Coaststead
Coaststead is a seastead prototype, part of the plan described
under Our Proposal in
the Making it Happen section of the
Seasteading paper. Its main purpose is to serve
as a tangible demonstration of the projects financial viability,
technical feasibility, and our seriousness about the project.
Statistics on Coaststead:
- Top deck area: 3000 sq ft
- Living deck area: 3000 sq ft
- Facilities deck area: 3000 sq ft (6 foot ceilings)
- Total deck area: 9000 sq ft
- Max occupancy: 10 people
- Max safe wave height: 30 ft. This is sufficient for any
sheltered waters, as well as the ocean during calm weather, as long
as a harbor is close enough that if a storm forms, Coaststead can
seek shelter.
- Total weight with ballast: 526 tons.
- Hull displacement: 595 tons at designed water line.
- Max deck weight: 100 tons
- Approximate cost: $500,000, which is $56/sq ft of area, or
$167/sq ft of topside area. Breakdown of the
cost estimates. Note that costs include infrastructure
equipment as well as the main structure.
Purposes:
- Make seasteading concept tangible, as opposed to just a vision.
- Demonstrate that design will float.
- Demonstrate feasibility of infrastructure technologies.
- Experiment with infrastructure technologies.
- Get media attention (free advertising).
- Get people to come look at Coaststead so we can pitch Seastead to them.
- Make a little money by giving tours.
- Serve as residential space for some of the projects principals and employees.
- Serve as office space for the seasteading project (potentially).
Note: Coaststead vs. Baystead. We originally planned to build a
seastead which could be moved up and down the coast, and handle the
waves there. However, we have moved towards a plan to simply anchor a
seastead in the San Francisco Bay Area, which should be easier. Since
the waves in these protected waters are smaller, we can make
Baystead's pillar smaller than this Coaststead design. And we may
need to limit the size of the platform so it can fit in a berth.
Baystead will be cheaper than Coaststead since its smaller. We'll put
up more detailed plans when we have them available.
Supporting Documents: