Pierpaolo Lazzarini is certainly no stranger to imagining – and even realizing – unusual designs, but his latest conceptual yacht is his most ambitious to date. Taking the form of a gigantic turtle, the Pangeos is envisioned as a movable “city” that the designer estimates would be the world’s largest floating structure.

Described as a Terayacht by Lazzarini, the Pangeos is named after the Pangea (or Pangaea) supercontinent that existed hundreds of millions of years ago. It would make even the largest of the current crop of megayachts look like mere dinghies, with a length of 550 m (roughly 1,800 ft) and a maximum width of 610 m (2,000 ft).

The hull would be built from steel and would feature a turtle-shaped base topped by an oval structure that supports a maximum of 60,000 people, with hotels, shopping centers, parks, both ship and aircraft ports, luxury villas, clubs, and everything else needed to maintain a floating community in the middle of the ocean.

Naturally, a vessel this size would require some hardcore propulsion and the Pangeos would be equipped with nine massive cutting-edge HTS (high-temperature superconducting) motors, each of which would be electric and capable of producing the equivalent of 16,800 horsepower, allowing it to cruise at a stately 5 knots (5.75 mph).

Pierpaolo Lazzarini

The power to run the floating city would come from solar panels, plus electricity would be produced using its large flipper-like structures, which would harness energy from the sea with some kind of wave energy generator system, allowing the ship to cruise indefinitely.

Lazzarini has dedicated some thought to its cost too. The budget would be around US$8 billion and there’s a crowdfunding campaign launching soon, should you want to chip in, offering rewards like virtual tickets and NFTs.

The designer also notes that a Terayacht would need a “Terashipyard” to match, with Saudi Arabia mooted as the best place to build a new shipyard by reclaiming a square kilometer (0.3 sq mile) of land from the sea – indeed, if anywhere would consider such an idea, it’s probably the home of the Line and Qiddiya “Giga project.” However, there are so many potential issues and pitfalls that we would definitely recommend taking this concept proposal with a large pinch of sea salt for now.

Source: Pierpaolo Lazzarini