A couple years ago Chris Robinson was a former Facebook and PayPal art director with no boat-building (nor sailing) experience. Then the Tsunami hit Japan (a place where he’d lived and met his wife). He happened to be working in a startup incubator at the time with some “very smart people”, including an astronaut, and everyone was sketching ideas for tsunami-proof shelters.
Robinson liked his design (inspired by oil-derrick escape pods and the hanging tree house spheres from Canadian artist Tom Chudleigh) so much, he began to build it behind his house. Two years later, his backyard is dominated by his 22-foot-long, 10-foot-wide and 8.5-foot-high plywood and epoxy tsunami-proof pod (AKA Tsunamiball).