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| 1902s Yacht Fair Lady |
I'm reading The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars and round about Chapter 9 we are cruising the Black Sea in Griselda's personal yacht, North Star. This is back in the roaring 20's so there is a whole crew to operate the ship and cater to Griselda's whims.
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| Yacht from the Future |
Reading about this excursion from the Black Sea to Scotland prompted this little thought experiment. Imagine a world where all our problems have been solved and we have robots to build anything we want. In a world like that everyone could have their own fully automated nuclear powered yacht, capable of crossing the Pacific Ocean or even sailing around the entire world.
You wouldn't be able to get to the middle of continents cuz there's no navigable Rivers, so you would need an aircraft, a helicopter with a 2500 Mi range. And it would have to be a big helicopter so you can have a comfortable cabin and not be riding in a noisy plexiglass box.
If everyone's got one of these yachts that's would be 8 billion yachts and the question is: if they were evenly distributed over the world's oceans how far apart would they be?
Oceans cover 139 million square miles, so if each of the 8 billion people on Earth had their own yacht, then, on average, each yacht would have 11 acres of water to itself. Evenly spaced they would be 700 feet apart. Trying to go anywhere would be like navigating a parking lot or a harbor, not exactly smooth sailing.
Thanks to Anonymous for pointing out the error in my math. Well, not the math, but my interpretation of the math. This was my original description:
. . . there would be like 12 yachts per acre or 3 yachts per quarter acre. I picked a quarter acre because that is the size of a good sized suburban lot. In other words, it would be right crowded and you probably wouldn't be able to go anywhere on account of being hemmed in so tightly.
I think your math is a tad off. Using 640 acres per square mile, 139 million square miles of oceans and 8 billion people (or yachts) I'm getting 11.12 acres per yacht.
ReplyDeleteWhy does every picture of these super-yachts, photograph or artists illustration, show them skimming over smooth oceans, Even a huge yacht will pitch and rock on even moderate seas. That means onboard just walking is a defensive sport.
ReplyDeletexoxoxoBruce
Thanks Anonymous for pointing out my error. Bruce - don't you know that the super rich control the weather and the oceans? Of course it is always smooth sailing for super-yachts.
ReplyDeleteOne super yacht per capita? What's the fun of being Super Rich if you don't have cooks, maids, courtesans and other flunkies. At a minimum you'd need somebody still on shore to pump the diesel and restock the caviar. And if the ocean did get crowded somehow.....Super Airships.
ReplyDeleteT