If a fiberglass yacht is going along at 6 knots and hits something 
(shipping container, log, whale) during the night it might make a hole in the boat.  
Sometimes this can happen from hitting a propeller or stabilizer or some other 
"through-hulls below the waterline" thing.

We are looking at a seastead design that is a tensegrity design with 4 floats made
from duplex stainless steel.  The floats will be 20 feet long, 4 foot
diameter, and 1/4 inch thick.   The seastead will move around 1 MPH relative
to the water.   If hit a float can move relative to the rest of the seastead
as it is held in place by buoyancy and 2 cables.  There is actually an extra
cable in a loop between the 4 floats so if one of the 2 primary cables 
for a float is lost the float is still held in position, so there is some
redundancy.  Since the float can "give" relative to the rest of the seastead,
some of the energy of an impact just goes into moving the float relative
to the rest of the seastead.

Each float has no through-hulls.  They also have 7 internal air bags and
an internal air pressure of 10 psi.  The air bags have enough air that
if the 10 psi is lost they expand so that between them they about fill
up the volume of the float.

The pressure inside each float is monitored and an alarm will go off if a 
drop in pressure is detected.  There will also be water detectors in the 
bottom of the floats which will also set off an alarm. 

Imagine that a 1/2 inch diameter hole is made in the float 4 feet under 
water and that the air bags do not sort of plug it up (I think they may
well plug it up in practice) how long would you estimate it takes
for the 10 psi air to get out before the water starts coming in?
Now imagine (again I don't think this) that none of the internal airbags worked,
how long would it take for water to come in and how high up the float could it go
before it stopped coming in?
Now imagine (again not real) that none of the internal airbags worked
but after 5 minutes the humans connected a 2 Hp air pump optimized for 10 psi
to that float, would that basically keep more water from coming in?
How loud would this air coming out be, given that it is 4 feet under,
would all human on-board hear it even if they were asleep?

The living area is above the water.  One end of each of the floats pushes
against one corner of the living area.  The two main cables for each float
go from the bottom of the float to the adjacent corners on the living area.
Since it is above the water, it does not have any "through-hulls below the waterline"
that could increase the chance of letting the ocean in.

The hope is that this seastead design would have a far lower risk of 
sinking from running into something.  Do you think that is so?

Many yacht families with fiberglass yachts are afraid of the danger of hitting something at night
and so try not to sail at night.  Do you know if families with aluminum or steel yachts
with multiple flotation compartments tend to be more comfortable with sailing at night?
Is this seastead enough safer that you think when a family is on this seastead 
"going bump in the night" will/should not be one of their main anxieties?

If we made a marketing video of the seastead hitting a big floating log "at full speed of 1 MPH" to
show what happens (including any scratch or dent), do you think it could help sales?