The Juggernaut SWATH: a variable draft, pre-cast, modular, extreme houseboat

Last crawled date: 1 year, 9 months ago

The Juggernaut is an 'extreme houseboat' conceptual design, intended to be capable of floating safely and comfortably about the San Francisco bay without ever docking at shore. This design is intended to be built from pre-cast, cement+basalt laminate components that would be held in place with post-tensioned cables (similar to how segmented bridges are built now). The idea is that buyers could purchasethe components one by one as funds allow, and live in them on land without any financing. Once they'd assembled all the components for the completed vessel, the components could be shipped by drop-deck trailers to a dry dock for final assembly. Inspired by: pre-cast submerged bridges articulated barges SWATH-like vessels such as Sea Slice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Slice M/V Susitna http://www.towingline.com/archives/1565 Cloud X, The Planet, Sea Fighter, Sea Shadow, Silver Cloud http://usaboatreview.com/archives/2009/swath-ships/swath-ships.html Suncruz VI http://www.dejongandlebet.com/642_sun_cruz_vi.htm Stability Yachts http://www.stabilityyachts.com/ Tûranor PlanetSolar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BBranor_PlanetSolar Nekton Pilot http://www.global-travel.co.uk/nekton1.htm Hermes WHY http://www.designboom.com/design/why-wally-hermes-yachts/ Design goals: * Spacious - designed to house two families of four with generous excess capacity for guests and events. * Modular-- can be purchased in increments, then shipped to construction site; can be connected easily to other baysteads * Wave resistant - comfortable under heavy storm conditions, when wave height can reach 5' - 8' * Wind resistant - comfortable in heavy winds, which can reach 75 mph * Low draft (4' or less) - the average depth of the Bay is about 15' * Low initial cost - ideally, it would be a design that can be purchased incrementally * Easy re-anchoring - the SF Bay does not allow permanent anchoring, so it would need to be moved often. * Easy repair / maintenance / refueling in the field - should not need to go to shore except under unusual circumstances) * Easy crew/cargo transfer - since the boat is intended to be anchored out long-term, crew and supplies will be transferred by speed boat/rib * Multi-use -- the basic design should be useable for a lot of purposes (housing, small business, factory) * Transportable -- components can be shipped by land without permit in the US (maximum dimensions (feet): width: 8, height: 12 * Can be built with unskilled labor * All levels wheelchair accessible * All surfaces cleanable with pressure washer * All levels accessible by stair * Easy to move materials on/off from docks * Collision resistant * Positively buoyant * Resistant to: fire, mold, saltwater, UV, chemicals * Autonomous collision avoidance * Autonomous dynamic positioning * Autonomous anchoring / de-anchoring - the SF Bay does not allow permanent anchoring, so it would need to be moved often. * Easy operation - all controls planned for operation by a one-armed 90-year old paraplegic, if need be. * Easy deployment and retrieval of auxiliary vessels (tenders) * Diesel-electric propulsion plus solar for station keeping * Multiply redundant systems - 'Two is one, one is none' Design non-goals: * Speed * Open ocean / deep water capability * “yacht” aesthetics - although the ship should satisfy the technical requirements to be considered a boat by regulatory authorities, looking like a traditional yacht is not a requirement * Cost - although the goal is to drive down the cost as much as possible via use of pre-cast component construction, cost will not be optimized in this first iteration. * Low fuel consumption -- since the boat is intended to stay in one place as much as possible, and isn't intended to be moved except to satisfy regulatory concerns. If you're interested in seasteading, I recommend checking out Joe Quirk's Seasteading book: http://www.seasteading.org Max Marty,co- founder of Blueseed discusses some of the issues with funding seasteads with Joe McKinney. Topics covered: Investors in the maritime industry didn't understand Silicon Valley. Investors in Silicon Valley didn't understand the maritime industry. The deep challenges in integrating silos of expertise. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=qO_RgThHweo The problems he ran into motivate the design decisions for this structure. v5_2017-05-30 #barge #catamaran #composite #ferrocement #modular #precast #seastead #seasteading #swath