Image Credit Wendy Sitler-Roddier

The land masses of the planet are full of nations engaging in squabbles over land.  Many people believe that the future for those who wish to escape the restrictions of their birth nations may lie in a concept known as seasteading.  The idea – on paper – is very simple: the reality is far from it.  However, with the formation of The Seastead Institute the concept is being taken seriously for the first time by many.

Image Credit Wendy Sitler-Roddier

Seasteading is the idea of placing permanent residences at sea.  They would be placed outside of the territories of any countries and as such the hope is that they will be able to assert their own sovereignty in the future.  The major obstacle has been and will be, of course, expense.  The establishment of even a small seastead would cost millions of dollars.  The designs here show the concept as it could be: many proposals have restricted themselves to modifying structures such as cruise liners or oil rigs.  The idea though does not fail to capture the imagination of many.

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Mistakes have been made in the past.  The closest perhaps to a permanent residence on the sea was the Principality of Sealand.  In the sixties the idea of an independent micronation led Major Paddy Roy Bates to acquire Fort Roughs, a Second World War Sea Fort situated ten kilometers off the coast of the United Kingdom.  They renamed it the Principality of Sealand.  Although it has never been recognized by any members of the United Nations it was often seen as the epitome of British eccentricity in sublime action.  The ‘custodians’ declared themselves royalty and the sea fort has seen a lot of action usually associated with larger nations over the years, such as air assaults, kidnapping, fire and bloody rivalries between those claiming to hold a stake in the Principality.  The latest plans are for a casino, of all things, to be built on the platform.  So far, so Orwellian – and hardly one might think, a prestigious example of the whole seastead concept.  However, this is not what the new exponents of the idea have in mind at all.

Image Credit Sitler-Roddier

In fact the term as we know it was only created in 1998, a great deal of time after Major Bates’ high sea shenanigans.  In the aftermath of the failure of a project known as Oceania, a group of like minded individuals came together to explore the concept through on line discussion and writing.  So it was that The Seasteading Institute was founded.  The future, too, looks as if it may be a little more comfortable than the old days of ‘Sealand’.

Image Credit Wendy Sitler-Roddier

Libertarianism is the driving force behind the concept of seasteading.  Put simply this is an ideology that places emphasis firmly on the liberty of the individual and seeks to remove the tethers of state as much as possible, ideally completely.  The argument goes that essentially, even if someone was to create a better form of government for a country there is nowhere left on earth upon which it could be tried.  Hence the idea of, essentially, floating cities that would be outside of the jurisdiction of any country.  Benjamin Franklin may have inadvertently summed up the ideals of the seasteaders when he said “Where liberty dwells, there is my country’.

Image Credit Wendy Sitler-Roddier

How could these cities operate without the interference of a nation such as the United States, for example?  A country with a coastline can lay claim to the ocean up to two hundred nautical miles off its shores – that is approximately three hundred and seventy kilometers.  Outside of this ‘border; otherwise known as the Exclusive Economic Zone, the High Seas effectively belong to anyone and everyone.

Image Credit Wendy Sitler-Roddier

Technology that has already been proven to work, such as the system of spar buoys used on oil platforms would be used to begin with.  From there, the hope of The Seasteading Institute is that new and sustainable methods can be found to enable people to live at sea permanently.  This is not in the realms of science fiction by any means.  Cruise Ship companies have proven that the provision of power, food and water on the open ocean can be done (and let’s not forget internet connections) but of course the huge issue with cruise ships is the damage they do to the environment, such as coral reefs.

Image Credit Wendy Sitler-Roddier

With the construction of small prototypes fast becoming an economically viable reality, environmental friendliness is high on the agenda.  After all, if seasteaders were to become responsible for aiding and abetting the pillage of the oceans then they would be no better than those established countries who blithely contribute to the collapse of oceanic ecosystems. 

Image Credit Wendy Sitler-Roddier

To convince the nay-sayers, The Seasteader Institute has produced designs for a resort, planned for the coast of California and the design results, startling and beautiful, can be seen here (used with kind permission).  A combination of traditional design, based on the oil platform example this ‘Floatel’ would also have a deck which would be suspended from steel cables.  The strength would be guaranteed by a steel truss which would encompass the building’s first floor.

Image Credit Wendy Sitler-Roddier

The philosophy of seasteading is that to make it viable it is necessary to start small and incrementally grow larger over time.  Ideas for services, such a medical procedures, which could be provided much cheaper at sea than on dry land would perhaps fund these cities on the sea.  There will no doubt be a need for new and original entrepreneurship – the ideas are essentially limitless.  There is also an idea for a single-family seastead which could form flotillas and then possibly even cities.   Look out also, for a festival, Ephemerisle, which will take place in the San Francisco Bay in the summer of 2009. The future for many could be far removed from dry land.

The author would like to thank The Seasteading Institute for the use of the design images and in particular Wendy Sitler-Roddier.