Freedom Ship: A Utopian Home on the Sea

Picture a giant ship – almost five times the size of the Titanic – floating around the world and carrying within it a city. We’re talking schools, a hospital, cinemas, a mall, and more. That is the concept for Freedom Ship, an idea that a Florida-based company is trying to make reality.

The 4,500 feet long, 750 feet wide, and 350 feet tall ship would cost around 11 billion dollars to construct and because of its vast size, the floating city could only be built on the actual water. A documentary on the Discovery Channel reviews this process and explains that thousands of workers would need three years to complete the project. When it’s finished, Freedom Ship would weigh over 3 million tons. No one has ever attempted to build such a vast structure on water.

The idea is that the ship would cruise from country to country and anchor at different cities 70% of the time while it would be on route 30% of the time, according to Newsy. This would create a completely different lifestyle than what anybody is used to. You’d have access to different areas of the world throughout the year as you keep your home mobile. Like the original mastermind behind the idea, Norman Nixon, explains in the Discovery Channel documentary: “We have all the amenities that it takes for you to have a good lifestyle on the ship and still travel continuously.”

As for the homes, the number of residencies the ship can carry varies among different sources. The ever-changing design plan is apparently the cause of that, but the company’s website states room for 40,000 full time residents, 30,000 daily visitors, 10,000 nightly hotel guests, and 20,000 full time crew. “Just as with any land based community of 50-75K inhabitants, there will be available all types of habitational and commercial occupancies,” explains Roger Gooch, Freedom Ship’s media contact, over e-mail, “They include two-week timeshares from 50K, studios priced initially at 200K and larger occupancies ranging from 300K to 1000K. We do have one unit that is priced at 9 million.”

More features on Freedom Ship include a private school, hospital, a duty-free mall, offices, warehouses, athletic facilities, shops, banks, and more. Freedom Ship will be a “place to live, work, retire, vacation, or visit,” according to the company’s website.

Questions arose after the idea went public. For one, how will taxes work? The project’s website explains that Freedom Ship residents will not be levied taxes, although American citizens always have to cut the government a check no matter where they live. Another concern is what kind of law will rule the ship. Maritime law is said to take effect here, but how far can these legalities stretch with such a new concept?

The company behind Freedom Ship has announced that the project is now able to utilize Construction Equity Capitalization, which “utilizes contributed products and or services from numerous suppliers in exchange for liberal equity shares in a specific project.” Looks like private investors aren’t biting.

But is Freedom Ship just the beginning of a new way of living? With a continuously growing population worldwide, chances are we’ll run out of land and people will have to move out to the sea. Would you live on Freedom Ship or another such project? Do you think this is the way of the future?