Seastead Design Contest Winners: Could Any of Them Survive On the Open Sea?

Source for ImagesThese are the winners of the $2000 1st Seasteading Institute Design Contest, which closed for entries on May 1. The overall winner above -- "Swimming City" -- won a $1000 prize, and the category winners below each won $250. It is important to give The Seasteading Institute (TSI) full credit for creatively pushing the seasteading concept of "freedom on the high seas." All of the winners are certainly aesthetically pleasing. But can a person survive in the middle of the ocean on aesthetics?If a beautiful seastead capsizes in a storm, it becomes a beautiful wreck on the bottom of the ocean. Like the Titanic, such a seastead would be a magnet for filmmakers, adventurers, and treasure hunters. Those lost at sea in such a catastrophe would be properly mourned, no doubt. But why put one's faith in aesthetics, when basic nautical design precautions could produce a seastead that would actually be viable?These are the early stages of the seastead vision, and young, inexperienced visionaries are often drawn toward eye candy conceptualisations. As public relations devices, beautiful images can attract the attention of investors and potential participants. For that purpose -- attention grabbing -- the contest winners serve well. But most investors who invest their own money will be looking more deeply, toward viability and sustainability. Can it survive the worst the sea can throw at it? How will it pay for itself? How does it work at the nuts and bolts level?The design contest winners this year -- the 1st year of contests -- all seem to be built on the same basic support structure: multiple support columns holding up a rectangular or circular platform. The columns are presumably floating spars, but could conceivably be large piles penetrating the seafloor: the difference between a free-floating island seastead and a fixed-in-place platform seastead.All of the designs appear more suitable for sheltered bays, harbours, or inlets, rather than the open ocean. It is the type of design one might locate close to Sydney, Vancouver, San Francisco, or Venice. But would a floating multi-spar platform with these dimensions and superstructures survive long in the open ocean?

This goes to the heart of the purpose of a seastead. If its purpose is to create valuable real estate in the vicinity of a large city, designs such as those above might serve quite nicely. If the purpose is to create an independent micro-nation, free from the interference of oppressive statist societies, marine designers will need to dig more deeply in the well of the informed imagination.

I salute TSI for initiating the broad discussion of the seasteading and micronation concepts on the web and beyond. My only suggestion is an additional category for the design contest: the "open ocean, hell and high water" category. Winners in that category would need to possess the extra-aesthetic qualities that will allow a seastead and its inhabitants to survive and thrive in the unpredictable environment of the sea.

More: Here is an interesting "chat" on the TSI site regarding existing designs and structures that might be modified for seasteading (including oil rigs and used cruise ships)