This seastead is a Small-Waterplane-Area (SWA) platform built around an equilateral triangular living frame. Its geometry, propulsion, and energy systems were deliberately constrained so that every component can pack into a single 45-foot High-Cube shipping container. By combining semi-submersible-like seakeeping with foil-shaped struts and distributed electric propulsion, the design aims to deliver a stable, comfortable, and mobile workstation for life at sea.
Before the vessel ever touches water, its dimensions must survive global logistics. The entire system fits inside a standard 45 ft High Cube container:
For shipping, the three legs are laid end-to-end along one side of the container with their trailing edges up. The three straight frame sections travel along the other side. The broad center cavity holds the RIB dinghy (deflated), thrusters, stabilizer wings, and all outfitting. This containerization enables centralized, machine-aided fabrication in cost-efficient regions and straightforward delivery to nearly any launch site in the world.
The habitable space is defined by an equilateral triangle 44 ft on a side, with 7 ft high walls serving as both the structural frame and the living-area enclosure. Rather than treat the corners as interior volume, the design pushes the enclosure inboard by 5 ft on each side of every corner, creating three covered outdoor decks—one at each vertex. Doors at each corner connect interior and exterior circulation.
The remaining side segments carry a 3 ft exterior walkway with railing, wrapping continuously between the covered corners. At the stern center, the walkway is interrupted to make room for a 14 ft RIB dinghy (equipped with an electric outboard), stowed sideways and nested against the transom. On either side of the dinghy, the aft deck extends 5 ft beyond the triangle’s back edge, providing a sheltered boarding and staging area.
Because the living loads are carried by the triangular ring and the buoyancy is supplied by three distant columns, the house itself can be lighter than a conventional hull of comparable floor area. The resulting large, flat roof is almost entirely available for solar photovoltaic coverage.
Three vertical legs hang from the triangle’s corners. Each leg is 14.5 ft tall with an 8.5 ft chord NACA 0030 foil section; the last 0.5 inch of the trailing edge is squared off so the section fits within the container height and is easier to manufacture. In service, the legs are oriented with the blunt leading edge facing forward, placing the thin trailing edge aft.
Exactly 50 percent of each leg is submerged (7.25 ft). This arrangement gives the platform three key hydrodynamic behaviors:
The NACA 0030 shape is not merely a round column with an airfoil aesthetic. When the craft moves forward, the foil section presents low pressure drag compared with a bluff cylinder of equivalent volume. Moreover, the chord forms a substantial lateral plane, allowing the legs to act as integrated daggerboards. When a kite or a drogue is deployed, the legs provide lateral resistance without requiring separate centerboards or drop keels.
Each leg carries a pair of 1.5 ft diameter rim-drive thrusters mounted approximately 2 ft above the leg bottom, with their flat faces oriented fore and aft. By placing propulsive effort at the extremities of the triangle, the system gains high yaw authority and station-keeping precision. Because electrical cabling runs through a welded conduit along the trailing edge of each leg, there are no through-hull penetrations below the waterline—reducing leak paths and simplifying maintenance.
At the aft end of each leg is a small airplane-like stabilizer: a 10 ft span main wing with a 2 ft chord, a 6 ft long central body, and a 2 ft span elevator with a 6 in chord. Rather than driving the entire main wing with a heavy, high-torque actuator, a small actuator deflects the elevator. The elevator acts as a servo tab: its deflection changes the local pressure distribution, causing the much larger main wing to pivot to a new angle of attack with very little energy input.
Because the platform already has a small waterplane area, the hydrodynamic damping is low; the stabilizers do not need to fight large inherent restoring moments. Mounted far outboard on a roughly 44 ft base, even modest lift forces generate substantial righting moments to damp roll and pitch. This is an efficient way to achieve large stabilizer authority with lightweight, low-power hardware.
The roof’s large solar array feeds a battery bank occupying roughly 25 percent of the vessel’s displacement. The lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO₄) cells are installed as low as possible inside the three legs, producing several simultaneous benefits:
When the seastead is to remain on site for an extended period, three helical mooring screws are driven into the seabed and tensioned. Because the platform has a small waterline area, pulling it down slightly with tensioned legs creates a very stiff vertical restoring force—an effect borrowed from Tension-Leg Platforms (TLPs). The result is dramatic reduction in heave, pitch, and roll at anchor, creating a calm workstation suitable for long-duration remote work.
A track mounted along the top of the walls (curved at the corners) can carry an automated kite-flying device. The leg sections provide the necessary lateral resistance for kite sailing without auxiliary daggerboards. In storm conditions, a drogue can be run from a harness for directional control.
A 14 ft RIB with an electric outboard nests against the stern center. Because it is tucked in directly behind the living area, it is shielded from headwind during forward motion. For shipping, the RIB is deflated and packed inside the container.
Two identical seasteads can be connected stern-to-stern with a walkway bridge, allowing residents to move between units while underway. The onboard computers communicate to synchronize thrusters and stabilizers across both vessels. When a transit between units is anticipated, the control systems cooperate to minimize differential motion at the bridge, reducing the hazard of crossing between platforms in a seaway.
The merit of this design lies not in any single feature, but in how the features reinforce one another:
The configuration described above represents the core vessel. A number of additional capabilities and accessories are outlined in the optional extras documentation.