When talking about protection from wave damage we should have clear that one thing is being protected from wave hazard and sea sickening movements what happens inmediatly when you are submerged - and the other thing is how deep in the ocean you might notice the pass of big waves.

Wave hazards come from 2 factors:

1) breaking crests that can hit a structure with hundreds of tons of force

2) Hog and Sag, bending and torsion, forces which appear when a ship is supported by water (and bouyancy) at one end and in the air at the other end. Those forces can break a ship or lead to fatigue. They make a ship stamp and roll.

If you leave the math and wave amplitude thing apart, you can easyly understand that neither wave crests nor hog and sag can exist anymore as soon as you have a thin water layer closing above you, even when this layer is just a foot deep. The structure will be supported uniformly by water at its whole length and this uniform support leads inmediatly to a much calmer behavior.

This is what a diver experiences when he jumps from a rocking surface boat  - there is inmediatly this incredible calm uniformly supported floating status when you go below the surface it dos not  start gradually dozends of meters down - it is just below the surface. No wave is HITTING you anymore no wave is pushing you and your equpment around as it is the case when you swim on the surface. The only thing you experience below is a kind of current that changes direction with every wave. So you can "percieve the wave movement" when you have a visual reference to the sea bottom. If you don`t have this visual reference you will not notice the movement.

I know a lot of divers that are suceptible to seasickness in a rolling diveboat and they are always the first to jump overboard - once you are below seasickness is gone.

I experienced this in extreme form at Malpelo Island which is a island in the pacific 500 km off the coast of Colombia between Cocos and Galapagos - you have those real big pacific waves comming in directly towards a volcanic rock face. There is no doubt that any ship no matter the thickness of its steel plating would be hacked to small pieces within minutes. The divers jump overboard far from the rocks and swimm below the surface directly towards this rockfaces - this is where all those beautiful fishes are. You hang there 1-2m below the "hackzone" relaxed enjoy the smooth waiven of the waves comming in, you can feel the real big suckers in your ears, as the waterdepth changes while the crest goes trough. It is a wonderful place to mediate about the fact why nature never developed a surface swimming animal for the open sea - maybe living below is just so much better.

The other experience i can contribute is the experience i had with the submarine yacht prototype - while i had the sub on its anchorplace and was tooling around inside i closed the hatch to avoid questions from courious visitors - i was there for an hour or so and when i opened the hatch i noticed that a storm had come up, several trees felt down, sailing yachts in the 30 foot range where calling SOS, and the local rescue crew was busy to assist. - I did not even notice the storm. And the hull was still on the surface exposing the sail (tower) and the central rounded part of the hull a bit above the surface. Obviously this did not present enough wave and weather attack surface to make the hull rock and roll.

 

 

No long distance surface swimming animal exists because this is not energy efficient. Even whales which need the surface for breathing (because they started as a surface animal similar to a nutria -ambulocetus-) swim now below surface - why ? because they cruise up to 12,000 miles each year and nature shapes all animals to be energy efficient. Here we are - if you are looking for a model for a energy efficient ocean crossing submarine yacht take this. A 200 ton whale with a length of 30m (cut some of the tail section for hydrodynamic efficient length - take some 25m) can come up to a speed of 30 knots and has been measured at those speeds. Biologists and Physiologists estimate its maximum power output at 400 horsepower. Whales are mammals so their energy physiology is similar to other mammals. Which means there is a big gap between the energy output you can get from the organism in a emergency situation for a few minutes of fast swim and the energy output you can get 24 hours a day. The most educated guess on that is a factor 10 you can run very fast for 1 minute but if you wander 24 hours a day you have to do it at a slower rithm. This means what you have on a whale tail 24 hours a day during wandering is maybe 40 horsepower possibly less. If you take into account that whales do not feed which means do not re-fuel 6-8 months during wandering - how is this possible ? - only if they use VERY VERY little energy for swimming over VERY VERY long distances. What is the efficient speed range ? Smaller whales cruise at some 3 knots bigger whales at up to 6 knots. Taking a stream speed of 3 knots in your favor as ben franklin did in its 30 day Golf Stream drift dive - you could have a whale economic ocean crossing at 9knots over ground in a submarine yacht - not bad ! Having this in mind i took my prototype concrete submarine to water back in 1996 it was whale shaped had 20 tons like a small whale and my most important question was not top speed with a big engine - this is quite clear anyhow - my question was the limbo - how low can you go... so what i did first was installing a ridiculously small electric engine of 200W into the sub and pushed the switch. - What happened? First nothing then after a couple of seconds the hull took up speed and kept taking up speed until it reached a speed of what would be in the range of a whale efficient cruising speed - some 3 knots. So i never came to the point to install the big combustion engine i had in mind in first place - it was not necessary. I later put a small generator in to reload the small battery pack and extend the range - that was all. In all my submarine yachting years i never saw a situation i would have had a need for a bigger engine. This ridiculously small engine pushed me trough storms had no problem to get nose into the wind... So i am well aware what engine size is recommended for surface yachts - BUT - based on my own experience i would be concerned that such a engine would have a short life in a yacht submarine yacht because it has to run all the time in under load during cruising . I also have no problem if somebody wants a 400hp engine in a 200 ton submarine yacht to run all the time at whale emergency speed of 30 knots - you could water ski behind it...
My personal preference is doing it like those gentle giants - cruise oceans energy efficient at moderate speed.

When you plan an engine for a submarine yacht you should forget anything that is recommended for surface yachts and come back to the basics. Fortunately there exists a fine model made by mother nature that has about the size of a submarine yacht and travels long distance as a submarine yacht is supposed to do - Whales! A streamlined body such as a whale can travel over long distances with incredibly low energy use. Studies suggest that a whale uses 5 times less energy for swimming under surface than swimming on surface where additional drag from wave resistance comes up. A graywhale of 18 tons displacement has 3000 kg (14 kg of fuel/day) to travel 20.000km (95km/day) in this journey he has about 589g/hour of fuel available for life support and locomotion. To simulate the locomotion model of gray whale a submarine yacht of the size of my prototype (20tons) is well equipped with a diesel of 1-3 horsepower. This fits well with my own field data that suggest that a small electric engine of just 200W can move a submarine yacht hull of 20 tons under all weather conditions. Such a submarine yacht is able to go 95km per day with 14kg fuel use per day - the problem is you might not find a diesel small enough for this.

....right whales are slow swimmers, rarely exceeding 5 knots, with an average speed of only 2 knots. Gray whales are also not too fast, clocking a maximum speed of only 6.5 knots. Humpback whales do about 5 knots on average, but can put on bursts of 9-10 knots. Sperm whales are much faster, doing about 10 knots on average, and able to accelerate up to 20 knots or so if pushed, though only able to maintain this speed for a short period. Speeds of 14 -18 knots have been reported for the minke whale. The sei whale appears to be the fastest of the lot, able to achieve a sprint of about 32 knots, although again for only a short stretch. Some dolphin species can also go this fast, and are generally a lot faster than whales on average.

Energy efficency

hydrodynamic cost of swimming for a graywhale
muscle and digestive efficiencies of 25% (Gosline 1993) and 80% (Thomson and Martin 1986)

Models developed by (Bose and Lien 1989) for a fin whale

model for a typical gray whale (Sumich 1983) estimates the daily requirements for gray whale locomotion come close to 60 Mcal/day.

Gray whale if swimming near to surface encounter wave drag which can increase total drag by a factor of five (Hertel 1966)

It makes sense for whales to travel at depth greater than 3 times their body depth (Sumich 1983)

Metabolic rate from oxygen consumption Studies:
(sumich 1983, Wuersig et a. 1986, Wahrenbrock et.al.1974, Highsmith and Coyle 1992)

hydrodynamic models:
Bose and Lien 1989, Hui 1987,

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Bose N, Lien J (1989) Propulsion of a fin whale (Balaenoperta physalus): Why de fin whale is a fast swimmer. Proc R Soc Lond B 237:175-200
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Hertel H (1966) Structure, form and movement. Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York.
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Hui CA (1987) Power and speed of swimming dolphins. J Mamm 68: 126-132
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Kleiber M (1975) The fire of life: An introduction to animal energetics. Robert E Krieger Publ Co., Huntington, New York.
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Pike GC (1962) Migration and feeding of the gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus). J Fish Res Bd Canada 19: 815-838
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Sumich Jl (1983) Swimming velocities, breathing patterns, and estimated costs of locomotion in migrating gray whales, Eschrichtius robustus. Can J Zool 61:647-652
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Wahrenbrock EA, Marushak GF, Elsner R, Kenney DW(1974) Respiration and metabolism in two baleen whale calves. Mar Fish Rev 36:3-9
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Blix, A.S. and Folkow, L.P.(1995) Daily energy expenditure in free living minke whales. Acta physiol. scand. 153, 61-66
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Hui (1987) estimated that dolphins energy bursts represent a 166-fold increase of the metabolism over resting rates.

Migrating gray whales have a minimum CT (cost of transportation) that occurs at the mean velocity of 2.0m/s (Sumich, 1983). The stored engery resevers allow a migration of 15.000-20.000km during which the whales fast.

Cost of locomotion estimated, based on Lockyer(1981) and an average swimming speed of 6.3km/h for gray whales (Perryman et al. 1999)

Total blubbermass used in migration in a 18000kg whale is 3000 kg available for six to seven months without feeding - while migrating 20.000 km

energy by respiration...
The estimated O2 consumption of about 150 l.min(-1) is in line with the general allometric regression for mammals and corresponds to an energetic expenditure of 85-95 kJ.kg(-1).day(-1).

( BLIX AS, FOLKOW LP. Acta Physiol Scand 1995;153(1):61-6.) Mink Whales
...We found that cost of swimming is remarkably low in these large animals and that their estimated daily energy expenditure on average only amounts to 80 kJ kg-1 day-1.

http://concretesubmarine.com

. 

Oceanic concepts shaped by mother nature.... no surface ocean traveling animal exists...

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To have a realistic perception of the propulsion for a oceanic sistem that operates submerged look at the propulsion of ocean fish farming cages the thruster setup size operation envelope. All this is VERY different to a surface ship or a military submarine.

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its not really hard-- you would do much the same as a surface yacht...there are a few other things you would learn--but-not much. I plan on using standard cameras and fish finders or mayube cheap off the shelf depth finders.. need a strobe at night on the mast...military sunmariners have always looked at surface vessels as inferior...and they truly are compared to the low power requirements of a below surface vessel. they dont cost any more than a surface yacht..

 

they handle well due the streamlined control surfaces and the shape.. and the almost weightlessness of the vessel...

 

-- Edited by u-boatdreams on Friday 16th of September 2011 10:55:48 PM

The handling of a submarine yacht requires no "classic seamanship" it is as simple as pointing the bow in the direction you want to go - no special consideration of climate, wave conditions, the submarine ambient is a constant ambient with very little changes. It is like going in a business jet but without the pumps and airtraffic considerations.

Why global sustainability requires rocket fast technological progress:

http://concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t58921987/sustainability-population-growth-consumption-growth-ocean-co/

 

Marine business will lead to Seasteading:

http://www.seasteading.org/forum-list/topic/marine-business-will-lead-to-seasteading/page/8/#post-24163

 

-- Edited by admin on Tuesday 4th of November 2014 04:54:23 PM

The Treasure of the San José

A typical question that we get when talking about the captain nemo float out is : Where do i sit on deck and watch the sunset ?

This question shows that people imagine that just because your yacht is a submarine - you are confined to live submerged all the time.

The picture shows that the contrary is true. The deckspace of a submarine is as big - if not bigger - as a yacht of a similar size would have.

Our experience with the prototypes indicate that the crew will prefer to travel submerged (in snorkel mode) and keep the coffee cup on the table all the time. 

Traveling comfortable and steady with no interruption of work and comfort is not possible in small yachts - but it is possible with small submarines.

Nevertheless the "traditional seaman" who loves spray in the face and wind in the hair can still enyoy it - as an option of choice -  navigating on the surface in choppy seas.

 

 

 

 

. . .

Worldwide oceanic traveling  - just like a whale - is born as human lifestyle - featuring indedpendence - featuring comfort - and featuring "off the grid livestyle" as far as it can go.

It is affordable compared to other solutions (business jets, mega yachts) energy efficient (factor 5 less energy need than a surface yacht) - breaking free of anybodies "jurisdiction", "government", and "travel restrictions".

Oceanic global mobility for worldwide key players - in nature and in business... business centers always can be approached from the sea on our blue planet.

Other than a business jet, or a yacht that need to fit into existing "installations" (runways, marinas etc) The submarine yacht can stay a mile out at sea - still provide comfort (other than a yacht).

This opens a window for a live aboard vessel of enormous size and draft, as big as a building, with no size limits at all - tubular concrete structures with a diameter of 24m have already been built and performed for decades maintenance free at sea - as we speak. (TrollA)

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A submarine tunnel concrete shell tubular structure. / Rion Antriron bridge pylon 70m diameter. Oceanic concrete shells are prooven off the shelf technology. We took it a step further and made working submarines out of it.

 

-- Edited by admin on Sunday 4th of June 2017 12:28:12 PM

 

Let me propose the "captain nemo float out" it is basicly building a "better yacht" that can stay in open ocean for long periods of time.

Yachts can not stay in open ocean for long periods of time as the wave action makes staying there quite uncomfortable.

Yachts are also built from materials that impose "light building" as principal design feature. This goes bad with basic seasteading needs like big tank volumes and store of big amounts of goods like food, spare parts, tools, fuel, water and similar.

In general a yacht is built for living in a marina and make short trips of no more than a few days crossing open water in favorable weather conditions.

We propose (and already tested) a vehicle that is the technical equivlent of a whale. A very heavy almost completly submerged body wandering worldwide at a speed of 7 knots with incredible low energy needs, capeable to live on resouces and opportunities that come up seasonally at thousands of miles distance.

This vehicle would be about "apartment size" hold a adequate living space for a single family be equally comfortable in harbor or at open sea, avoiding wave movements by cruising most of the time in snorkel mode. It would provide "leave coffee cup on the table comfort" even in the worst imaginable sea conditions.

It would be the "workhorse" of a new generation of ocean explorers and settlers who engage in activities like open water pod fishfarming, tuna rearing, wreck salvage, scuba tourism, mineral explotation, scientific data collection, tourism and similar.

This workhorse would be almost completly independent of infrastructure.

It would allow to have a lifestyle that is somewhere halfway between a yachtie, the moken, and captain nemo. It would allow to paricipate in existing yachting, use existing harbor and boating infrastructure when available. But on the long run it would work best as mobile complement of oceanic cities as proposed by seasteading.

Thread about the captain nemo float out at seasteading.org here

-- Edited by admin on Wednesday 2nd of April 2014 02:09:34 AM

-- Edited by admin on Sunday 4th of June 2017 12:30:18 PM

Concrete Floating Structures

Surface Floating Concepts:

The axes of ocean colonization / floating real estate building lots on the water / Plate Seastead - Plate Floating Element for Ocean Colonization / Catamaran Concrete Floating Elements - Base for Ocean Living / Floating Concrete Breakwater Marina / Ocean colonization how to get there / Ramform ship island as ocean base mobile stable scaleable / small honeycomb floating concrete structures in cartagena / Seabreaks for dampening colossal ocean waves / Ocean colonization technology / Ocean colonization company / Oustanding floating concrete structures / ocean colonization general considerations / Interesting projects for ocean colonization / Aquaculture, business, trade, mininig, energy, salvage, making money afloat /

Submerged Concepts:

The captain nemo float out - seasteading / Sub movement finished - Submarine Yacht / Is submarine living space expensive? / concrete pressure vessel / Concrete submarine project / submarine yacht / concrete submarine yacht supporter club / Submerged living space bubble concept basics / Exotic Submerged Bubble Hotel / sea orbiter / Current Turbine Concrete Hull /

 

 

Richard Branson, Necker Island, Virgin Oceanic, James Cameron, Bob Ballard, Chris Welch, Wilfried Ellmer, floating concrete platforms, honeycomb floating platform, floating concrete shell construction, ocean colonization business alliance, ocean base, deep sea investigation, vent base alpha, deep sea mining, oceanic aquaculture, floating structure development, floating marina development, key player network, underwater hotels, underwater tourism development, submarine yacht, seasteading, Peter Thiel,

By Leia Michele Toovey- Exclusive to Gold Investing News With nearly 70 percent of the earth’s surface located underwater; it is no surprise that exploration companies are turning their attention to the bedrock and sediments below the ocean as a potential source of minerals. This so called “marine mining” is not a new undertaking. The first marine exploration and mining took place in the 1960’s and 1970’s when miners excavated manganese nodules from the ocean floor. These nodules provided a good source of nickel, copper and cobalt. Since the start of marine mining, companies have explored for practically every mineral and gemstone imaginable. Currently, 90 percent of the world’s diamonds are mined from the sea off Namibia and South Africa. At the beginning of the current century, in the deep sea, explorers located rocky ore deposits called seafloor massive sulfides, or SMS. These large underground deposits contained massive amounts of copper and gold. This discovery piqued the interest of companies looking to explore the marine environment. With most of the world’s land mass submersed, why has the method of marine mining been slow to gain momentum? Well, there are two main reasons: politics and technological limitations. Before the UN Law of the Sea Conference, there was no agreement as to how much of the continental shelf belonged to a country, and at which point it became international waters. Additionally, the costs of such ventures were extremely high in the 1960′s and 1970′s, when the technology was first developed. Now, with ownership questions settled, a great improvement in technology, and sky-high commodities prices, marine exploration is heating up. Marine Gold Mining Gold is found in the ocean floor in both solid rock, and as a part of sediment. When rivers meet the ocean, they deposit all the material that they have collected, and carried through their journey across the continent. In addition, gold and other minerals that are found in the ocean could have, in the past, actually been deposited in a terrestrial environment. The ocean level has not been stable over the earth’s history and has adjusted according to changes in climate, and glaciation. Offshore submerged beaches can contain large amounts of gold, and other minerals such as titanium, zirconium, rare earths, tin and diamonds. Seafloor Massive Sulfide Deposits Located 1-2km under water, SMS deposits appear like giant rock formations about 200m long and wide, and tens of meters thick. The deposits are found in underwater volcanic areas, and are created by hydrothermal plumes. When seawater seeps through the porous seabed, the water is heated and is then spurted back up into the ocean through the black smokers. The fluids emitted by these deep-sea vents are rich in metals and high in temperature. When the fluids hit the near-freezing water, the metals precipitate and form chimneys around the plumes. Over time, these chimneys collapse and form the polymetallic sulfide deposits that can be mined today. These deposits are an excellent source of copper and gold, as well as zinc, lead, silver and sulfur. The technology behind SMS exploration and mining has benefited from advances in underwater drilling for oil and gas. A lot of the technology used for SMS mining is based on existing equipment used in the oil and gas sector, with some overlap with marine dredging and offshore diamond mining methods. The key equipment, borrowed from offshore oil and gas, relates to seafloor trenching, where remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are used to excavate the seafloor for laying oil and gas pipelines. In SMS mining, similar ROVs are used to cut and lift sections of the deposit, which are then vacuumed and pumped up a flexible pipeline to the vessel at the surface. The only difference in the technology requirements is that while ROVs used for oil and gas pipeline trenches only need to function at depths of less than 500m, ROVs used for SMS mining need to work at 1,500m depths or more. It will take some more advances before SMS mining will come to the forefront, however, preliminary economic assessments indicated that commercial SMS mining ventures have the potential to be very lucrative. Depending on the concentration of minerals, SMS deposits have a value of US$500-$2,000 per tonne, with operating costs per tonne estimated at US$145-US$162. As the prices of gold and copper skyrocket, the value of these deposits increases as well. As land based deposits are exhausted, there is even more incentive to explore SMS marine mining. Diamonds Marine diamond mining has only been viable since the 1990’s. Marine diamond mining employs both “vertical” and “horizontal” techniques to extract diamonds from offshore placer deposits. Vertical marine mining uses a 6 to 7 meter diameter drill head to cut into the seabed and suck up the diamond bearing material from the sea bed. Horizontal mining employs the use of Seabed Crawlers (remotely controlled, CAT-tracked underwater mining vehicles) that move across the sea floor pumping gravel up to an offshore vessel. DeBeers is at the forefront of marine diamond mining, with the majority of their diamonds mined from the sea. Some analysts predict that the total value of offshore diamonds in southern Africa (extending into very deep waters) may exceed US$1 trillion. http://goldinvestingnews.com/investing-in-gold/marine-mining

 

It is possibe to build the nautilus and create a working yacht on base of that layout. It would not be very streamline efficient due to the crests and the "nemo eye" but still a viable shape for a submarine yacht.

Nautilus was 70m loa and 8m beam (according to Jules Vernes novel) .

 

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A submarine yacht is immune to pirate attacks in small boats. To create a "viable danger scene" in the film, Captain Nemo had to let open the hatch so that the attackers could come down the stairway...

When the hatch is closed nobody can access the interior of a submarine . Nor break into the thick hull with any reasonable means.

The Nautilus is the fictional submarine featured in Jules Verne's novels: "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" (1870) and "The Mysterious Island" (1874). Verne named the Nautilus after Robert Fulton's real-life submarine "Nautilus" (1800). Three years before writing his novel, Jules Verne also studied a model of the newly developed French Navy submarine "Plongeur" at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, which inspired him for his definition of the "Nautilus".

The Nautilus is described by Verne as "a masterpiece containing masterpieces." It is designed and commanded by Captain Nemo. Electricity provided by sodium/mercury batteries (with the sodium provided by extraction from seawater) is the craft's primary power source for propulsion and other services.

The Nautilus is double hulled, and is further separated into Water-tight Compartments. Its top speed is 50 knots. Its displacement is 1,356.48 French freight tons immerged (1,507 submerged).

A modern Captain Nemo - going for the treasures of the sea - not the gold in sunken ships - but the value in the genes of marine organisms....

-- Edited by admin on Tuesday 23rd of October 2012 06:12:05 PM

-- Edited by admin on Sunday 4th of June 2017 12:27:47 PM

wilfried Ellmer, manager, expat, latin america, colombia, business development, advisor, consultant, portal. german, english, spanish, business development key player network, colombia foreign investment, colombia subsidiary opening, real estate, marine services, tourism, chamber of commerce, business partnering, joint venture, oil, gas, mining, infrastructure, services, outsourcing, barges, ship repair, shipyard services, development, colombia resident manager, colombia european expat manager, country manager, portal industrial cartagena, internet, seo, search engine marketing, industry, logistics integration, management, projects, headhunting, project setup, executive search, your man in colombia, fulltime, parttime, freelance - available for projects now. info@tolimared.com

harper goff’s nautilus

Just recently we heard that ↵the mash still is safe and sound at the Smithsonian—now there’s even more comforting news. The original model of ↵Captain Nemo’s submarine ‘Nautilus’ designed by ↑Harper Goff and used in ‘↑20,000 Leagues Under The Sea‘ by Richard Fleischer (1954) is kept intact ↑at the Disney Archives.

Further and Deeper -- Developing Technology for Next-Generation Mariculture

In order to keep pace with growing global demand for seafood, marine aquaculture will have to expand. The vast majority of mariculture is conducted in protected embayments and estuaries, where farm effluent accumulation and interactions with wild stocks can cause environmental disruptions. To produce marine fish on the scale required by global demand, there is only one real solution: mariculture must move further offshore, into the deeper waters of the open oceans. Here, the tremendous assimilative capability of the sea is in full effect, potentially allowing a responsible mariculture operation to produce delicous, healthy fish with virtually no negative impacts to the ocean environment.

With the Velella Project, Kampachi Farms and its partners are taking the lead in the development of technologies to support true open-ocean mariculture.

 

Named for a genus of small drifting pelagic hydrozoan, the Velella Project is the world's first "beta-test" of an unanchored free-drifting oceanic fish culture system. The Velella array consists of a 132 cubic meter brass-netted Aquapod® net pen produced by Ocean Farm Technologies, of Maine attached by a combined towing/umbilical line to the 65-foot staysail schooner S/V Machias, which serves as the farm tender, dive platform, crew quarters, and operations center. By drifting on the ocean currents in waters two to three miles deep, the Velella is essentially "perpetually fallow", with no direct connection between the seafloor and the farm. No build up of effluent, no impact to wild stocks -- just clean fish growing in clean water.

In May 2011, the Velella was deployed from the harbor at Kawahihae, Hawaii into the open ocean West of Hawaii Island. In July 2011, the Velella was stocked with around 2,000 Kampachi fingerlings. These fish, the first ever raised in a drifting pelagic farm, accheived outstanding health and growth performance, reaching the usual harvest size by December, 2011. Roughly half of the fish were harvested to reduce the density inside the cage, and the remainder were harvested in mid-February 2012.

 

In addition to proving the feasibility of farming fish in the pelagic environment, the Velella has been used by Kampachi Farms and project partner Lockheed-Martin as a test platform for various supporting technologies. Ranging from automated feeder systems and robotic cage cleaners to satellite communications, these are the innovations that will be necessary make commercial-scale open ocean farming a reality. The next phase of Velella research will focus on replicating the outstanding biolgocial results of the drifter trial while using a single point mooring (SPM) system to facilitate the further development of automation and remote control technologies. By building on this sucessful research, and pioneering the permitting pathway for such operations with U.S. government agencies, Kampachi Farms will lead the push of next generation mariculture over the blue horizon.