If there was a “and me more” contest in the naval sector, the Freedom Ship would win every round. Without a doubt. No concessions. No room for maneuver for the rest of the ships. Let’s see. At 1,371.6 meters, her length is so great that next to her the Seawise Giant would look like a boat to sail on weekends. As for her sleeve, she measures 228 meters, more or less equivalent to the Emperor Tower of Madrid lying down. And if we look at the height, it is close to 107 m, more than La Giralda.
No, neither you have misread nor we have gone crazy.
freedom ship is a real madness. Of course, for the moment if you want to take a look at it you will have to settle for the paper, the renders and the videos. Although his project has been on the table for years, it has not yet managed to take off… Or come to fruition, given the circumstances.
A floating city en route
In naval terms Freedom Ship is a huge project, almost science fiction. And it is because, although she is designed to navigate and move throughout the world, she is not a typical ship. Its designer, the engineer Norman Nixon, proposed it at the end of the 90s as a megaship capable of acting as a floating city, one with all of the law: with its streets, houses, shops, offices, hotels, casino… As a large urbanization, only on the high seas.
Of course, it can accommodate more passenger-citizens than many cities in Spain. Its creators calculate that between inhabitants and visits it could add between 50,000 and 100,000 people on board, which would place it in the fork in which cities such as Pontevedra, Ciudad Real, Toledo, Benidorm or Palencia move. “The commercial district will support a population of 100,000 people made up of 40,000 residents, 20,000 full-time crew members, 30,000 daily visitors and 10,000 guests who spend the night at the hotel or casino,” details the project website.
Freedom Ship, yes, plans to offer its tenants something that is not within the reach of those or any other city in Spain or the rest of the world: a constant voyage through the oceans and new landscapes every few weeks. At least if we discount the long journeys across the high seas to move from one point to another on the globe. Its goal is to complete one return to the Earth every three years and spend around 70% moored outside major cities and ports.
Given its enormous dimensions, it will not be easy when docking at many docks, so… How to solve it? Easy. As can be seen in the renders made by its designers, Freedom Ship incorporates an airfield capable of accommodating turboprop aircraft with 40 seats.
When presenting the project, they also insist that their objective is not to build a huge ship — which is also — but to shape a floating community, “an international, cosmopolitan, residential, commercial and tourist city” in constant journey around the planet. .
“The ship is so big because it is the minimum size required for the community to be financially self-sufficient and a desirable and attractive place”, he remarks. So big, in fact, that the team believes that there is no shipyard capable of manufacturing its gigantic barge.
The million-dollar—or billion-dollar question—is: How much would it cost to build Freedom Ship? Roger Gooch, part of the original team that worked with Nixon in developing the project in the 1990s, explained in 2013 to Business Insider that it would take around 9,000 or 10,000 million dollars, an exorbitant cost that explains to a large extent that more than 20 years after its original design, the Freedom Ship has still not managed to get past paper and renders.
“There are already super platforms in the world. They are simply not mobile platforms or floating cities. There is a large platform that Japan uses as an airport. Super platforms are not the issuethe question is whether an autonomous city that circumnavigates the world can be economically viable and we really believe that it can be”, reflects Gooch.
The truth is that the ship – at least that is the intention of its promoters – would have its own economy, with exclusive infrastructures, and if one day it becomes a reality, those who reside on board will have to pay a fee to pay for services such as security or maintenance.
A project of such magnitude, with titanic dimensions and tens of thousands of people on board, in any case raises some interesting questions: What laws would apply inside? In the 21st century, in the constant fight against climate change and in search of alternative formulas that allow reducing emissions from maritime traffic, what would be the contaminating footprint of Freedom Sheep? Exactly how much mess would you make with each circumnavigation of the world?
In the event that it obtained the necessary financing to start its construction, how would it be built, if the company itself recognizes that there are no shipyards prepared to shape the barge it needs? And once underway, crossing the oceans, could it be considered a tax haven? In short: Is the project realistic or will it continue for another 20 years in the drawer?
For now, everything indicates that it will take time to see its gigantic silhouette appear with a length of 1.4 kilometers and 25 stories high on the horizon. What we have left to whet our appetite or fantasize about what the Freedom Ship would be like are the spectacular images and videos of it.
Images | Freedom Ship
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism