doomsdayers/preppers

[mrcharly]

pumps would be run from a [or multiple] generator sets which in turn are run from oil fuel, as said somewhere earlier in this thread the bigger continer ships do carry VAST quantities of this stuff so should have power for a long time if your not going anywhere, these days most new vessels have water recovery plants to make potable water form the sea, and sewage plants so there not dumping raw sewage overboard.

Growing food onboard? this will take soil, so theres the difficulty of ferrying out a few tons?? not sure how much you'd need - then distributing it evenly, so there's no stability problems - unfortunatley you can't just go and dump a few tons on a vessel and not think about it - it may just be a case of filling/ emptying the ballast tanks a bit, but then again it might not be.

You could dump a few hundred tons on deck of a small freighter without the boat noticing it.

Heck, we brought our barge over the north sea (and this barge is tiny compared to any freighter), we put a 1000l fuel tank on deck and filled it - you couldn't even see the boat shift as the tank was filled.

If living on board a freighter, I'd set up composting toilets - they could be quite basic. Chickens for eggs and meat. A couple of feet of soil in 'raised beds', some greenhouses built over them.

Where would I get the soil from?

Easy - drop a digger on a workboat, motor up a river and nick it from the riverbank!

Mooring up the freighter in the humber, it would be very tempting to rig a waterwheel for some power generation - the tides run at 5-6 knots in places.

 

[mousey]

Yep fair enough,

'Handysize' container 150m length overall 25m beam 10m draft - 32,000 t dead weight.

somewhere I heard you need 1000sq.m to give a family of 4 enough veg?

so if we say deck area = 150x25 = 3750 sq.m even taking shape of vessel and other structures into account you'd get 1000 sq.m of free space.

somewhere else i've heard soil can weight 1200kg/cu.m - 1600kg/cu.m depending on what in it. so if you fill 1000sq.m to a 1m depth even taking the max figure = 1600t so easily enough for the vessel to cope with [still have to think alittle about the ballast weight]

I'd still recon you'd have difficult getting something which draws 10m close enough to the side of an ordinary river to get soil up with a digger. But I could be wrong about that as well...

anyway i think i have to apologise for taking things tooooo far..

 

[BillyBlade]

Trust me, boats don't leak unless there is something wrong.

I have a 60ft sailing barge and the only time I need to pump out bilges is when rainwater gets in. Maybe once every few years.

The water you see pumping out of the side of ships and boats is nearly always cooling water - it's drawn in and circulated round a heat exchanger then pumped overboard well above the waterline. Pumping it out above the waterline stops back-flooding and also means to can do a quick visual check to see if the cooling is working.

Sailing barges, no. Anything that has a shaft or any other penetration through the hull, does allow in ingres of seawater through the shaft seals etc and does need to be pumped out. Usually on a daily basis, although this is dependant on the age of the boat and the condition on the seals.

I'm ex Royal Navy. Trust me, even the best maintained war canoes leak when alongside the wall and need the bilges pumped out on a daily basis.

 

[mrcharly]

Me sailing barge has a DAF 575 6 ltr and a 24" prop - so still has a shaft seal. Ditto the narrowboat. Far be it from me to disparage the RN, but if I can maintain a boat so that she don't leak, I don't see why the RN shouldn't manage the job.

As for the soil digging, the humber is full of work barges with dredging and digging gear. It's in constant use.

 

[santaman2000]

Sailing barges, no. Anything that has a shaft or any other penetration through the hull, does allow in ingres of seawater through the shaft seals etc and does need to be pumped out. Usually on a daily basis, although this is dependant on the age of the boat and the condition on the seals.

I'm ex Royal Navy. Trust me, even the best maintained war canoes leak when alongside the wall and need the bilges pumped out on a daily basis.

What about modern vessels with azipods rather than shafts?

 

[bilmo-p5]

Dream on!

If you currently have a seaworthy 60' boat you're going to have all on to make sure it stays yours. The boatless will be eyeing your pride and joy even more keenly than you might be considering someone else's cargo ship. Survivors are going to be queueing up for means to escape and armed survivors will not be bothered who gets in their way.
The best prep you can do is to maintain your food, water & fuel at full capacity (as far as is practical) and be ready to slip your moorings at very short notice. If you're reliant on the opening of a barrier or gate to access open water, and a lot of liveaboards are, a sound contingency plan to ensure its operation after the 5 hits the fan is essential.

 

[gliderrider]

There was a programe on HMS Endurance recently, and she nearly sank when the valve to one of the azipod motor things blew, letting in sea water. There endeth my maritime knowledge.

If you nick a container ship, you could use the containers(after you've liberated anything useful out of them) for hydroponics or as grow rooms, not even needing the deck space, just lots of fertilizer and UV Lights(unless you want to live on mushrooms).

 

[mrcharly]

lol - I'd just head for the humber. The sea will be my defence. If people are competent enough to breach that barrier, then they can join my merry crew.

azipods suck in a big way. Who was the bright spark who thought of putting the highly stressed electric motors on the *outside* of the hull?

 

[gliderrider]

werent they originally used to aid stearing in confined space, a bit like thrusters in star treck?

When I first read your post, I thought you had an old Humber PIG from NI. Now that would be good for scouse shopping post apoc.

 

[mrcharly]

No, I have a dutch sailing barge, a type of tjalk. Not really suitable for long-term isolated survival, its just not big enough.

 

[bilmo-p5]

Who was the bright spark who thought of putting the highly stressed electric motors on the *outside* of the hull?

What's wrong with that? It's just another through-hull fitting; pretty much the same sort of thing that stops your barge flooding through its sterngland.

 

[mrcharly]

How do you fettle the motor when something goes wrong with it?

 

[santaman2000]

werent they originally used to aid stearing in confined space, a bit like thrusters in star treck?...

They are extremely more maneuverable than a conventional rudder system but additionally they are far more efficient than a drive system. That being because the propellers are attached directly to the motor without any loss of power whereas the older system loses power as it travels down the drive shaft.

A disadvantage is that they are more vulnerable in shallow water.

 

[santaman2000]

How do you fettle the motor when something goes wrong with it?

You operate on the other 3 or 5 motors until you get to port. At any rate they are electric motors and not as problematic as the diesel engines.

 

[TeeDee]

What a great 'random' thread this has been?! , From concerned americans to IQ stats and the questioning of same , to Ships , Boats and all things Noggin!!

Love it.

 

[maxol]

Reminds me of Silent Running.

 

[TeeDee]

Reminds me of Silent Running.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie?

 

[maxol]

Poor Louie, God bless him... he's not with us anymore.

 

[TeeDee]

Poor Louie, God bless him... he's not with us anymore.

Nope. He's just Interstellar Space Junk now.

Rejoice in the Sun!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkF05D-NJMU&feature=related

 

[mrcharly]

They are extremely more maneuverable than a conventional rudder system but additionally they are far more efficient than a drive system. That being because the propellers are attached directly to the motor without any loss of power whereas the older system loses power as it travels down the drive shaft.

Actually it is because they are 'pull' props rather than 'push', so the prop is operating in clear water. There's no loss of power in a rigid shaft.

Back on topic, what is the availability of 'fertile' seeds like these days? I don't know the right phrase, sorry, but I mean seeds that produce plant that produce plants whose seeds are fertile. A lot of the GM stuff produces sterile seeds, doesn't it?