Whew!  What a week here at Naval Yachts.  The time has finally come to start making the move to the brand new home of Naval Yachts here in the Antalya Free Zone.  The building isn’t fully finished yet but the shop side is ready so we started moving boats and as you are about to see Möbius was the first boat to move to her new home on Wednesday followed by Legacy on Thursday.  It was quite the experience and I’ll let the pictures and the videos at the end do most of the talking so here goes……..

Team Möbius wasn’t going to let moving interrupt their progress within the boat itself so let’s first take a look at that. 

Up on top of the aft end of the Starboard/Right side of the Pilot House roof the massive arch hinges are now tacked in place.

As you’ll recall from seeing this rendering of the aft end of the Pilot House in previous posts, the arch is hinged where it passes through the roof of the Pilot House so that we can fold it down to Canal Mode to reduce our air draft or height above the water to sneak under lower bridges and locks.  This rendering shows the arch and SkyBridge roof in both the Green/Grey normal passage mode configuration as well as the purple folded down Canal Mode. 

You’ll note too how the bimini roof overtop the SkyBridge cleverly folds down with the arch.

Looking at Port/Left side of what we call the “Wings” at the aft ends of the Pilot House, we can see those hinges being tacked together in the foreground and the 15mm/5/8” base plate for the two compression posts for the Arch tacked into the far inside corner of the Wing box.  Those two large 100mm/4” diameter holes on the top of the Wing Box are where the two compression posts will soon be fitted.

Like this. 

The Arch itself is being built off the boat as we’ve seen in previous posts and we’ll show you more of that once it has been tacked together and gets fitted to the top sides of those big hinges.

If you look back at the rendering above you will see how the thick 30mm/1 1/4” window glass wrapped around all sides of the Pilot House extends back to the ends of these Wing Boxes so you can imagine how well protected this aft end of the Pilot House and Aft Deck will be. 

This will be especially appreciated when you are going in/out of the SuperSalon through that door you see here on the left or up the circular stairs to the SkyBridge on the opposite side.

Meanwhile up front in our Maser Cabin the last of the water tanks are getting their baffles put in and their tops welded on.

Here is a closer shot to show the baffle plate and top flat bar welded in place and you can see what the completed matching tank looks like on the left.  These tanks will be used more as ballast than for potable water for us to use for dishes and showers. With our eXtremely large volume of diesel fuel we carry in our central tanks, 14,500L/3800 USG, that as this volume and weight go down during a passage we are able to maintain the same overall displacement and balance of the boat by adding the equivalent amount of water in the tanks on either ends. 

Our ability to move water, and fuel, from any one tank to any other also gives us tremendous options for adjusting the ride and balance of the boat as sea and weather conditions change during a passage.  Safety, Comfort and Efficiency are our top 3 priorities and this helps us with all three and this is a good example of how we have made the thousands of design decisions for these eXtreme eXpedition Passage Makers or XPMs.

Down on the shop floor the work continued on the big hatch for the Engine Room.  Framing is now all tacked in place and you can now clearly see the open channel that surrounds the entire outer perimeter is formed.
This will in turn match up with an opposite U shaped channel surround the perimeter of the opening on the Aft Deck to create a very well sealed connection between them. 

The matching U shaped channel on the Aft Deck will also create a perfect gutter to catch any water on the outside of the door and make it easy to put in some drains out the bottom of the channel so that when you open this big ER hatch no water ever drips inside and keeps any water from sea or sky on the outside where we like it.

What do you think these two onlookers are looking at??
Could it be watching our Master Welder Sezgin pushing one of the many MIG welders outside?

Or are they checking out how most of the other equipment and aluminium parts have been removed from around and under Möbius?
Or could they be wondering what that black Naval Yachts banner is hiding?

Or what are these Team Möbius members doing taking their tea break on this new blue bench that showed up?

Ohhhhhhh, now I get it, it is MOVE DAY!
Everyone pitches in to help get the blue boat mover into position.
Blocking and supports are carefully set in place.
Uğur and Umit quickly fabricate some additional braces to weld to the hull for more support.
Möbius steel floor supports are unceremoniously amputated with some quick passes of the Oxy-Acetylene torch.
This old white haired buy keeps getting in the way.
Then all these people show up…..
Deep within the dark shadows we hear the muted roar of a little diesel engine starting up and the whine of hydraulic motors as Möbius gracefully lifts off the floor …..
… and backs her beautiful aluminium butt out the door and into the sunshine.
aft deck now all clear
and now we see what that Naval banner was covering up!  Someone snuck in during the night to chisel out a bit more room for the upper heights of the SkyBridge to fit under!
All clear and fully out in the sunshine at last!
Backing all the way out and across the street and almost inside of the big Damen shipyard building next door.
Thanks to all those turnable wheels she makes the turn onto the street
Holds her beautiful big nose high in the air
Looking ever so huge and beautiful, she backs her beautiful butt down the street and off to her new home.
and a few minutes later she gracefully makes the last turn towards her and Naval Yachts’ new home.

More of that same crowd showed up again to help mark this momentous occasion and you can click to enlarge to see if you can spot any faces you recognize?
Calmly waiting while they get the door to her new home open, Möbius sizes up that opening to make sure she will fit.
Doesn’t look like any chiseling of the door top will be needed here!
Half out ……..
…. half in.
Everything in life is relative and our big baby now looks more like a little girl as she backs into her cavernous new home.
Ahhhh, home at last!
Four VERY proud parents with their respective new “babies”:

Dincer on the left and Baris on the right, the two very proud parents of the new Naval Yachts shipyard they have just designed and built.

And Christine and I in between, proud parents of our beautiful little girl Möbius towering over all of us in the background with some of her many attendants all around.
Our poor little amputee has her legs reattached.
out goes the boat mover and in goes the stands
Feeling a wee bit little and lonely, Möbius now awaits her fellow shipmates to join her.
Next up is her slightly larger and much heavier sister “Legacy” who requires the slightly larger yellow boat mover.
Remote control all ready to
guide her around the first corner
around the last corner
Legacy points her nose into the same bay and heads for her awaiting buddy boat Möbius
And soon these two sisters of the sea are nuzzled nose to nose ready for their respective teams to resume work tomorrow.
As you can see it was a VERY “moving” week for all of us at Naval Yachts and now the work resumes on moving the rest of the company, a few more boats and getting back to work on completing these awemazing boats.

As one chapter ends and another begins, seems fitting that tonight would end with this beautiful sunset off our back balcony don’t you think?

I’ll admit to being a bit of a pooped pup after such a fabulous week so I’m going to let Miss Google look after creating the videos of you this time.  Frankly, I’m not sure I could do much better myself and that would take hours.

So here are the videos which Miss Google automagically created, one from my videos and one from Christine’s. 

These are also nice little examples of the very early uses of something I have an abundance of, Artificial Intelligence!  But seriously folks it is a fabulous time to be alive and an awemazing time to be living in so both Christine and I hope you will enjoy this post and these videos. 

Either way, let us know what you like and what you don’t like or would you suggest to make these blog posts more interesting and enjoyable.  Can’t guarantee I will be able to follow all your suggestions but I can guarantee that I’ll do my best to keep making them better each week.

– Wayne