The Lure of the Sea, the Beyond

Catamarans provide faster speed, more usable space, and are more stable at sea than mono-hulls. The Nahema luxury catamaran series is one approach to cat design.

Using a catamaran design lets you more than triple the interior and deck space of the vessel compared to the same length monohull yacht...To be available in 120-foot and 150-foot versions, or 35 and 45 metres in the new money, the Nahema series of catamarans is the brainchild of H2X’s Gilles Vatan...

...Both versions will also operate as sailboats – and what the catamaran design might lack in sporty handling in the turns, it will make up for in good speed and an increased stability that will be appreciated by guests without the sea-legs for a more tumultuous ride.

Each yacht will be constructed according to customer specifications, leaving open all sorts of possibilities including helipads, on-deck spas, and other little luxuries...

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The catamaran design can be modified for many specific tasks besides luxury cruising. The "spider boat" cat in this article can be outfitted for trans-oceanic voyages, for military missions, for exploration, or for sport and racing. The design universe for catamarans has barely been explored.

Beyond the catamaran is the trimaran, tetramaran, and more complex multi-hull designs leading up to large floating islands (Aquarius) or floating seasteads. Most early seasteads will take advantage of more protected bays and waters. But as seasteads move out onto the high seas they will need to be built to withstand the steady pounding of sea swells, and occasional large storms and rogue waves.

Creating the ability to constructively dissipate massive amounts of wave energy will be a challenge for seastead designers for this millenium. Underwater mechanical designs that absorb and transform wave energy into electrical and other usable forms of energy, are needed. Turning the potential problem of destructive wave energy into an asset, will require intelligence and creativity--and a lot of serendipitous luck, no doubt. The same can be said for the problems of corrosion and accretion of sea life to hulls. Preventing seabirds from turning your seastead into a floating guano depot is another problem that might be turned to profit.

As humans move from forgiving land masses to the sea's surface, below the surface, and outside the Earth's atmosphere, human habitat design will require a lot more thought and ingenuity than is currently applied to the problem.

With an average global human IQ of 90, it is clear that the upward tail of the curve will be worked to the limit, on problems such as these--just a few of the design problems of human survival that will require high intelligence. Humans need to learn to live on, below, and above the surfaces of Earth's land and sea. The ability to do so safely will depend on significant improvements in human decision making and problem solving. If you are interested in seasteads, you may want to take a look at this video.

Augmentation of human intelligence through pharmaceuticals, genetic mods, technological prostheses and interfaces, will all be necessary, and more. Development and evolution of intelligent machines to assist human decision making and problem solving will also help in bridging the gap to the next level of human survival and prosperity.

Somewhere out there, is an asteroid or comet in an orbit bound to intersect Earth. Whether such a catastrophe will hit Earth before the next Ice Age, or whether a geological upheaval such as a massive series of volcanoes and quakes will first occur, is orthogonal to the obvious need to develop habitats and locales for human existence that broaden the likelihood for long term human survival and growth.