B.Y.O. Life Jacket

By Melissa August, Val Castronovo, Rachel Dry, Daren Fonda, Michael Jackson, Benjamin Nugent, Michele Orecklin, Julie Rawe, John Rosenblatt, Alexandra Wolfe

Freedom is getting harder to find. So is waterfront property. Sensing a gap in the market, entrepreneurs are now selling the concept of nations-at-sea. In Honduras, an American engineer is about to start building a huge steel float called Freedom Ship, intended as a home for 50,000 people who will make their own laws and form a country unto themselves. In Britain's North Sea, an old gunnery fort called the Principality of Sealand is attracting investors who hope to make it a digital utopia, storing people's electronic secrets free from any government interference. How do these brave new seaworlds stack up?

FREEDOM SHIP

LIVING QUARTERS Windowless apartments

PERMANENT POPULATION 50,000 frontier-minded folk

PRICE TAG $8 billion (being raised by preselling apartments)

ALREADY APPEALS TO Anarchists, conspiracy theorists, water-loving misfits

WHAT WON'T FLOAT Brothels

SEALAND

[LIVING QUARTERS] Windowless computer servers

[PERMANENT POPULATION] Billions of bytes of data, a few techies and a security force

[PRICE TAG] $3 million-plus (being raised from Internet libertarians)

[ALREADY APPEALS TO] Adult-porn purveyors, tax evaders

[WHAT WON'T FLOAT] Kiddie porn, drug money