NotEphemerisle Urban Planning -- City design

[Matt Bell]

Hey everyone,

I've put together a city design concept.  Please let me know if you like the design, or if you have any changes you'd want to make.  

I'm trying to optimize for several things:

- Easy transport between houseboats (either from boat to boat, or via central platform and other projects) so houseboats must align at gates.

- City design that allows 47ft and 56ft houseboats to mix.

- Creation of a sheltered central area for community platforms and art projects.  (Last year, the koosh felt lost amid a long line of houseboats)

- Clear focus on community space

- Easy speedboat/patioboat/small craft docking at community platform, complete with an exciting promenade entryway experience in order to wow new arrivals on Saturday.

- Sheltered swim area for kids.

- Incremental assembly process that is robust to arrival of boats at various times.  

- Easy accomodation of an unknown final number of houseboats.

- From the outside (from most directions) it looks like a regular houseboat party... this helps us keep a lower profile.

- Not boring like 2010's design!

Some notes:

- The central platform and Terry's bar are on loose bits of rope, allowing them to be pulled toward either adjacent houseboats or the central platform.  This allows both these floating platforms to function as rope barges, allowing passengers to take a shortcut from houseboats at the end

- The sex platform is essentially also a rope barge.  Its position will have to be moved based on prevailing currents... users drift out on it, and then pull back when they're done.

- The reed art may move further out if there's too little wave action in the shared area.

I am not the leader of this event (there is no leader!) so you could ignore this design and attach wherever.  But it's in all our collective best interest to have a city design we like (whether it's this one or a different one).

(Note, if you're getting this via floating-festival-announce, you have to respond to floating-festival.  floating-festival-announce is not a discussion list.)

If you want to play with the Illustrator file I used to create this, let me know.  

- Matt

[Paul Bohm]

That reminds me. Anchoring a houseboat is tricky. If you think you might be piloting a houseboat, here's how the basics work:

• Secure the bitter end of the anchor line to a bow cleat. Make sure the line is ready to run free once tossed overboard.
• Head into the wind or current. Reduce speed and reverse the engine. When the boat starts to make a slight sternway through the water, lower - do not throw - the anchor.
• After you've let about a third of your line out, tug the anchor line to see how firmly it's set, and then continue to release the rode.
• Once you let out an appropriate amount of scope, make sure the line is properly tied off on the bow cleat.

There's more info from years past at http://wiki.seasteading.org/index.php/Ephemerisle_Houseboat_Info#Anchoring

We urgently need to discuss how we plan to coordinate the anchoring operation. Anchoring can put a lot of stress on people, so planning will help keep us sane. Maybe Walkie-Talkies would help.