FAQ

We expect the first communities to attract mostly pioneers and innovators at first. Hundreds of people have filled out our Floating City Survey, and hundreds more have informed Ocean Builders they want to buy a SeaPod or put down a deposit. Our first seasteads in protected waters should be affordable to the middle class of developed nations, and we hope that new materials and improvements in manufacturing will help bring costs down further so anybody can move to a seastead eventually. We are particularly excited at the possibility of offering options for resiliency to communities threatened by sea level rise.

There are many designs for seasteads, visit our Active Projects page for more details about specific designs.

See our video What will seasteads actually look like?

Space in buildings on seasteads may be sold, leased, or rented, like property on land. Fees may support infrastructure needs. The actual arrangements may vary among seasteads. Some could be collectively owned, for example. Ocean Builders plans timeshares and “SeaBnBs.” The Seasteading Institute will not be operating or managing seasteads itself.

The first single-family seastead produced 60 gallons of fresh water every day, powered by just a few solar panels, and the price of solar just keeps dropping. There are many existing technologies to make drinking water from seawater given a source of energy such as electricity or heat. Energy can be generated in a variety of ways depending on the location. A combination of biofuel, wind, solar, wave and marine current energy generation coupled with storage is already viable and cost effective at smaller scales. Seasteads can grow fresh produce in vertical farms and raise seafood using aquaculture. Excess food and energy can be traded with the host nation or even exported.

See our videos Live in Balance with Nature and Feed The Hungry.

There are many different designs for seasteads (see our Active Projects page).

Naturally, more luxurious seasteads will require more investment. The Seasteading Institute supports and celebrates many kinds of seastead entrepreneurship.

See our video Seasteading! Can You Afford It?

Seasickness is a problem with boats, not seasteads.

In a 2017 National Public Radio interview on the popular show Living On Earth, host Steve Curwood and Joe Quirk engaged in the following exchange.

A year-and-a-half later, when a big storm struck the first seastead in international waters, Chad and Nadia were eager to pass the martini test … until they realized they didn’t have the elements to make a martini.

But they had red wine, which they declared a better test, because you can see ripples on the surface of red wine in a wine glass.

Nadia turned on her camera and triumphantly passed “the wine test,” which is immortalized in the final seconds of The First Seasteaders 3: Lifting the Stead.

In 2020, they passed the wine test again on their triple-spar prototype in Panama, showing off the fact that the wine didn’t ripple in waves as motorboats pass by at 20:00 in this video: Ocean Builders Deep Water Prototype

Before the COVID-19 crisis, cruise ships provided private medical services to over 20 million people a year, many of them elderly, and their routes remained within helicopter distance from land hospitals. Oil rig workers often must remain in more remote places performing more dangerous work than seasteads will ever have to face, and they are served by telesurgery and telediagnosis in emergencies. Many medical entrepreneurs want seasteads precisely in order to offer patients better, cheaper services than they can acquire on land. As the seasteading population expands, entrepreneurs may establish a medical practice similar to what is available on cruise ships. Hospitals, doctors’ offices and clinics will be available at the host nation for early Seasteads in protected waters.

A seastead stationed in international waters 12 miles from the coast would typically be a 20-minute ferry ride from shore, which in itself is shorter than the average American commute. Initial seasteads in a host nation’s territorial waters should be relatively short travel from restaurants, shops, businesses, museums, art galleries, concert halls, hospitals, etc. Soon enough, seasteads will be hosting all these attractions.

While seasteaders are interested in new or better ways of organizing their communities, they’re also interested in peacefully sharing ideas and trading with others locally, regionally and internationally. We wish to be good neighbors to those near us. We value openness, choice and transparency as beneficial to all.

In order to create something better, often you have to try something new.