Video - Seasteading on Plastic | Squat the Planet

Video Seasteading on Plastic

Shaggy Rogers

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Anybody interested?
This is an island made of plastic bottles. Seasteading is a term to technically being self sufficient on the water. With enough time, a garden or two plus fishing you could feed a family on one. With whatever is needed built on with more plastic bottles. I wouldn't mind being in a community of these all hooked together with bridges or something. The ocean calls to me every day and it's a dream. So again. Anyone interested in this type of life?
 

Dameon

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I've been out on the water when the wind is howling at over 70 mph, and you couldn't pay me to be on an island made of plastic bottles when it happens. On lakes, it'd be fine, but something like that wouldn't last through a mildly rough day on the ocean, or a bay, or any of the great lakes.

If you want to get out on the ocean, get a boat, it's stupid easy.
 
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Shaggy Rogers

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You do realize with the dirt and trees and house ectectect., It weighs alot more than a boat. It's a floating island. You anchor off underwater with rougher storms. And it's not a thing to take deep ocean, stay along the coasts.
 
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Dameon

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You do realize with the dirt and trees and house ectectect., It weighs alot more than a boat. It's a floating island. You anchor off underwater with rougher storms. And it's not a thing to take deep ocean, stay along the coasts.
It doesn't matter how much it weighs, it's floating. So when giant waves come along, which happens along the coasts during large storms, that thing is going to get flipped, and then it's going to get smashed into rocks or beached if you're lucky. Anchors will not help you with that behemoth, and being close to the coasts actually increases your danger; coasts tend to have lots of rocks and cliffs thanks to erosion, and you will be on that behemoth with no escape while it gets smashed to pieces against rocks. There's a reason it's on a small lake in the picture.
 
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Matt Derrick

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It doesn't matter how much it weighs, it's floating. So when giant waves come along, which happens along the coasts during large storms, that thing is going to get flipped, and then it's going to get smashed into rocks or beached if you're lucky. Anchors will not help you with that behemoth, and being close to the coasts actually increases your danger; coasts tend to have lots of rocks and cliffs thanks to erosion, and you will be on that behemoth with no escape while it gets smashed to pieces against rocks. There's a reason it's on a small lake in the picture.

i know you have a lot more experience on the water than i do, but i'm gonna have to disagree with you on the island getting flipped, unless we're talking about taking it out in blue water? which of course would be a really dumb thing to do. just for reference, richart sowa's island (in the video in op) has only been destroyed once and that was because of a hurricane.

i'm under the impression that as long as the island was relatively close to shore, it would be fine in all but the worst weather. so yeah, i dunno why there aren't more kids trying to do this, since all it really takes is a lot of manual labor and finding a good location.
 
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Dameon

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i know you have a lot more experience on the water than i do, but i'm gonna have to disagree with you on the island getting flipped, unless we're talking about taking it out in blue water? which of course would be a really dumb thing to do. just for reference, richart sowa's island (in the video in op) has only been destroyed once and that was because of a hurricane.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/J...ffa03c545d97b9!8m2!3d21.2305071!4d-86.7370618

So here it is on Google Maps, and this is why it hasn't been destroyed except for "once". It's in a fully protected, shallow lagoon, not on the open water, and it's hugging right up against the land where it's most protected. Being close to the coast doesn't protect you from storms; the waves are just as big near land, and there's rocks everywhere. For a normal vessel, during a heavy storm, you're actually safer the farther away from land you are, if you don't have protected waters.

Really, flipping isn't the main danger I should have brought up. Your main dangers are 1) The impact of the waves destroys your island, or 2) The anchors holding your island break loose and your island gets smashed against land. Flipping is still a danger, if you're not in protected waters, because while a normal vessel has quite a lot of it below the water, the appearance of this island is that most of it is above the water. I could be wrong about the possibility of flipping, it is a pretty heavy thing, and there might be more below water than I think, but we're also talking about a floating thing that relies on buoyancy, rather than displacement, so it's very different physics than your normal boat. Being in shallow water will help a lot with your anchors, because angle is important, but that island has a ton of surface area for wind to impact, so being close to land does help there, but then when something goes wrong you don't have any time to deal with it.

You still wouldn't want anything like that on any real body of water, but if you can find a fully protected lake or lagoon, and manage to be right offshore, you're in business. On the ocean, or a bay (which isn't protected from all sides like that lagoon) you wouldn't want something like that any distance from shore.
 
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doomedswine

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https://www.google.com/maps/place/J...ffa03c545d97b9!8m2!3d21.2305071!4d-86.7370618

So here it is on Google Maps, and this is why it hasn't been destroyed except for "once". It's in a fully protected, shallow lagoon, not on the open water, and it's hugging right up against the land where it's most protected. Being close to the coast doesn't protect you from storms; the waves are just as big near land, and there's rocks everywhere. For a normal vessel, during a heavy storm, you're actually safer the farther away from land you are, if you don't have protected waters.

Really, flipping isn't the main danger I should have brought up. Your main dangers are 1) The impact of the waves destroys your island, or 2) The anchors holding your island break loose and your island gets smashed against land. Flipping is still a danger, if you're not in protected waters, because while a normal vessel has quite a lot of it below the water, the appearance of this island is that most of it is above the water. I could be wrong about the possibility of flipping, it is a pretty heavy thing, and there might be more below water than I think, but we're also talking about a floating thing that relies on buoyancy, rather than displacement, so it's very different physics than your normal boat. Being in shallow water will help a lot with your anchors, because angle is important, but that island has a ton of surface area for wind to impact, so being close to land does help there, but then when something goes wrong you don't have any time to deal with it.

You still wouldn't want anything like that on any real body of water, but if you can find a fully protected lake or lagoon, and manage to be right offshore, you're in business. On the ocean, or a bay (which isn't protected from all sides like that lagoon) you wouldn't want something like that any distance from shore.

This guy ^^^ lol you kill more dreams than having kids does.
 

Matt Derrick

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dude, this is still perfectly feasible, you just need to choose a good location. i respect your desire to keep folks from hurting themselves, but this is far from an impossible endeavor.

also the first island was not in that location, but of course, maybe that's why it got smashed by a hurricane, who knows. i'm sure there are a ton of areas like bays and whatnot that would be suitable locations that aren't completely landlocked lakes or whatever.
 

Shaggy Rogers

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Well I'm not considering taking it to Asia or anything. Keeping it in a bay or similar location is the point, I'm pretty sure he says the coast is waaaaay safer, because the first being destroyed, but not ever fully safe. Obviously boats are just as dangerous as this, common sense takes people a long way.
 

Dameon

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dude, this is still perfectly feasible, you just need to choose a good location. i respect your desire to keep folks from hurting themselves, but this is far from an impossible endeavor.
I'm not saying it's impossible...location is exactly what I'm saying. Bays are open on one side, though, so except for some more protected bays, they're not generally the level of protection you'd want for something like this. If it's not protected, it's going to get some really rough weather when the wind picks up. I spent 3 years in a bay watching boats get destroyed by rough weather.

Also worth noting that the guy had to spend $9k on the equipment needed for the island to be a legal vessel so he didn't get shut down (in Mexico). For that amount, you could get a 30' boat that's ready to go around the world.
 

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