Posted on 12/03/2016 10:47:47 PM PST by nickcarraway
This UFO-shaped houseboat could be the future of on and under — water living.
Now, all Pierpolo Lazzarini needs is $1.1 million to make his out-of-this-world dream a reality, British news agency Media Drum World reported on Thursday.
“People are worried about the seaworthiness but in reality there is not (the) kind of risk compared to other similar sized boats we are used to sailing with,” said Lazzarini, a car and yacht designer who is who is expected to soon launch a Kickstarter campaign, the Mirror reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
someone has too much time on his hands, I think.
That silly boat would bobble like a cork in heavy seas..
This is a demo in search of starter funding for a guy in search of next months mortgage. All he wants is the money, he knows he can’t make this for a million.
It looks like a nice design exercise and I encourage trying new experiments to see what works, but...
I’ve spent a *lot* of time sailing and the reality on the water is that you want to be on the deck/outside as much as possible, which is contrary to the UFO design.
Very little water is clear enough or well-enough lighted to warrant underwater windows. If you’ve ever waded in 3 feet deep ocean water at the beach, ask yourself how clearly you saw your feet when looking down.
That’s what your underwater windows will show.
And when you go inside and down under the water level in such a craft, your ears are going to feel a pressure increase. That tends to make people uncomfortable...which sends them up to the deck outside.
The shape of it is really impractical for anything but static floating or very slow movement. Rough water would swamp it fairly easily. The solar array looks cool surrounding the “pod” in the middle, but the reality is that a fair portion of the solar panels would be blocked and shaded at any given time, very poor planning and poor use of expensive panels.
Novelty, not practical, wasted technology. If they sell a single one of these, I will be surprised.
Looks like an oversize hub cap.
The Russians experimented with circular warships in the 19th century.
If it was a good idea it would have caught on 100+ years ago.
Looks more like an oversized robot vacuum cleaner.
However, I do like the garden idea. Might as well “go green” if you are going to “spend green” for it.
One could live on it, but if you were employed, you would need to be moored in a marina so you could commute to work. A 42’ long powerboat slip costs about $750 including liveaboard fee, and electric. I wonder if this UFO has provision for electrical, water and sewer hookups. You would also need to pay extra for private parking.
Since the UFO’s circular configuration measures 41 feet in diameter, finding a slip with the necessary width for such a floating home might be impossible. In the Seattle area, finding any moorage for a liveaboard floating home is very difficult and almost impossible proposition. I doubt there would be anything available at a minimum of 43’ x 43’ in the Seattle area.
I question the safety of the UFO floating around the Puget Sound at 10 miles per hour. Insurance companies might not cover such a vessel that had such a maneuverability deficit with the amount of ship traffic going through the Puget Sound. A large, double wide container ship might roll over the UFO before it could get out of the way.
For boating I suppose you could ballast it and put some gadgets on it to stabilize it.
Still a waste of potential. A machine traveling through a fluid wants to have the smallest possible cross section. Elongating a boat gives you more space with the same cross section.
All houseboats do. They are harbor queens. This saucer shape does not provide very much living space for the volume and area it takes up. A regular brick shaped houseboat would be cheaper and take up less dock space.
Clearly not designed by any kind of marine engineer! The below waterline design wouldn’t give any directional stability and it would be easily flipped over in large waves. Probably could survive on a lake if you towed it with a real boat.
We lived on a boat for several years.
There is nothing like the thrill of stepping out of a bunk into several inches of water at 3 A.M.!
As a boat, it seems to have a very deep draft, and lots of glass underwater. I’d hate to hit an underground shoal or reef.
underground > underwater
I read a piece a few months back about retirees who basically live on houseboats and travel a circuit along the Mississippi River and Atlantic Ocean, passing between the US and Canada. Over the years they’ve come to know each other.
Sounds like an interesting retirement; certainly not boring or for the lazy...
A boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money.
This one looks like it ought to be painted black.
“Sounds like an interesting retirement; certainly not boring or for the lazy...”
Or economically challenged. Living aboard can be surprisingly expensive unless you anchor out and live like a camper that sleeps in Walmart lots.
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