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

[feline_dacat]

Steel is a good idea for ships, so why not make it extra good with cathodic protection and a good lick of paint. The key is actually maintenance - check the paintwork regularly.

 

[Abaddon]

hmm, steel is ok, but its maintennance costs that i would like to reduce as greatly as possible.. then again.. a lick of paint and dry docking for a while doesnt cost THat much does it?

 

[Abaddon]

Anyone know how long fibreglass does against the sun and the sea?

 

[Sophie 378]

Read some Peter Hamilton, genetically engineer coral and so on, and build your own Atlantis Island!

Oh, and some smilies you may need on your island:

 

[Shylock]

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Making_an_Island

 

[Elrohir]

Wiki has a very short article on "Seasteading".

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

You might also be interested in other people who have tried this, such as the Principality of Sealand.

 

[Mylon]

Either use fiberglass with a triple-hull design to reduce the effect of damage in any long term voyage or use what the miliary does - painted steel with blocks of zinc every so often to save the steel from rusting. However, these blocks are consumable and need to be replaced semi-frequently.

 

[Abaddon]

Read some Peter Hamilton, genetically engineer coral and so on, and build your own Atlantis Island!

Sounds faciniating! any particular book?

 

[Sophie 378]

@Slozenger - Night's Dawn trilogy: The Reality Dysfunction (1996), The Neutronium Alchemist (1997), and The Naked God (1999). Also a collection of short stories, A Second Chance at Eden for background stuff; the books have a rather boring(ly excessive) amount of sex in, but are quite fun reading with incredible science-fiction science speculation.
Wiki has some stuff on his story-universes.

use fiberglass with a triple-hull design

Check the first link in my sig! The Ninth Charm rocks!

 

[Abaddon]

bought the first one off amazon for a few quid..

until then- looks like im going to have a find some way of earning enough money for yearly drydocks anyway.

 

[Mylon]

Check the first link in my sig! The Ninth Charm rocks!

Not a tri-hull, but a triple layered hull design. If the first layer breaks, no big deal. If the second layer breaks, no big deal.

The Titanic was a to layered hull design. Unfortunately the isolated compartments were too large and the damage hit so many comparments it sank anyway. That and I'm not sure if they were isolated anyway.

 

[Perfection]

Giant genetically-engineered sea turtles.

 

[BigBirdZ28]

I would ask on www.scubaboard.com/

 

[Abaddon]

In reference to my earlier thread about how to build such a boat:

What Materials to use

Now i am just wanting to check back on being sustainable.


Firstly we need a few assumptions.

1. Initail costs are covered, aswell as the boats maintenance (thats all too boring for discussion)
2. If things break that are unfixable (wind generators etc) the moneys their to replace them.


So What do i need to be self sustainable?

Food/water/energy/living quaters etc

 

[Eli]

Is it possible to survive in the long term while eating only fish?

If not, your biggest problem will be raising food. That'll require lots of space on your ship and it probably makes the whole idea impossible to implement.

 

[AceChilla]

A machine to make sweet water from salt water and a few good fishing materials that should give you the basics for food and water. Building a sailboat from something like carbonfiber would be most logical I think. As long as you stay around the Caribian it should be pretty easy because of the nice weather. Maybe a generator that would recharge a battery when you put it in the water while sailing. But everything should of course be extremely simple to be as durable as possible.

Maybe some kind of vegetable as extra food, of which you can replant the seeds? So you can keep using it as extra food for an infinite amount of years?

 

[Eli]

If you choose the low tech route, you could survive without a salt water to fresh water machine by collecting and stockpiling rainwater, but that's risky since a dry season will finish you off.

 

[Perfection]

All, you really need is some tough guys a fast boat and guns (with ammo).

 

[Leonel]

Well if the boat were to sustain only yourself I figure enough room to grow enough food for yourself and allow for crop rotation to keep replenishing the soil (preferably) or whatever your growing your food in. Fishing nets would also be useful not only as an alternative food source but as another way to enrich the soil by burying fish byproducts in the soil. A large enough or numerous enough water collector(s) specialized to collect rain water and make sea water and urine (hopefully in extreme conditions) into drinking water to quench thirst and water crops. Dealing with body wastes by using them to enrich soil as well. Your boat will stink from fish guts and miscellaneous wastes but stuff will grow and surely an ocean breeze will be around to fan the stench away from you hopefully.

That's it for keeping the basic functions of your body self sustaining. As for mental sustainability, I figure some way to turn perhaps plant remains into paper and colored fish oil into ink to write things. Not sure. Definately a wood carving knife incase some drift wood passes by and maybe one could carve a cute trinket or even build an addition to the boat.