The Story Of Freedom Ship

what's up guys my name is Jake ever since I was I don't know 10 or 11 I came across and this is a true story I came across the story or at that time the very real in development project of freedom ship I remember I became obsessed with this out of the world concept and got so excited for the future but it's been well over a decade since and nothing solid has culminated so today I figured it might be interesting to look into what happened to the ambitious freedom ship concept what it was and what the future may hold I also got a chance to see what the current CEO behind the project has to say this is the story of freedom ship I want to quickly thank Ridge for sponsoring this video go to Ridge comm /v SF or use the code BSF at checkout to get 10% off your order now let's go back to the 1990s with a visionary man by the name of Norman Nixon an engineer from Sarasota Florida he was developing a small island in the Turks and Caicos however after losing the property he switched gears to an entirely different concept a floating city back in Florida Roger Gooch an entrepreneur and investor had a pretty successful travel agency business which he had been operating for a few years he had also been dreaming of something new in the leisure market and came up with the idea buying a cruise ship and refitting the existing cabins into condo units the return on investment had the potential to be lucrative and Roger along with his colleagues had begun looking seriously into the idea however one day just by chance things were about to change the paper in Florida a man had a small article and he goes condo cruise ship seminar it was just a small little article you know if I had to come back at that time and read it I would have never encountered norm or any of them so I I go to the seminar it's at a hotel and there's I enter nurses to pretty pretty large room and there's about four people in the room and I did the time I didn't realize who he was but norm next thing comes over and introduces himself to me and and he says I'm the engineer of this develop of this thing and we're glad you came you know and and I said this can't be 5,000 feet long because oh yeah yeah it is yeah it'll be the largest festival ever built in the world in history he was an interesting guy he was very learned it needless to say and in a lot of respects he was somewhat eccentric and he says well he says I really like to to speak with you further about this we can build it but we don't know how to bring it to the attention of the world he says we need that you know we need someone to do this norm it's inand Roger hit it off at the seminar and soon Roger was brought on to their team as head of marketing tasked with bringing this insane idea to the public at this point Norman his team had only shown a few select investors and curious patrons what they had but now things were about to explode for them by the early 2000s the freedom ship project began to pick up some steam with various nautical magazines writing small stories but then Roger made a deal with the Discovery Channel in 2002 with a nationally broadcast documentary of freedom ship suddenly the project was catapulted into the public eye and the team was suddenly inundated with media requests and even people looking to buy units aboard freedom ship almost overnight became known across the world which was great news for the team working on getting it built floating cities or even Islands is nothing really new it's been depicted across science fiction even as early as the late 1800s however what made freedom ship difference and somewhat intriguing is how literal and practical from an engineering standpoint it was being taken sure if someone can dream up a rough idea of something but these guys were putting together actual logistics the idea behind freedom ship was to comfortably house over 50,000 permanent residents and take in an additional 30,000 tourists each day though because it's technically a ship it can transport its residents all across the world into new ports and subsequently take on new tourists and always changing market of guests and scenery it's sort of like taking in say I don't know all the Baytown Texas and putting it on a movable platform actually that's kind of insane isn't it huh anyways to make the return on investment fate Birbal to the cost to build the ship would need to grow in scale to an unprecedented level freedom ship would span almost 6,000 feet meaning the vessel would be over a mile long for comparison one of the longest and largest ships today is the Maersk Line Triple E Class ships spanning around 1,300 feet the largest cruise ship is Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas at one thousand one hundred and eighty feet so it's almost like lining up Symphony of the Seas six times freedom would also span over twenty five decks and one of its most striking features is the rooftop airport deck fitted with two runways freedom ship would allow turboprop aircraft to land in depart off of its own top deck below the ship would also feature various inlets in the superstructure design allowing for tons of open space concourses fitted with pools parks walking space restaurants you name it even in some iterations a theme park towards the after the vessel the hole would split into sections allowing small Bay's where tender boats could tie in and dock to ferry residents and guests onboard of course to support all these people the vast square footage inside would accommodate everything a small city would with schools a hospital a mall and really anything else you can think of timeshares would cost around seventy thousand dollars and resident condos would start around two hundred and fifty all the way up to several millions of dollars though since the ship is constantly moving your condo view is always changing plus since freedom ship is not under the federal laws of any certain country residents on board would theoretically not be taxed by any government at the end of the day freedom ship would be so large that it would have to be built offshore at the staggering cost of over ten billion dollars at that price external funding and a lot of it would obviously need to be raised before things began to move forward not only did the team need to finalize the plans themselves for the vessel but they needed to figure out the enormous task of logistics to even build the ship so over the next few years norm Roger and the team had gun working on raising the capital to start construction however individuals and companies dealing in fraudulent and scammed money became all too common for them and really slowed things down they reached up to brands and offered large equity states to investment firms but the general consensus was was that freedom ship was still unproven despite the proposed healthy return on investments and they were just going to wait and see global maritime symposiums and conventions and we naturally met a fair amount of the execs of major cruise lines I was certainly amenable I said we would happily joint venture with a notable credible acroos company we did have communications through these conventions and etc with various people of Carnival Cruise Lines Norwegian Royal Caribbean and some other notable cruise companies and they were all like what an interesting project we're gonna wait and see but they were very it was very appealing and a couple of them said that I hope you guys pull this off even with the interest of prominence and wealthy individuals in the Middle East funding was held back until construction began which would take at least 1.5 billion dollars to begin which of course brought them back to square one by around 2008 the economy had turned in America and norm Nixon had seemed to have lost hope in his projects him and Roger began to communicate less as Nixon had seemed to focus on raising funding himself as years went by the concept failed to gain investor funding and in 2012 Norman Nixon had passed away seemingly bringing along the dream of freedom ship with him that was until just shortly after when Roger had stepped back in and decided to revitalize the project once again with him at the helm now to try and complete what the team and more importantly his colleague and friend had started immediately he began talks with an Indian based entity who had capital and government contacts that wanted to build the ship there while that continued through the mid 2010's Roger established contact with a development company based in Hong Kong called global developments who had been following the project for many years they became a major stockholder in Rogers newly formed entity and they began looking for additional players to raise money for the concept but that brings us to right now and really well it's been over 25 years since the project has been going and really nothing has culminated never happened or it hasn't happened before or whatever and a big hit was to the positive sense was hit when we when we affiliated with global out of China certainly from a construction and logistical standpoint he can go into the superlatives of it's the biggest it's the most the barges it's impossible that's but the engineers actually said this they said basically we can build this given the money now the question whether where the money wasn't practical from it from an economic standpoint and and after norm had determined as you saw a discovery that you weren't if you're basically building it in a modular standpoint with off-the-shelf steel samples the cost got effective to the point that people could afford to buy the unit relative to our relationship now with global development in Hong Kong I feel very confident most confidence and keep in mind I am biased I've been involved with the project for almost two decades I feel now whereas before I would say in the old days I would say is the 50/50 chance of this thing becoming reality now I can be frank and I'm a pretty much of a numbers guy I'd have to put it at 82% chance this thing's gonna go if the demand wasn't there I'd probably give up on the project I just hope that he gets done within my lifetime and I would say you could probably be seen some significant progress shown via the media in within six months roger hopes to have substantial capital into the company by 2020 and substantial progress in the years following is that actually going to happen well personally even after talking to Roger who's a genuinely nice man and just wants to complete the multi-decade dream and he certainly believes in the concept himself I just have a hard time believing that something of this scale requiring that much capital is even possible with the talent in corporate infrastructure that they have by all means that could definitely change in the future but I'm just not sure my opinion is basically worthless since I have no formal education and economics and engineering but the amount of things that need to coalesce from funding regulations stick building plans and so much more is just overwhelming just the amount of staff needed to execute something this large which has never been done before remind you just seems so out of reach though the core idea of what Roger had in the beginning with a condo cruise ship did come to fruition in the form of the MS the world a purpose-built condo cruise ship launched in 2001 it went with the same idea of having a permanent residence on board a ship traveling to new ports every day though this vessel is vastly different in the sense that it targets the ultra-premium market mainly with wealthy retirees and apparently it's been very successful freedom ship really was a phenomenon maybe some of you read about it in Popular Mechanics back in 1998 or maybe you saw it on the Discovery Channel like I did as a kid or maybe you just saw some futuristic pictures of the vessel somewhere deep and dark on the internet I never really thought anything of it or what the story behind it was for me I have always been excited about futuristic projects and something this ambitious obviously caught my eye freedom ship was the idea of a man who dreamt big and by chance had caught the attention of Roger possibly another person crazy enough to try and see this potentially revolutionary idea through honestly I don't think it will ever happen at least in the form it is now but roger has a level of optimism and assurance that I just have to appreciate what he is trying to do and I suppose every big idea in history has its doubters and regardless I certainly support him so who knows maybe this legendary futuristic floating city might actually take to the seas after all I want to thank Ridge for sponsoring this video if you have a huge wallet taking up unnecessary space then Ridge is the perfect and simplistic solution Ridge is a minimal wallet designed to easily carry all of your cards plus cash it comes with a lifetime warranty along with a ton of attractive styles like titanium carbon fiber and my favorite aluminum whites which I've been using for the past few weeks actually a few of my friends use a Ridge wallet for the simplicity and they seem to really like it including myself you can get 10% your order today plus free worldwide shipping by going to Ridge comm slash BSF and by using the code BSF that's ridge comm slash BSF a huge thanks to Roger Gooch for taking the time to chat with me about his project in the history of it if freedom ship is ever built you bet I'll be one of the first on board any of you guys follow us on Twitter Instagram and snapchat and thank you very much for watching [Music] you

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 2,094,389

Rating: 4.9231033 out of 5

Keywords: STORY OF FREEDOM SHIP, freedom ship, cruise ship, bright sun films, abandoned project, cancelled, roger gooch, Norman Nixon, Royal Caribbean, city at sea, mega ship, discovery channel, largest ship, never happened, the story of, family, PG, clean, documentary, HD, new, interview, exclusive, the world ship, theme park, airport ship, city, Texas, Florida, Orlando, concept art, freedom of the seas, carnival freedom, largest cruise ship, the freedom ship, 1990s, 2019, 2020, 2021, update, CEO

Id: Bj0E5L6k2p0

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 15 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/DomeSlave]

I wonder how they plan to do periodic maintenance on the underwater part of the hull as there is no dry dock big enough to fit this ship.

[u/Penis-Envys]

Maybe if the seasteading concept was smaller but modular and allowing the concept to snowball it would’ve been huge

[u/Nostagar]

It is interesting, I just think that such a project would be too large and expensive at this stage. More people are willing to risk 10 million dollars on an idea that fails, not many would be willing to risk 10 billion, not many are capable of risking it either.

[u/tzu94002]

I think the biggest 'problem' is, that they've designed it as a moving vessel/ship. Wich raises build and maintenance costs drastically.

[u/leandroman]

I'll keep my hopes up 😊

[u/tzu94002]

Anyone else noticed how the planned route misses almost any of the world's nicest beach spots?

http://freedomship.com/wp-content/uploads/Worldwide-Voyage-FreedomShip.jpg

Resident's get to see 'inviting places' like Somali coast, Cape Horn, Nigeria, instead 😂👍🏽 awesome.