Living in the Fatal Passage

For my Make It Resilient Extreme Living Condition CAD Challenge, I want to make a boat more adapted for long trips through Drake’s Passage, or maybe even to permanently stay on Drake’s Passage. Drake’s Passage is the passage between Cape Horn, Chile, and Antarctica. It is also the point where the Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern oceans meet. There are many things that contribute to making Drake’s Passage an extreme living area, most noticeable are,

1. It's salt water, not land, and food and fresh water would be hard to access.
2. Extreme nearly unpredictable weather
3. Soaring waves that can reach up to 60 feet

My boat comes equipped with the basic human necessities, like beds, bathrooms, food, fridges, etc. The photo that you see is a basic image of what the living quarters will be like. Minimal room, with a bed, shared bathroom, and shared eating area. While creating this in CAD, I made a small hole in part of the ship to represent a room. I also put in block to represent different necessities that the would be in the boat, I made a sink, toilet, shower, bed with a pillow on it, a fridge, and a table.

The first problem with living on Drake's Passage that I would like to address is fresh water and temperature. Since there is a very large source of undrinkable salt water in the Drake’s Passage, I think that this vessel should be equipped with the ability to take water from underneath it and convert it to fresh water by removing the salt. This process is more efficiently known as desalination. There are tons of ways to desalinate water, the most effective way being membrane desalination. But I would like to focus on the more common way. Distillation is the process of boiling saltwater so that the water converts to steam, and the steam is collected and condensed back into salt free water. The boiling point used for this water is 212 degrees Fahrenheit. It's very cold in Drake’s Passage. On average the temperatures are 26-41 degrees Fahrenheit, due to it being between Chile and Antarctica. So it's going to need a heater for the comfort of people on board. NC State Extension Publication says that “One of the more convenient, efficient, and cost-effective ways that residential, agricultural, and small commercial users can enjoy the benefits of wood energy is to use a hot-water (often called hydronic) heating system” The distillation device can be installed into the walls and used as a heater as well as a desalinator. This would conserve energy in the boat. Unfortunately, the distillation process still uses a large mass of energy, so I think that the vessel should have its own renewable energy processor. There are many types of renewable energy sources to choose from, but I think I would install wind turbines. Solar panels would be ineffective, due to the commonly cloudy skies of Drake’s passage, and hydropower is too complicated. Over oceans, you can count on windy skies, so windpower seems most effective. In order to create this in Tinkercad, I got a basic build of a boat, then placed wind turbines on top of it.

The second problem is the choppy waters. When you're on a boat, staying comfortable is nice. Drake’s passage is notorious for strong winds, fierce currents, and large waves. The weather is nearly unpredictable, so you may never know how fast the winds are, if it will storm, etc. I would like to try and make the vessel stable, and prevent it from rocking and swaying so much. My answer, a Seakeeper. I was researching unrockable boats, and I saw a video of someone showing off their boat which came with the Seakeeper feature, and when activated, it prevents the boat from rocking and swaying in the waves. How does this Seakeeper work? Well in the words of the company’s website, “Inside a vacuum-enclosed sphere, a steel flywheel spins at speeds of up to 9,750 rpm. When the boat rolls, the Seakeeper tilts fore and aft (precesses), producing a powerful gyroscopic power known as angular momentum to port and starboard that counteracts the boat roll." 

A basic translation is that when something tries to make the boat rock one way, the Seakeeper within the hull will send just the right amount of weight to counter. This keeps the vessel in place while forces try to make it roll in the water. It's possible that the Seakeeper may not be able to work entirely since the waters of Drake's Passage are much rougher than your average coast, but if we can harness the water that is already flowing through the walls, which heating the vessel while going through the distillation process, and use that large amount of water for the Seakeeper, that it may be powerful enough to minimalize swaying on the boat. On CAD, I simply added a block shaped somewhat like a Seakeeper on the hull of the boat.

In summary, my boat specifically adapted for Drake’s passage has a Seakeeper to get the boat to remain fairly still within the water. It has a desalination processor for clean, fresh water that also heats the boat because it uses distillation, and wind turbines to generate its own renewable energy.

Link to CAD build: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/1f4tOXrClRa-copy-of-yacht/edit 

Sources: 

• https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles/drake-passage-cheat-sheet-coping-with-seasickness-antarctica-weather-and-more 
• https://engineering.cmu.edu/news-events/news/2019/12/18-barati-farimani-desalination.html 
• https://www.iberdrola.com/innovation/desalination#:~:text=Desalination%20is%20the%20process%20by,human%20consumption%20or%20agricultural%20purposes. 
• https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/getting-into-hot-water-a-practical-guide-to-hot-water-heating-systems#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20more%20convenient,often%20called%20hydronic)%20heating%20system. 
• https://www.seakeeper.com/faqs/how-does-a-seakeeper-work/ 
• https://youtu.be/eSaNdi3ZoWQ?si=Nh5i23VvHOqf5GmD