We are working on a seastead design.
This is NOT a normal boat hull shape, but it is a bit like a trimaran in that their are 3 floats.


Above the water there will be a big triangle frame, 80 feet front to back and 40 feet wide.
The triangle frame will be a sort of truss structure that also doubles as a 4 foot high railing to keep humans from falling off.
We will call the 3 points on the triangle "front", "left", and "right".
And the edge between left and right we will call "back".

There will be a floor and roof/ceiling (7 foot inside) the full area of the triangle.
The enclosed living space will be 14 feet wide and 45 long on the centerline but one edge close to the back.
There covered area around the living space make an open porch.  
The living area will have lots of windows in the font and back and some along the side.    

There will be 3 floats/legs/wings that will be the buoyancy.
Each leg/wing will 19 feet long and have a NACA foil shape with 10 foot chord and 3 foot width.
This makes for a "small waterline area" similar like a small oil platform but one that can move through the water easier because of the foil shape.
Each of the 3 legs will be attached to the underside of the big triangle near one of the 3 points and going down into the water.
The 3 wings will all be parallel with the blunt or "leading edge of the wing" forward  so it is easy for the seastead to move forward.
Each leg will be 50% under the water (so 0.5 * 19 feet) and the top 50% out of the water.
On front of each leg on the top half that is out of the water will be a built in ladder.

There will be 6 RIM drive thrusters, one on each side of the legs/wings about 3 feet up from the bottom.
These will be aimed so they can push water past the wing and toward the back of the seastead.

On top of the roof there will be solar all over.

Behind the living area will be two supports going over the railing and 2 ropes going down to a dinghy that
is a 14 foot RIB boat with 1 outboard motor that is sideways against the other side of the railing.   
When the seastead is moving the dingy will not feel the wind as the living area will block it.

There are 3 stabilizers that look like a little airplanes, one attached near the back of each main seastead leg.  
The little airplane has a 10 foot wing-span, 1 foot chord, the body 6 feet long, and the elevator has a 2 foot wing-span and 6 inch chord. 
A small actuator makes the elevator angle up or down so it can adjust the angle of 
attack of the main wing of this stabilizer without needing a large actuator.
While the thick part of the leg is 4 feet wide the back where the airplane will attach is very thin.  And to get the airplane's
center of lift to balance on the pivot a notch into the front/center of the wing only has to go about 25% of the chord of the wing.







In a harbor people can go between yachts or seasteads using dinghies.
But some day we would like to be able to have seastead communities that are not by land.

If we had the computers on two seasteads working together they could move along side
each other while underway and we could do a "ship to ship transfer" (STST).  We want this for
cargo or people.  In practice people will probably carry small cargo.

The stabilizer fins still out beyond the edge each of the legs so you have to be
a little careful in getting two seasteads close together.  You might
have the back of one seastead to come close to the middle of the side of the other seastead.
Or maybe better is to have one approach from directly behind.  The front leg of the following
seastead is in very nearly the same wave as the back two of the leading seastead so they 
will sort of naturally go up and down together.  And the gangway would have some shelter
from the wind from the living area of the leading seastead.

We would only want to do this when waves were small enough that the two seasteads 
could each be very stable.  But with small waterline area and active stabilizers
this might be fine for most Caribbean days.   These seasteads may only go
up or down less than 2 feet.  So we don't want any "active stabilization gangway"
or expensive thing.  We will will get the seastead stabilizers/thrusters/computers
all working well before we market the system.  


Beyond software for the seastead computers, what sort of equipment would be needed to do a "ship to ship transfer"?
How costly would this equipment be for each seastead?  
I guess really it can be an option and only some seasteads would have the equipment.
How reliable would the procedure be?
Do you think it is practical?


Having at least one seastead with the setup to do ship to ship transfer could make a seastead community possible.
With this you shopping for food or spare parts, going to a doctor or having doctor come to you, visiting a friend for dinner,
working with someone on a project, having a handyman fix your dishwasher, etc. all become possible.
So STST ability is really the key enabler for seastead communities that are not by land. 
So this is important.