What do you need to be virtually self sustainable on a BOAT?

[Abaddon]

Do I need to quote the whole title?

As long as I can generate the funds to pay for it, the internet will have to be obtained from an external source.. there is obviously no way you could have "self-sustained" internet!

 

[Gooblah]

Arrange for an ISP of your citizenship (i.e from your nation of origin) to provide satellite service. Are you in international waters? That's far enough from shore for massive premiums to occur. How do you plan on supporting yourself?

You'll need a huge complex...well, not TOO huge. Something like a 2000 sq ft house with a basement that contains a desalination plant, something for efficient fishing, and a hydroponics facility, anchored to the ground.

Use tidal power generators (like those off of the Scottish coast) to power your house, I guess. If you're around the equator, install solar panels. Keep a wind turbine off shore your house as well...large ones can power whole regions, and that way you can sell electricity to island nations for money (or coconuts!).

Basically, I see three problems:
1) Power: As above, solar, wind, and (maybe) tidal.
2) Food: fishing, and grow tomatoes and other produce hydroponically to avoid scurvy
3) Water: desalination on such a small scale? I don't see that happening right now, though I could be mistaken.

 

[nonconformist]

Seriously if you were buying hydroponics, then using them to sustain you isn't the idea which first springs to mind.

 

[GinandTonic]

Modular RIBesq raft. Something like tared oil-drums filled with something like small plastic bottles, perhaps with a little silicone on the thread. Metal frame filled out with concrete, with all the parts set into the concrete. Should be "unsinkable" at least in as far as what is on top of it would be destroyed before it was. Cheap too.

Link a bunch of the buggers togeather. Links will need maintanence, but that would be about all.

Real danger is that it breaks it's anchor. Drag will be many times any possible force you can exert on it, at least if you have enough acreage to be self-suficient.

Also in terms of sustainability storm-driven salt water is a hassle. Relativly minor storm could knacker all your soil and leave you well and truely in the poop.

 

[Souron]

I think a still is the best small scale method of producing fresh water. Problem is, the still would have to be very large, especially if you are also planning to water plants with it.

Although there is that guy who invented a water purifier that is supposed to be able to purify anything at an impressive rate. Its expensive, but may be cheaper than a giant still.

 

[Narz]

Let me know when you finally build your ark Abs.

 

[Abaddon]

Will do bud.

I'll do it when i've sold the farm, lost the wife and need to run away with my young pregnant bride-to-be.

 

[JerichoHill]

Somehow, I think Abs plan would require massive cash.

I've got a 30-footer and that alone is a pretty expensive boat!

 

[Abaddon]

I'm thinking more a floating tub than a efficient sailing boat. It doesnt really have to move much, simply float!

 

[CavLancer]

If its just to be a floating island I'd use a used barge. Plenty big! Then I'd hire a tug boat to park it somewhere in the Philippine Islands where there aren't too many Muslims (easy to find) and its surrounded by real islands for protection and in good fishing grounds. Perhaps off Camiguin Island. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camiguin Since its a barge you could load part of it up with dirt for veggies and save rain easily for watering plants, drinking and showering. Water might be a problem if it forgets to fall from the sky. Global warming is supposed to make more rain here and we get a fair amount already, usually in a tropical downpour and then it clears up.

Then you will need some solar power panels and a bunch of car batteries to charge all day and use at night. Also gives you a way to refrigerate food though that takes a lot of solar panels. You could salt dried fish easy enough but then you have eat it, yuck.

You'll need a solar cooker. Like an old style medium satellite dish lined with aluminum foil. That's about the the cheapest solar cooker out there.

You definitely want a hookah dive system which is a regulator on a hose which runs to the surface where there's a specially made 12V compressor that will pump clean air down to you. I got mine for $900ish iirc. That will allow you to go down and set and check fish traps. You'll have to grow some bamboo on your barge in order to make the traps. Metal traps that are left at sea will trap fish long after the owner has forgotten or lost them and that's just bad. Bamboo will break down.

The good news about this is that you will be in the Philippines so you'll find a nice girl that will talk you out of it.

I never used the hookah dive system I have until a few projects are finished and I can build my sailboat. This link is not to the kind I got but just to give you the idea. Looking at it this one takes you pretty deep. If you go as deep as they say you need to get a dive chart that will tell you how to avoid the bends. You can find that online.

http://www.scuba.com/scuba-gear-152/Hookah-Systems.html

Wait that one has a gas engine and is spendy...but takes you twice as deep as this one which is 12V and cheaper. This is the one I have.

http://www.hookamax.com/17710.html

 

[civ_king]

Panasonic is making some awesome Lithium Ion batteries that they will be selling in 2011, rig up 50 or so, roof your barge with solar panel windows(with channels to collect rain), take the barge idea, learn to fish, so this would be
so now you have
Power
Shelter
Food
Water
anything else you need?

 

[CavLancer]

Just one other thing I'd need...

A good bottle of Tanduay rum aged 12 years costs $2.30 in the mall in Tagbilaran, Bohol, Philippines. There's another that costs $1.15ish that's aged 5 years and is 80 proof. Don't know the cost on Camiguin.

Barges...

http://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/PH-suppliers/barge.html

 

[Abaddon]

Any guestimates on the price of a sea worthy (or at least nice shallow waters sitting their worthy) barge?

#edit: Some very helpful and refreshing answers, thanks guys.

 

[JohnRM]

@OP; Don't need much. The first rogue wave the comes along will take care of your worries.

 

[Ecofarm]

Just so everyone remembers, I got dibs on the Pacific garbage flotilla.

 

[CavLancer]

Any guestimates on the price of a sea worthy (or at least nice shallow waters sitting their worthy) barge?

#edit: Some very helpful and refreshing answers, thanks guys.

I have a link or 2 about barges in my post #132 above. If you see a barge you like then email the seller.

Those are for sale in the Philippines. I think anything can be done here, even parking a barge but you might want to do a search for 'Philippine Coast Guard' and ask them what the regs are for parking in Philippine waters. Or you might not want to contact them as that might be asking for trouble.

Nice thing about the Philippines is if you park your barge within the outer ring of islands then the waves can only get as big as the distance they have to build (called a 'reach') which since there's islands in all directions wouldn't be much so the waves wouldn't get too big. Theoretically. We live on Bohol and that's an island surrounded by other islands and there's a place nearby where barges pick up limestone and none of those barges were ever the least effected by weather that I've observed.

If you want to set up elsewhere than the Philippines just google 'barges for sale' and the name of the place you want to go.

 

[CavLancer]

If you choose the Philippines you'll need permanent resident status which is a lot cheaper to get if you're married to a Philippine citizen. My friend who is not spent several thousand and then has to maintain $20,000 in an account. I am married to a Philippine citizen and my permanent resident status will cost less than a thousand I think, but its not done yet.

If you are already married the cost of staying here would be very high but it still could be done.

I've thought about all the desalinization ideas floating around, that's got to be spendy! How about a skiff with a water tank on board. Drive/sail/whatever the skiff over to a stream, take a hose with a funnel into the stream and above the boat and fill it up. Then back to the barge and hook up to your handy 12V pump and load it into your water tank on the barge. You would need a barge with a small crane, plenty of them I've seen 4 sale since replying this thread have had one, in order to launch and retrieve your skiff.

Lots of rain would fall on a good sized barge and water used for washing pretty much anything, yourself, dishes, etc can be used to water plants as long as the right sort of soap is used. What that sort would be I have no idea. Point is the skiff would only be for times when the rain forgot to fall. Either way you would need an emergency method of getting water or you could lose all your plants.

 

[Narz]

This guy claims to have the answers to your questions Abs

 

[Abaddon]

Very helpful link Narz, thanks!

I'll head that direction when I have my midlife crisis and sell off the family farm

 

[Narz]

Sounds good. Drop me a line when you do.