Bj Campbell Yeah, I find many of the conceptual designs TSI has put...
· Comment — Archer T. Ships replied to Clyde Terrell's comment. · View on Facebook · Markdown source
Bj Campbell Yeah, I find many of the conceptual designs TSI has put out for large scale seasteas to be very impractical. Thankfully, TSI seems to have moved toward promoting single family seastead designs right now that don't require so much capital to build, and/or don't trigger local governments so much . As far as I know, only Ocean Builders has experimented with the idea of retrofitting big ships. They found that there was little demand for the cabins as is, and that getting insurance sufficient to satisfy nearby governments (they planned to park it off the coast of Panama) was prohibitively expensive. Thankfully, they were able to sell the ship (at a profit), and returned to building single family seasteads. People with millions of dollars to put into retrofit costs typically don't want to live on a refurbished oil tankers. They also typically don't want to live in isolation 200+ miles from shore, far from the benefits of civilization. The people willing to live under such conditions typically don't have millions in retrofit / maintenance costs. Let's assume that you wait until a market lull, and you get a scrapped tanker for a good price. $5 million, let's say. (1) Add another $0.5 - $1 million in anchoring gear. Length: 175-185 meters (LOA - Length Over All) Beam (width): Approximately 32 meters (estimated based on Panamax limitations) Draft: 9.5-12 meters Let's assume you find a quiet gyre somewhere in international waters with nice weather, and only 500 ft of depth. Marine vessels of that size require painting every 5 - 10 years at a cost of $2 - $3 million. Amortized, that's $200 K/year just to stop the vessel from sinking (assuming you push paint jobs out to every ten years at $2 million). So, minimum, you have to find $10 million just to get anchored out, and you have to find a way to generate at least $200+ K / year in international waters to stay afloat. Maybe doable, but it's a high hurdle. IMO, I think Ocean Builders, Arktide, and the folks building single family residences are taking the right approach right now. That said, I'm all for people experimenting with refurbished oil tankers, oil rigs, and cruise ships. 1. https://www.rivieramm.com/news-content-hub/news-content-hub/new-mr-tanker-sales-set-higher-valuation-benchmark-75796