History is littered with bridges designed to do the impossible. One example, Euroroute (pictured above), would literally take drivers through the White Cliffs of Dover to an island five miles into the English Channel where a tunnel would bring drivers the twenty remaining miles to France. This bridge designs was never built of course but the dream existed.
Today bridges are being designed that would cast shadows over Euroroute’s proposed span. Here’s what is being planned. [Continue Reading →]
Tags: · architecture, Bridges, design, engineering, Interesting
gCaptain searches the web each week to bring you the world’s most interesting and inspiring ships, but you don’t need to be a naval architect to design an imaginative vessel. The are the world’s best examples of buildings inspired by ocean going ships.
Tags: · architecture, design, Maritime, ocean, ship
Keetwonen, 1000 shipping containers from China modified into student housing in Amsterdam, is the largest shipping container housing development in the world. It has been praised for its innovation, cost effectiveness and design.
For students, living in modified shipping containers is actually better than it sounds on paper. Each unit addresses many of the common concerns for students living in student housing such as privacy and cleanliness, while retaining the social aspects of living in dorms. Each unit includes amenities such as private bathroom, kitchen, separate sleeping and study room areas, ventilation, heat, hot water heater, large windows and even private balcony.
Tags: · architecture, containers, design, interesing, Offbeat
In honor of Earth Day, let’s take a look at an archived post on Skysails. But first, here is a brief update into the current state of affairs provided by Skysails:
Within the framework of the pilot phase, the SkySails-System is being explored on board the MS “Michael A.” and the MS “Beluga SkySails” during regular shipping operations. Throughout these trials the system’s level of robustness and reliability is first of all being elevated to that demanded by our customers and its suitability for daily use established. Subsequently the system’s performance will be evaluated extensively and optimized.
On both ships – the “Michael A.” and the “Beluga SkySails” – the SkySails-System has been put into operation successfully. The customer vessels remain in regular commercial operation throughout the pilot phase. Initially, two to three SkySails engineers will be aboard of each ship. All components are being long-term tested during use of the SkySails-System on board. The results immediately flow into the process of improving and optimizing the product. Read full update…
On her maiden voyage, the Beluga SkySails set sail to Venezuela from Bremen on January 22, 2008 and reached the Norwegian port of Mo-I-Rana on March 13, 2008 after travelling a total of 11,952 nautical miles.
Archived post originally posted in Jan. ‘08. [Continue Reading →]
Tags: · alternative energy, Beluga SkySails, co2, design, Environment, global warming, interesting_ship, Maritime, naval architecture, ocean, ship emissions, shipping-industry, Ships, skysails
So this is a little bit more complex than building a boat out of popsicle sticks, but after all, it’s going to eventually be sailed over 11,000 miles on the open ocean.
According to CNN, the ambitious eco-adventurer De Rothschild is currently in the process of collecting and constructing a boat made almost entirely out of plastic PET bottles. In April, Rothschild plans to sail his boat, called the Plastiki, from San Francisco to Sydney.
The Plastiki is a 60-foot catamaran will be made up of an estimated 12,000 to 16,000 2-liter soda bottles, stripped of their labels, washed, filled with dry-ice powder and then resealed. The dry ice sublimates into carbon dioxide gas and pressurizes the bottle, making it rigid. Additionally, two wind turbines and an array of solar panels will charge a bank of 12-volt batteries, which will power several onboard laptop computers, a GPS and SAT phone. When it’s all finished, the Plastiki will be 90% recylced material.
De Rothschild hopes his creation, now being built on a San Francisco pier, will boost recycling of plastic bottles, encourage people to embrace clean, renewable energy and help people see that consumer waste can be a potential resource.
“The idea is to put no kind of pollution back into the atmosphere, or into our oceans for that matter, so everything on the boat will be composted. Everything will be recycled. Even the vessel is going to end up being recycled when we finish,” he told CNN.
Check out this video for more on the Plastiki’s construction:
Tags: · design, green power, recycle
C. F. Møller Architects have recently published sketches of the extension for the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London. The Danish firm won the international architectural competition for the 5200 m2 new wing in 2006.
The new wing, called the Sammy Ofer Wing, will house a large special exhibitions gallery, a new south entrance towards Greenwich Park, and the creation of storage facilities for the National Maritime Archive with associated learning and research facilities.
Tags: · architecture, design, maritime_museum
What happens when you let a comedian and elementary students paint a ship? No, the answer isn’t the Norwiegan Gem, it’s the Dream Tanker. Pink Tentacle tells us;
The Dream Tanker, one of the largest liquified natural gas (LNG) tankers in the world, now travels in style. Comedian-turned-painter Jimmy Onishi and 40 elementary school students have designed monster-sized psychedelic murals for the ship’s spherical tanks. The total area covered by the murals is large enough to cover 100 buses. The 120,000-ton Dream Tanker, owned by an affiliate of Osaka Gas, measures 289.5 meters (950 feet) long and 49 meters (160 feet) wide. With 4 independent spherical tanks measuring 43 meters (140 feet) in diameter, the tanker can hold up to 67,000 tons of LNG. Osaka Gas decided to decorate the tanker with graphics in celebration of the company’s 100th anniversary. The company asked Kansai-area elementary school students to draw pictures, which Jimmy Onishi then incorporated into his giant images of a fish, crab, shrimp and turtle. Sumitomo 3M Ltd. then used computers to process the images and printed them onto a special adhesive film, which was attached to the tanks. Read More…
Photos from her commissioning in 2006 can be found HERE.
Tags: · artist, design, LNG, lng carrier, lng tanker, Maritime, ship, students, Tankers
Frequently passing under bridges for a living and over them in the family sedan we, like most mariners, have a fascination with bridge design. In fact one of the most popular posts on gCaptain is “The 5 Most Ambitious Bridge Designs Of Today“. Today we bring you a great link from the Bridge and Tunnel Authority of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania titled “A Spotter’s Guide To Bridge Design“. Here’s a preview:
A cantilever is a structural member which projects beyond its support and is supported at only one end. Cantilever bridges are constructed using trusses, beams, or girders. Employing the cantilever principles allows structures to achieve spans longer than simple spans of the same superstructure type. They may also include a suspended span which hangs between the ends of opposing cantilever arms.
Some bridges which appear to be arch type are, in fact, cantilever truss. These may be identified by the diagonal braces which are used in the open spandrel. A true arch bridge relies on vertical members to transfer the load to the arch. Pratt and Warren bracing are among the most commonly used truss types.
The classic cantilever design is the through truss which extends above the deck. Some have trusses which extend both above and below the deck. The truss configuration will vary.
Tags: · Bridges, design, engineering
The Port of New York and New Jersey have recently announced that the raising or replacing of the Bayonne Bridge could be upwards of $2B. The bridge, which stands 151 ft over the Kill Van Kull at its highest point, is too low for the next generation of massive container ships. The bridge is the largest obstacle facing growth in the port. Traffic World Online tells us:
Richard Larrabee, the port authority’s port commerce director, spoke Monday at the bistate port’s 8th Annual Port Industry Day. Earlier estimates had been that the project would cost about $1 billion.
“The Bayonne Bridge is the Number One issue in the port,” Larrabee said. The authority expects to complete a study by next summer on how to replace or raise the bridge, which crosses the channel to container terminals in the Port Newark-Elizabeth complex in New Jersey and New York Container Terminal on Staten Island.
The Port Authority is currently in the midst of a study to decide what is the most efficient way to solve this problem, whether it is raising the height or replacing the bridge, or or building a tunnel under the Kill Van Kull.
The Bayonne Bridge, at 8640 ft, is currently the third longest steel arch bridge in the world and was the longest when it was completed in 1931. Built by the Port Authority of New York, it was constructed to allow vehicle traffic from Staten Island to reach Manhattan via the Holland Tunnel.
Tags: · bridge, bridge span, design, engineering, new york
Here at gCaptain we are interested in all things we can drive our ships over, under or through… this includes bridges. Our friends at Deputy Dog bring us the world’s most interesting bridge. Ok, it’s not really a bridge but its location (map) at the north end of the Malacca Straight makes it of particular interest to mariners. Click HERE for more information and the video!
Tags: · Bridges, design, malacca-straight
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