I don’t think I can do any better than [last year's inspirational post](http://www.seasteading.org/stay-in-touch/blog/3/2008/07/04/an-old-speech-freedom-bold), so I suggest enjoyable re-reading it.
If you’d like to read more about secession, independence, federalism, revolution, non-territorial secession, and related matters, go check out [Secession Week at Let A Thousand Nations Bloom](http://letathousandnationsbloom.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/upcoming-secession-week-blogging/).
via OpenWorld comes the post [How to Live in a Shipping Container](http://www.been-seen.com/article.cfm?id=11083), with a number of pictures of shipping container homes:
Laissez-Faire city was a new country attempt in the 1990s, based in Costa Rica. Despite many flaws in the idea (some of which I document in my 2001 visit to CR), I will always have a warm spot in my heart for it, as it was the first project I had some firsthand experience with. Here is the ad they took out in The Economist in June of 1995:
You may also want to see John Kingman’s report. (John later moved to CR, and I stayed with him during my visit).
I’m glad to see other people trying this area, we are actively investigating it as well, and the more players the better when it comes to getting acceptance for a new industry. It will be tough to make it work, though, a number of post-ResidenSea ventures have tried a condo cruise ship, and none have pulled it off. It is worth keeping in mind that investors, founders, and banks lost approx $100M to $200M on ResidenSea, out of a $270M or so investment! Yes, the ship is in operation, but it was “funded” by investors losing money, so it doesn’t prove that the model can work profitably.
It is still worth investigating, I think, as we may be able to save substantial costs by retrofitting a used ship, moving more slowly and rarely, and following a small fixed route rather than wandering around the world. If it did work, it would be an awesome incremental step towards seasteading. But it is not, unfortunately, an easy path, so you should not believe in any specific proposal (including ours) until it is funded and in construction. That said, this is the smallest (ie, most incremental) and closest to completion cruise condo I have seen yet, and it makes me significantly more optimistic about our chances:
> Oceanic Retirement Communities of America (ORCA) has created a new dynamic in adult living with its Lifestyle Cruising Program. Retire on your own private residential cruise ship! This totally innovative continuing-care retirement model provides Independent Living and Assisted Living accommodations to seniors who want more out of their retirement years than what a conventional adult community can provide.
It has 100 condominiums, and is based in Florida. Here’s a [Fox - Orlando](http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/030309_Retirement_on_a_cruise_ship) news story, including a video:
Some key details, in case you don’t want to [read their faqs](http://www.condoships.com/?pageid=faqs).
* 100 condos
* Cost is $160K to $400K, for 125 – 330 ft^2. So this is quite small – far smaller than ResidenSea, and significantly smaller than we had been planning. Perhaps retirees don’t have as much stuff? And they don’t have kids living with them either. They have extensive common space as well.
* The all-important operational costs are $25K – $41K/year for two people. Note that they decrease costs a lot by staying in their home port, Port Canaveral in Florida, much of the time – greatly reducing fuel costs, canal costs, docking fees (assuming their home port is chosen for low docking fees). However, these costs also include meals, housekeeping, and all the care of an Assisted Living facility.
* Ship plans to take 10 3-day cruises to the Bahamas each year, and one long cruise to the Caribbean or Central America. So it spends 10mo of the year in its home port. The residents will control the future itinerary.
* No property taxes, as you are not buying real estate, you are buying a share in a Florida LLC that gives you equity, voice in decision-making, and exclusive right to use a specific unit on the ship. So the business model is resident-owned with the developer cashing out at the beginning, as far as we can tell, which is one of our top proposed ownership models. (It is nice to see confirmation of our thinking.)
* No financing, unless your bank will do it.
If you’re interested in condominium cruise ships like ORCA, Utopia, Magellan, and ResidenSea, check out all our posts tagged cruise condo. For more general information on how to live on the ocean, read A Brief Introduction to The Seasteading Institute.
Maybe not a boat that goes in the ocean. But a boat for a calm lake? [Totally, says Chicken John](http://chickenjohn.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/i-don%E2%80%99t-accept-or-give-excuses%E2%80%A6/). Like, I think this boat is made out of duct tape:
His post has a few other examples. Great inspiration for Ephemerisle, whose website is now up at [ephemerisle.org](http://ephemerisle.org). If you’re in the Bay Area and want to practice for Ephemerisle, check out Chicken John’s [Camp Tipsy](http://camptipsy.wordpress.com/faq/) event, which involves [a competition for the worst homebuilt boat](http://camptipsy.wordpress.com/contest-rules/) (which floats for at least 7 minutes). It will be on August 1st.
Check out [Monday's post on Secession Going Mainstream and Basics of Secession](http://athousandnations.com/2009/06/29/secession-week-blogging-monday-intro-to-secession/), or the [Intro/Index Post](http://athousandnations.com/2009/06/25/upcoming-secession-week-blogging/), over at our sister blog A Thousand Nations. Please help us spread the word about Secession Week!
[Via Justin Pickard](http://justinpickard.net/2009/06/the-lighter-side-of-seasteading/) (who has some entertaining commentary) comes this video from [Open Sailing](http://international-ocean-station.org/blog/). I had some trouble understanding the concept when I saw their website awhile back (perhaps a language issue?), but the video makes it clearer. I like their idea for swarming algorithms based on weather, political systems, and so forth to automatically suggest good clustering locations for all the participating vessels. I also like the idea of an “International Ocean Station” like the International Space Station. It’s great to see other groups out there working on seasteading!
There seem to be almost no subscribers to the engineering blog, which perhaps is because it has no content! So I have made a couple of posts:
* [Reminder: Ephemerisle Grant Program](http://seasteading.org/blogs/engineering/2009/06/25/reminder-ephemerisle-grant-program)
* [Containerized Housing](http://seasteading.org/blogs/engineering/2009/06/25/containerized-housing)
If you are interested in the engineering aspects of seasteading, [subscribe here](http://seasteading.org/blogs/engineering/feed).
[On a forum thread](http://seasteading.org/interact/forums/engineering/structure-designs/whatever-happened-shipping-containers?page=3), [Thorizan](http://seasteading.org/users/thorizan) posted several interesting links to cargo container-based housing.
[CNN: Recycled homes, one box at a time](http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/06/12/recycled.homes/index.html)
> Using containers to build homes has increasingly become a trend in the past several years because it can be cheaper and faster than using traditional construction methods. There are also plenty of containers at most major ports.
> About 18 million containers are used worldwide to transport a variety of everyday products, such as cars, toys and food. Because the United States imports more than it exports, many containers end up stacked at ports.
> SG Blocks, a company whose name stands for safe and green blocks, has made a business from the container overflow. Co-founder David Cross previously worked as a merchant marine and spent a lot of time at sea, dealing with shipping containers.
> “As you’re looking down the deck of the vessel, you see hundreds to thousands of containers perfectly configured,” Cross said. “They were stacked nine high below deck, five or six high on deck, and I just kept seeing hotel after hotel on the deck of our ship.”
> Cross also saw value in the strength of the material. “The containers are designed for hostile dynamic life at sea … capable of carrying 60,000 pounds. It just made imminent sense, that with minor modification, it could become a multi-family living system.” In 2003, Cross partnered with engineer Steve Armstrong to help bring the idea to fruition. A year later, Hazelton’s house was built in South Carolina.
> According to Cross, modifying containers into homes uses significantly less energy than melting them down. “These containers weigh about 9,000 pounds, and it takes about 9,000 kilowatt hours of energy to melt down 9,000 pounds of steel,” Cross said. “We modify that existing piece of steel with approximately 400 kilowatt hours of energy input. [That's a] 95 percent energy footprint reduction.”
[Here is the page for SG Blocks](http://www.sgblocks.com/), the company mentioned. [bardamu](http://seasteading.org/users/bardamu) also mentioned [Containerhouse International](http://www.containerhouse.com/index.htm), which builds and converts modular container-based homes.