Setting Sail on a Giant, Floating City (Super mile long ship holds 17,000 families!)

Foxnews.com ^ | 1/4/01 | michael y. park

[hopespringseternal]

up to 20,000 daily visitors

How will they get there?

[aShepard]

Let's see.

At a displacement of 2.75M tons, this sucker will have a draft of about 26 feet.

At 350 feet high, those on the upper decks better have some nicely monogrammed barf bags handy whenever the wind gets over 15 knots.

[Brett66]

The idea of living on a cruise ship isn't new, I believe current cruise ships offer that option. As nice as it is to be in the carribbean during winter, it might get old after awhile.

[LN2Campy]

Flat bottom = puke city

the "righting arm" on this tub is probably a nightmare -- this HAS to be a joke/scam

[Liberty Tree Surgeon]

This represents a third-world tax haven with a first-world lifestyle. If I had enough money to afford a cabin, I'd have enough money to shelter from taxes.

As to terrorism, a dingy bomb wouldn't dent this puppy. Besides, aside from the Aquila Laro (sp?), how many of the world's existing cruise liners have been attacked?

LTS

[finnman69]

Where are the lifeboats?

[Rebelbase]

"A normally deadly 100-foot wave will move the ship about one inch, according to Gooch"

These are the same people who tried to sell the Brooklyn Bridge.

[Catspaw]

At a displacement of 2.75M tons, this sucker will have a draft of about 26 feet.

At 350 feet high, those on the upper decks better have some nicely monogrammed barf bags handy whenever the wind gets over 15 knots.

I haven't been able to show this thread to my boatbuilding hubby yet, but it's what I suspected.

Dibs on the salvage rights.

[Michael2001]

swim?

[Michael2001]

"So the USA or any other Western nation should undertake no grand projects for fear that a some Muslim somewhere will disapprove."

No, but since 9/11 we have to realize that anything, especially something of this magnitude is a potential target, and plan accordingly. To dismiss it and say that nobody would want to attack it is naive

[MistrX]

This is just plain stupidity.

[RightWhale]

Obviously no one will want to live on a barge such as this, but how about a catamaran? A really big one. The drydock would be even more impressive.

[MississippiMan]

Sounds like a Clive Cussler book I read not long ago. VERY interesting and a story I'll follow.

MM

[ao98]

They claim to be able to build it without a drydock. How? They say they will build it in the water. That's why I think this is a scam.

[SW6906]

Paris has a sea port?

[wardaddy]

I've seen these pie-in-the-sky leviathan ship schemes before. I always wonder...how does any nautical architect compensate for the quite narrow beam to LOA ratio. How would these vessels stand steep breaking waves or even deep trough swells when they are so damn long and narrow...and yet purported to require relatively shallow draft? I keep thinking of a rather large M/V Edmund Fitzgerald. Snap!! One would think these vessels would need such deep drafts as to be incomprehensible.

[Catspaw]

Obviously no one will want to live on a barge such as this, but how about a catamaran? A really big one. The drydock would be even more impressive.

Catamarans would be more stable, seawise, if designed correctly, but beefing up the bridgedeck crosspieces would be hell if this is the design they want--and in any case, it's still too top-heavy and far too heavy. (We're building a catamaran. I know about this stuff, via by hubby.) One good wave & I'd expect to see it crack right down the middle like an egg.

Structurally, it'd be impossible with this design. It'd have to be whole lot lower and a whole lot wider (most cats are a 2:1 ratio, length to width). That'd also make it less manueverable--watching it try to turn might just be as much fun as watching people take out their bass boats at our old marina (I wanted the tire concession). In fact, they might as well buy an island declare themselves the Emporers of Ice Cream.

This idea--and this boat (even designed as a catamaran) ain't going nowhere.

[RightWhale]

The Navy is looking at trimaran hulls for some midsize ships. It's not easy to outdo centuries of experiment and sea trials. The sea does not forgive poor design.

[Travis McGee]

It's an investment bilking scam pure and simple, and was 100% debunked last year.

Another myth that won't die.