seasteading is building floating societies with significant political autonomy. Nearly half the world’s surface is unclaimed by any nation-state, and many coastal nations can legislate seasteads in their territorial waters. Together they looked at different designs and financing to make it happen. Their ideas were so big they couldn’t get things off the ground. Early designs used oil rig structures.

In 20012 the idea of using phases to kick off the project was developed. building in a protected waterway of a host nation under a special economic zone as a Phase 1 approach. This would be followed by Phase 2 where the seastead is moved 12 nautical miles out into the ocean where the seastead could enjoy relative sovereignty, barring oil and mineral rights. The third and final phase would be to move out into the open ocean 200 nm out to sea in international waters.

 

 

This is the Pilot Seastead which is a floating home lived in for a short time by an American man and his Thai partner on the Andaman Sea, off Phuket island, Thailand. Thai authorities raided Thursday, April 18, 2019, the floating home lived by the couple who sought to be pioneers in the seasteading movement, which promotes living in international waters to be free of any nation’s laws.

But then, a cloud in paradise for the prototype built by Ocean Builders and the couple as Thailand’s Navy claims they endangered national sovereignty, by living there which is an offense punishable by life imprisonment or death.

Thailand’s navy said American Chad Elwartowski and Supranee Thepdet his partner from Bankok endangered national sovereignty, an offense punishable by life imprisonment or death. They were the first pioneers that took advantage of the floating home. Elwartowski said” that the charges were ridiculous he said from an email message. They have only been on the Seastead for a few weeks and now Tailand wanrts to kill us.”

The Thai deputy naval commander responsible for the area said the project was a challenge to the country’s authorities.
“This affects our national security and cannot be allowed,” Rear Adm. Wintharat Kotchaseni told Thai media on Tuesday. He said the floating house also posed a safety threat to navigation if it broke loose because the area is considered a shipping lane.

The floating house on the Andaman Sea off the coast of Bangkok is considered the first Seastead and the couple is considered the first people to sign on. The ex-Google engineers that are involved with the Seasteading projects and the Ocean Builders were trying to sell the pilot houses that Chad and Supranee bought and were reporting daily on the internet to sell the idea and were doing whatever they could to help with this project that they truly believed in from the conception.

Now, they believe as scared as they are that the government will make a deal with their lawyers that will get them off the hook.

They escaped the Thai Navy and as of this date 04/20/2019, their location is unknown. They said that the location for the Seastead was chosen because of the calm seas and beauty that the Tai people demonstrate and of its wonderful culture. The problem is the Dictatorship that is running the country at the moment. For Ocean Builders the dream moves on to bigger and better things.

Seasteading Homes

 

No markets, no capitalism, no governments, no rent. That was the dream when Nadia Summergirl and her boyfriend Chad Elwartowski decided to swap their former lives as bitcoin investors for a life at sea, setting up home in an isolated floating shack 14 nautical miles off the coast of Thailand.

Seasteaders are a committed but small group of proponents well on their way to planning the next human communities far from the land itself. These autonomous floating cities could be built on modified cruise ships, retrofitted deep-sea oil rigs, decommissioned anti-aircraft platforms, or custom-built floating islands, among other possibilities.

A common thread of these new adventures is that they can live beyond the reach of sovereign governments who want to regulate and control them as citizens. They do not consider the health and well-being of the people on this planet. Seasteads can be governed and managed in different ways.  Laws can be written according to the individual people that founded the seastead.

One seastead can be controlled by a direct democracy while another might entrust public policy to technocrats, still, another might use consumer-choice-based services—or anything in-between and beyond.

In January 2017, the Seasteading Institute signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with French Polynesia, an “overseas collectivity” of 118 geographically dispersed islands and atolls stretching across 1,200 miles in the South Pacific, to create the first semi-autonomous “sea zone”—dubbed the Floating City Project—to develop a prototype seasteading community.

The possibilities of Seasteading are endless but there are problems with building on the water that isn’t being overlooked. Like everything new, there is a risk like with the first inhabitant Chad and Nadia in Thailand with an unfriendly Dictator who doesn’t get it nor does he give a hoot.

There will be struggles that have to be ironed out as they go along with these big plans that are sort of being problems solved off the cuff and as they go along.

 

Floating Community 

 

The Seasteading Institute in San Francisco is using various models and details for different approaches to Sea Colonization.  According to the Institute half of the surface of the earth is unclaimed by any government so these would be start-up countries on the “Blue Frontier”

The innovators and developers of Seasteading are from Silicon Valley and bring with them that spirit and belief that they will be able to provide the technology that is needed to fill the needs of these new frontiers that will be built no matter the problems of how big or small they are.

Their opinion is that new innovation and development in new medicine and technologies are often held back by a country’s regulations that are contrary to the plan of the new Blue Frontier. They believe that innovations will happen with Seasteading that will surprise the rest of the world.

This will happen without the need for Government agencies to step in and try to control who, when, and how. The typical red tape that happens with all governments. Especially here in the States.

Once there is no holding back on new ideas and technologies, projects that are normally put on hold for years in our country can be implemented by the host governing party of the Seastead Country as quickly as the citizens decide on it.

Algae farmers who are experimenting with harvesting carbon from the ocean in order to feed the world or medical innovations for a healthier longer life span or fish farmers with newer self-sustaining techniques can all go to these new societies to make up their own minds.

Whether it is climate change, food scarcity, the water crisis, or any other urgent global problem, the oceans offer a new and promising perspective. Our current land-based societies dramatically hold back technical development and sustainability transition while the clock keeps ticking. In order to live in most communities around the globe especially here in the US, you must hook up to the electrical grid or sewer and water systems to be part of the community.

This is done even though there are other technologies available because of existing codes and bylaws set up in towns and cities across the country. With the new “Blue Frontier” things can start off fresh and only limited by free-thinking people who are willing to take a chance.

 

Ocean Builders

 

At first, life for Seasteaders will be considered risk-takers, pioneers, and stewards of the earth. They will see the need and beauty of this existence. The first communities will be protective waters off the coast of countries like French Polynesia. They should be affordable at first to the middle class of a country that plays host to these floatable cities that eventually will carve the way as time goes by to make it more affordable for all.

The most exciting prospect of this is populations along lower coastlines on land who are directly affected by rising sea levels will be able to move off the coast into a Seasteading community.

Accepting the help of the host countries for periods of time will be the first step in the process.  This will allow seasteading communities to open up to everyone sooner and get their goals accomplished more easily, preparing for more self-sustaining larger goals faster and easier to accomplish.

Aquatic Engineers for Ocean Builders and the Seasteading Institute will use existing Dutch technology. The engineers from the Ocean Builders have already built the Floating Pavillion in Rotterdam and that will be the prototype for future structures for their floating cities in French Polynesia.

There are places on earth right now that will naturally become floating cities because of the problems brought on and created by rising sea levels and Global Warming. These places could be suitable soon by default. There are plans for critical infrastructure to be developed like offices, hospitals, and residences that are prone to flooding in these places stretched out over the world that will disappear with the rise of sea levels. The plans for these areas in French Polynesia will be started before the year 2020 was picked for these reasons.

The SSI (the Seasteading Institute) has made great progress recently with the very first seastead that will be a partly autonomous pilot project, roughly the size of a soccer field, floating in the tranquil waters of French Polynesia and growing organically. They are currently working to adapt their plans and the design specific to local conditions.

Estimated to open around 2022, upwards of 300 seastead homes could be built in the area of French Polynesia. There are many islands throughout the world that are susceptible to the ill effects of climate change. These contain some of them.

In this particular region, land rests on top of coral reefs. As the ocean levels rise in time, these land masses will be overtaken by the sea. The homes being built here are a project to test how feasible it is to create floating countries in regions such as these.

The partners of Blue Frontier and the Seasteading Institute each offering varying levels of governmental oversight, providing an oasis for many like-minded individuals to congregate into a society most appealing to them will build these small countries that look similar to this picture above.

Floating City Concept

 

Seasteading will create unique opportunities in Engineering, Aquaculture, and Vertical Farming. Research in wave energy, nanotechnology, and biofuels. All these industries will be the lifeblood of the Seasteading society.

A monetary system for seaward countries will be started. The developers have turned to cryptocurrency as the currency. Their token named the ‘Varyon’ will be utilized throughout the self-governing countries as a form of payment/exchange for goods and services. It will be the legal tender of these seasteads.

Will Seasteaders have fresh water, power, internet, and food?

The Seasteaders will have the technology to treat and drink seawater, food can be grown and delivered from the mainland host country along with the ability to be hooked to the internet and an electric grid.

Wind, solar waves, and biofuels can be harvested from the location to be used by citizens. Seasteads will grow food through vertical farming and raise seafood through Aquaculture.

Expected excess food and energy can be traded with the host nation or exported to other countries. The Seasteads will be family-friendly as they grow and become more adequate.

There will be medical facilities,  starting with the host country then clinics and hospitals that will be similar to cruise ships for health care.

At the beginning or where you’re location is as a Seasteader, all the accommodations that are available to you on land in the host country will be available in the Seastead community. Hospitals schools, restaurants, and museums. all a short distance away from where ferries await for short-distant journeys to the host Nation.

 

Will you get seasick?

Because the locality of the Seastead is handpicked for its calm waters waves and large stable platforms that are used in the construction, the Builders report that most people who normally experience some sort of seasickness won’t experience it here.

Will they have rent leases and taxes?

Space in buildings located in Seasteads will be bought rented or leased. The cost and arrangements will vary according to where you are in the world and your property. There should be fees that will be collected to keep up with infrastructure needs.

What happens if there is a Tsunami, wave, or huge storm?

Location is one of the first and most important decisions for Seasteading. Many potential natural hazards can be minimized by carefully choosing locations.  French Polynesia is so far from active earthquake and volcano zones, with such an advantageous topology, that tsunamis have little effect there.

It also has very low storm activity. Starting in a natural lagoon will additionally shelter residents from most wave action. Open ocean Seasteads would need to develop technologies for mitigating waves, preferably while also harvesting their energy for productive use.

 What about Hurricanes?

The first designs are meant to be out of hurricane paths, but according to the Institute’s President Joe Quirk, they plan on new designs that will work on new hurricane-proof construction. The wind is comparably easier to design for, it’s the resulting waves we have to design for the most. This is in the plans.

Pirates and Seasteading? 

Piracy is only a real problem in a few areas of the world where we are not going to. Regular crime can generally be handled by some combination of onboard security and government forces, widely depending on the location and agreements in place.

What About Pollution?

Land activities have been responsible for most carbon emissions and the vast amount of plastics in the sea. Where land folks see pollution, Seasteaders see a resource. One seastead company is making affordable seastead platforms made from what they call Reef blocks.

They become stronger when plastic trash is added to the block. The Reef blocks are used to build seastead platforms. The more plastic trash is taken from the ocean the more is added to the Reef Blocks. Another company that makes seastead platforms is using pollution from fossil fuels as a resource.

On land, highways and roads are made from Portland concrete. Portland concrete uses megatons of CO2 that release it into the environment. Burning Coal produces carbon by a product called fly ash that is discarded into landfills.

A Geopolymer Concrete developed here in America requires fly ash in its composition. For every pound of carbon you put into the concrete 1 pound is lost from the environment. This type of sustainable construction of floatable seahouses will equal less pollution.

If you build a foundation and build on land you destroy that piece of land but if you build a floating structure on the sea you end up providing a rich ecosystem that encourages life.

The day that the first small seastead floatable home was installed at the site off the coast of  Thailand, there was no noticeable aquatic life to be found. The day after it was floated hundreds of fish appeared. They claimed little holes as their home and even defended it from other fish.

Muscles and sea plants grow on the Seastead, and a new coral ecosystem will emerge from the lifeless area that was empty. Every Seastead that is floated in the ocean will develop its own ecosystem where aquatic life will thrive.

Floating Cities On Water

 

 

1. The Floating Sea Project which is the first big project will make it easier for people to join.  The first Seasteads that will be built will be easier to get going because they will be floating just offshore in the protected waters of a host nation.

2. The Goal is to reach a deal with a host Nation that will offer the floating city substantial political autonomy for economic, social, and environmental benefits. They are in talks with several coastal nations and when they close a deal they will make announcements.

3. They will use Delta Sync Firm, which is one of the top Aquatic Engineering firms in the world. Delta Snc was commissioned for the original design of the Floating City. Using platforms shaped like squares or pentagons with 50-meter sides the city can be rearranged according to its needs. They are considered Mobile and can be moved from one location to another.

The platforms will be constructed using reinforced concrete and are expected to last over 100 years. They will be environmentally friendly using sustainable energy technologies. Which will be entirely off the grid. The floating Eco-villages will contain 3-story buildings. DeltaSync proposes 250 residents on 11 platforms as the beginning of the village.

4. Each platform is expected to cost less than 15 million dollars or 500 dollars per square foot. That is about what you would pay in London or New York City for a place to live.

5. Since the announcement was first printed thousands have expressed interest in moving to the Floatable City.

“Between cyberspace and outer space lies the possibility of settling the oceans.” by Peter Thiel.

The ideas continue to grow to create more projects than make them happen. People will be able to shuttle to the mainland by ferry. The first building will act as the core of making new and bigger buildings. The Seasteads are made to grow just like the ideas that make them work. There will be multiple-purpose designs to choose from. One would feature buildings in multiple clusters along with large solar panels and wind turbines.

Another would be shaped like a horseshoe that would have an enormous green space. Part of the project is centered on growing food through Aquaculture which will involve breeding plants and fish. The islands could run on solar power continuously and even recycle their water from the ocean

“Floating islands solve two of the biggest problems in the world: Sea level change and the lack of start-up innovation in governance,” Quirk said. Theil and his partners from The Seasteading Insitute and The Blue Frontier will use their own currency in their floating country.

This is not their first rodeo, a prototype plan in 2010 was never completed in San Francisco Bay. This time things will be different according to Theil and his partners.

At first, the project’s founders imagined the city as a libertarian utopia free of the regulation (and taxes). Joe Quirk, president of the Institute, told Business Insider that his team’s vision has evolved beyond that. The group now also sees the city as a way to live with rising sea levels, which are expected to increase more than six feet by the end of this century. “Floating islands solve two of the biggest problems in the world: Sea level change and the lack of start-up innovation in governance,” Quirk said.

 

 

Cruise Ship Lifeboats

For more information on Ocean living and other great articles on anything water stay right here at MyWaterEarth&Sky-Ever since I took a cruise to Bermuda from New York, I always wondered how we would survive if we had a problem on the cruise ship and used the …………………………………………………………..… Continue reading