Nearly a mile long and 25 stories high, “Freedom” will be the largest vessel to ever sail the seven seas. Freedom will dwarf the Queen Elizabeth II and become a permanent home for 50,000 people. “Walk in a straight line for about 12 minutes,” “If you don’t dawdle, you’ll cover slightly less than a mile. Now, make a right turn and walk beyond the length of two football fields. Duplicate these lines to make a rectangle, then look up to the height of a 25-story building. This is what Freedom will be.
City At Sea - Plans For The Worlds Largest Ship
“Freedom will be large enough to bring on more than 50,000 residents, 15,000 employees, 20,000 day guests and still have four times as much roaming-around square footage per person as the most modern cruise liners,” Nixon says during POPULAR MECHANICS’ visit to see how his ambitious plan is progressing. Taller than the highest buildings in most American cities and topped with a runway that can handle jets, Freedom may someday be the globe-trotting address for 17,000 homes and 4000 businesses.
City At Sea - Plans For The Worlds Largest Ship
Its dimensions are so colossal that it will have to be assembled at sea. Once it’s built, Freedom will circle the earth every two years, following the balmy breezes as it approaches the world’s major ports. The wealthiest of her “citizens” will leave their 15-ft. by 80-ft. ocean-view apartments and board their private jets or yachts for jaunts to shore. Meanwhile, the 15,000 people who work aboard the ship will gear up for the next on-rush of day visitors anxious to shop at its duty-free stores and guests checking in to vacation in its hotels and time-share condominiums.
City At Sea - Plans For The Worlds Largest Ship
Once under way, life aboard Freedom will be more like living in a bustling city than being on a vacation cruise. Because of its size, the ship will have its own railway system. Courtyards set about its decks will create interior park and recreation areas. Nixon has calculated that the resident population can support its own local economy, which means that residents will, in many cases, also be operating businesses at sea, in malls throughout the length of the ship.
As might be expected, this plan for a ship capable of carrying as many as 115,000 people The reason is not simply a matter of Freedom’s proposed 4320-ft. length, which is nearly five times that of the currently largest cruise ship, Carnival Cruise Line’s 900-ft. Destiny, but the enormity of its mass. When naval architects compare ships, they speak in terms of tonnage rather than length. The Destiny displaces 100,000 tons of water. The largest vessel afloat, the supertanker Jahre Viking, displaces 564,739 tons. Freedom will displace 2.7 million tons.
Nixon says that while there are many factors that determine a beam’s maximum length, a steel beam can reasonably be expected to span a distance 15 times its height. “A ship with an effective depth of 80 ft. of hull [measured from keel to main deck] can theoretically span a maximum of 1200 ft.,” Nixon says. “On Freedom, the effective beam runs 350 ft., from the bottom of the ship to the aircraft runway.” The result is a 4320-ft.-long floating beam that draws 37 ft. of water as it rides atop waves, rather than plowing through them.
“We’re not doing anything new,” Nixon says. “We’ve taken technologies used in one area and applied them here.” Indeed, Nixon says that during World War II the Navy used floating docks longer than Freedom. More recently, Kvaerner, the Norwegian ship and oil platform builder, proposed that the U.S. Department of Defense build a 5249-ft. floating airfield capable of supporting 10,000 troops. Called SeaBase , it would use Kvaerner’s patented linking system to join three giant semi-submersible drilling rigs into a landing field.
Freedom promises to be as different from today’s oceangoing vessels as the Queen Elizabeth II is from the Mayflower. Starting with the keel, Freedom doesn’t have one. This backbone is missing because Freedom is constructed of 520 airtight steel cells. Each will measure 80 ft. tall. Depending upon its location, each will be 50 to 100 ft. wide and 50 to 120 ft. long. Assembled ashore on rails, they will be bolted together to form base units, each about 300 by 400 ft. These will then be floated out to sea and joined to form the completed base.
About 10 months after the start of construction on the first airtight cell, three base units will have been assembled at sea. At this point, the tempo of construction will increase. Meanwhile, on shore, four assembly lines will be dedicated to building airtight cells. At sea, work will begin on the 25-story superstructure. By the 17-month mark, the last base unit will be bolted in place and the 25th level completed.
Two years after the start of construction, 4000 of Freedom’s planned 21,000 units will be ready for Well, not exactly. Freedom won’t have the sort of boilers you find on traditional ships. She will be propelled by 3700-hp motorized units protruding through 100 of her watertight cells. About half of these will be shrouded propeller units. The balance will rotate 360 degrees, like those used on tugboats. At about $1 million each, these are among the world’s most expensive marine power plants. Using GPS, Freedom’s captain could simply sketch the ship’s route on a touch-screen and the $6 billion ship would find its own way.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:24 am
tht creation is really good
i wouldnt mind building it
May 29th, 2009 at 7:25 am
but it will be a hard to turn
July 6th, 2009 at 6:59 am
could be a wonder of the world and also could be very hard to turn this ship but should bulid it it would be very cool
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Ridiculous!
September 10th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
what if it capsizes?
September 12th, 2009 at 11:48 am
lookingat the geomatry and the physics of the essel such a monstrosoty can not be possible it would simly capsze due o the amount of weight and the way it is built aso there is yet no power to be able to move a shp this size as of yetand well for turing such a ship it would take upto perhaps at least 34 hours for a full 360 degrees turn
September 14th, 2009 at 9:58 am
i want to live on freedom ship when im older and when it is actually in existance!!! I wonder how much space there will be for private yachts and planes and stuff. not to good a place to live for people who love driving.unless you own a private boat and have a car on it you can take ashor when the city has stopped.
September 24th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Nothing any comments ,Bcoz its God gifted human never stop…. so we can see bigger then this in heaven. Bcoz now we r in hell…
November 19th, 2009 at 7:59 am
I hope to see something bigger in future,because water ocupies about 70% of the earth surface.
We’ll get there.
November 19th, 2009 at 8:05 am
I hope to see someting bigger in future, because water occupies about 70% of the earth surface.
November 19th, 2009 at 8:56 am
so nice
January 19th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
FREEDOM will go ahead.. this is the future people, get used to a whole lot more of it.. the airport system on board allows the ship too cruise at whatever speed neccesary.. and turning wont be a problem, its just a very slow process.. it even looks unreal, and i think they have done a great job with the design.. too be apart of the team designing and planning this collossal ship would be an absolute honour.. if anyone knows whos in charge, can you please let me know..!!!
January 26th, 2010 at 9:01 am
What about the obvious terroristic attacks and such? You’d have to have a massive security element to protect that thing, inside and out. And like a couple of you mentioned, what about manuevering and certain weather-related occurrences? Just some important things to think about. Also, look at what they said about the Titanic, “God himself couldn’t sink this ship.” And then look what happened. No way I’d be getting on that thing. Thats just my own thoughts and opinions though.
January 28th, 2010 at 9:23 am
Quit dicking around! We have the technology to build a space ship or a hovering city run on solar panels but the us government is spending all it’s money on tanks and machines to destroy rather than to create something cool!
February 8th, 2010 at 8:06 am
Great! Another playground for the super-rich. Perfect timing right in the middle of a world wide economic crisis. They’ll need a ship that big to hide in when we all revolt.
June 12th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
You people are retarded…
June 25th, 2010 at 3:53 am
I don’t understand the practical use for this ship… Why? lol
July 6th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
OMG!!!! This is extremely great.I don’t care if this would be possible or impossible…for me this can be possible.
Oh, how I wish I could see and ride on that ship…
July 20th, 2010 at 2:19 am
This design looks great, but what if their is a huge wave, won’t something this largee buckle up or something and what kind of engine can push something of this size? thats something to thinnk about before you start drawing awsy.
July 20th, 2010 at 4:52 am
Where are the lifeboats?
July 20th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Sorry folks. Not possible. Although from a purely mechanical perspective, yes, this size of ship could be built, one is not taking into consideration the logistics of such a design. even something as routine as drinking water becomes an issue. Providing water for over 20 000 people daily would require extensive desalinization plants, larger than what this ship could provide. then there is the problem of food, consumable products, electrical power usage, policing, fire fighting, medical, education, sanitation, etc – the list is nearly endless. Additionally, anyone who works in the aviation industry will tell you, landing an airplane on the deck of a moving ship, even one as large as this one, is one of the most difficult manoeuvers in flying. The rather idilic image possed here is an impossibility. I could continue, but will digress. Keep dreaming.
July 21st, 2010 at 11:19 pm
not only is this a giant waste of resources considering there is still pleanty of land, why not develop some islands and my biggest fear is that it becomes a giant floating terrorist attack!
July 24th, 2010 at 5:24 am
wow this would be absolutly outstanding to be on an island and watch this thing go by.i would stand out there for an hour .i would hope to live on something like this but the only thing is in either space or on an ocean planet where there isn’t much waves…but very impressive!!!
August 4th, 2010 at 8:37 am
unfortunatly, like the Twin Towers it could become a target on the hi-seas around the world
August 18th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
its a beautiful creation….
August 20th, 2010 at 1:14 am
Yes this ship is plausible.
Hard to turn? No, the ship is to have Z-drives (360º rotation) which you find on tugboats. This ship will even be able to go sideways. It will be able to turn on a dime. Most cruise ships can maneuver without the assistants of tugs for they also have z-drives. I would take a wild ass guess that it would only take 30 minutes to make a full 360 degree turn. Sounds like a long time but who’s in a hurry?
About storms, I know of people who took their time at sailing around the world and only seen one storm. This is the reason it will take the ship 2 years to circumnavigate the planet for they will have to time the season for storm-less sailings.
Titanic? Hey this is the 21st century. We have learned much since then. Now days we have ships way bigger than the Titanic that have been sailing for years and never sank.
Engines size? We have built engines larger than this ship will use. For example I know of a ship engine piston large enough to fit a Ford Focus in side the piston cylinder with room to spare. Freedom is going to use many engines to power her. This is smarter approach for if one of you engines breaks down, you have another 99 of them for back up. Also you can upgrade the motors as technology improves.
Drinking water? That is very easy to make. My friend has a 32 foot sailboat with a reverse osmosis water maker. The water on his boat is far better than what you city dweller drink. Food and other needs can be trans ported by jet and supply ships. The US Navy has a few supply ships that can replenish a vessel while is underway and making way.
Jets landing on a ship? Yes, and it will be much easier than a Navy aircraft carrier. Why? Well this thing is 5 times longer and will not be effected as much from waves because of the ships displacement tonnage. Also computers will be making the landings like they presently do at your major airports.
Energy generation? I hear they can make roads into solar collectors. They can do the same thing with the runway. Also they can install cylinder shaped wind generators around the outside of the ship. In fact, I think they might be able to power the whole ship with wind/solar. Remember, they can install super energy efficient appliances making this very plausible.
Something else to consider about this vessel. It will be in international waters. The rules change. Think of it as your own country. Get it?
I truly think this can be built and would be useful vessel. In fact I think after this one is built, we would see many more constructed. Just remember that 71% of the earth is covered with water. We are not even using one hundredths of that space.
Captain Jack
Licensed by the USCG
August 21st, 2010 at 9:51 am
Hmm…that’s pretty cool. A floating city…I wouldn’t mind living there.