Setting Sail on a Giant, Floating City (Super mile long ship holds 17,000 families!)

Foxnews.com ^ | 1/4/01 | michael y. park

[Travis McGee]

Your boat sounds great, do you have any pictures or drawings? What is the hull material, the layup schedule I mean? Is it cored with glass over? Are you vacuum bagging? How far along are you in construction, and where are you located? (I'm in San Diego.)

I have a million questions but those will do for now.

[Cultural Jihad]

I love that movie.

"Oh, so we are merchants after all!" - Zork

[Grut]

Otherwise, it will burn a horrendous amount of fuel.

Yes, but the consensus seems to be: not for long!

[det dweller too]

Tell me, is this Calypso Louie's mother ship or what!

[RightWhale]

A normally deadly 100-foot wave will move the ship about one inch

If the monster wave hits wrong, this barge will break in two and go to the bottom immediately.

[is_is]

17,000 families, 20,000 visitors and what was it 8000 staff? At 2.5 per family we're talkin what 70,000+ people on this thing at one time.....sounds crowded to me.

[multitaskmom]

Coming around the horn, the waves crash over the deck of an aircraft carrier.

[Catspaw]

It's plywood with a foam core, built on 4 ft. centers. It's epoxied on the interior face (to the foam), then glassed (hubby would know the specs on the glass--how many oz.--but I know it's nice stuff & doesn't fray when it's cut). The exterior has been glassed, with triple taping on the seams, no bagging.

We're in the Green Bay area (and I am envious about you living in San Diego--they're very accomodating to sailors). Every boatbuilding junkie in our area has stopped by to see it and watch its progress. We just had someone over this week with boatbuilding stars in his eyes, wanting advice. It told him to get every heavy-duty power tool ever made x 2, and become friends with the guys at the power tool repair shop. I told him to count on it taking twice as long and costing twice as much as originally thought. White vinegar will take green epoxy off flesh, but once it hits your glasses, you'll be looking through it for quite some time. We buy epoxy by the 55 gallon drum & fiberglass by the bolt (and laughed hysterically when this clerk at West showed us his 1 gallon cans of epoxy & bits of fiberglasswhen we were in the store the last time when we told him we were building a boat--we could use that in an hour or two when we were glassing the hulls). We're on a first name basis with the folks at Defender. We've cut our sailing magazines down to Practical Sailor and the Seven Seas bulletin.

If I knew how to post the pix, I would....so just freepmail me & I'll send the pix along. I haven't taken any of the interior lately because it's not finished, but the exterior looks done--painted & everything.

[ccmay]

I'm surprised nobody has posted a link to this article on Monster Waves yet.

-ccm

[RightWhale]

For size, compare to the World Trade Center, both primary buildings together. About the same population. Not only is the barge to be the size of the World Trade Center, but it will float! This has to be some kind of miracle.