The Spring air has cooled off a bit this week but things have REALY been heating up inside Naval Yachts shipyard with all the progress and exciting new developments on Project Goldilocks, our just right, just for us new 24m/78’ aluminium XPM78-01 Xtreme Xploration Passage Maker.  There is a LOT to cover this week so come join me for a look around and some explanations of this week’s progress.

This slightly distorted fisheye view captures the three Naval Musketeers responsible for all the great work on the hatches that you saw getting started last week.  Uğur on the far right then Nihat in the hard hat and WonderWelder Sezgin with his back to us.

If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) you can make out the jigsaw cut lines in all three hatches.

This is up on the foredeck overtop of our 5m long Master Cabin which has 3 large hatches, one forward on center which puts it directly overtop the vanity sink, one that Uğur is cutting in this photo on the Port side overtop the shower and then one on center in front of the Pilot House windshield where Nihat is standing which puts it right over our Queen sized bed below.
I’ve stepped inside for this shot looking forward out the center window from the Main Helm and with the people above and down below will give you a sense of scale.

Each of these hatches are 700mm / 28” square and Nihat is standing in the hatch over our shower.
Another sense of scale with the smiling Yiğit who is the “main man” for Möbius looking after all the CAD work and overall coordination of the whole project.
Always a bit scary to see huge holes being cut into your boat but those hatch frames behind Yiğit and Uğur will soon be completely welded into ………..
……. the deck, stringers and frames below such as these which will ……………
……… result in an even stronger deck and hull.  The hatch frames are way over engineered for this being all 8mm thick aluminium so it is definately up for the task with no flexing.

These beautiful big hatches will bring tremendous amounts of natural light and breeze into our cabin and there are 7 more elsewhere in the boat which you’ll see in the coming weeks.
With the holes all cut the hatch frames fit in snugly and are tacked in place.  Uğur is checking with this thick flat white plate resting on the upper edge of the inner frame which is the critical surface for the hatch seal, to make sure it is perfectly flat and planar ensuring no twisting as occurred in the fitting and tacking.
One hatch tacked and ready for Sezgin to do the finish welding.

The two rectangular holes in the rear are where the hidden hinge arms sit inside hinge arm boxes which will be welded in next.

You can see one of the drain holes that are on each side where a 20mm / 3/4” ID pipe will carry any water that gets into this Gutter area back into the sea.
After welding the perimeter of the hatch frames to the underside of the deck plates from down below, Sezgin moves up onto the foredeck and does the final weld of the 8mm / 5/16” hatch frame to the upper deck.
Before you know it, they’re all done and Mehmet has carefully ground the welds flush with the deck.
Mehmet is meticulous and makes this very exacting grinding look quick and easy but I know better from experience.  Because there will be no paint there will also be no filler so these are now the final surfaces that we will see and there is no room for any “oooops” moments of taking off too much aluminum.

We will finish these deck edge corners off with a small router to give them a nice even 3mm radius and then do a bit of cleanup on that milled flat edge on the 8mm inner frame where the hatch seal goes.

In between all the welding of hatch frames Sezgin was also busy doing the final TIG welding of these Xtremely beefy bow railings.  There will be two “dolphin watching” seats added to the inner aft section of these railings and a tall arch/mast for the forward mounted antennae, lights, GPS and assorted other electronics.

However MY favorite spot is going to be sitting on that beautiful bow section of the Rub Rails nicely wedged in between the two vertical railings with my feet dangling over to enjoy the view up there and be Möbius’ hood ornament!

Not all of this week’s excitement was up on deck with the hatches though!

Can you guess what this is?
Does it help if I fold it over to show you the other side?

Or tell you that this has Xtremely thick aluminium foil on one side of thick woven fireproof cloth? 

Feels similar to denim blue jeans cloth.

Or that it is fully certified by the Classification societies for large superyachts and commercial ships such as Lloyds, Bureau Veritas, Rena, ABS, DNV and others to be fully fireproof?
That’s right, this is the foil covering over the EPDM insulation foam down in the Basement.
It is an option to buy a fire rated version of the EPDM with a layer of foil already glued to one side but after testing some samples I felt that the foil was too thin to stand up to years of use, cleaning, leaning into, etc. so we brought in this specialised foil covered cloth and it is now being used to cover all the EPDM on the walls and ceiling of the cavernous Basement area.

The white perforated trays you see are where the runs of wire and hoses will be attached as they make their way to their respective ends of things like manifolds for fuel and water and distribution boxes for electrical circuits.

The two L bars in the foreground of the photo above are where these two large fuel manifolds will be mounted within easy reach from the hatch opening in the SuperSalon floor above to set which tank we are drawing from and returning to.  More on the whole fuel system in the coming weeks.

Any idea what those two round discs at the celling/bulkhead in the upper left corner of the photo above and here are for?

These two 25mm/1” thick discs have 3/4” NPT pipe threads on the inside and will soon be fully welded into the aluminium plate bulkhead with matching discs welded to the other side and this is how we take two fuel lines through this WT bulkhead.

If you look down in the photo above at the tank tops aka floor you can see four SAE5 flanges welded into the tank tops where matching flanges for the fuel hose fittings will attach.  Two hoses on the right run up to 90 degree elbows in those threaded discs to go through the WT Bulkhead and the two hoses attached to the flanges on the left run up the vertical white tray and then over along the ceiling to get over to the fuel manifolds shown above.

As with installing the EPDM foam insulation, this foil has been very labour intensive and exacting work cutting, fitting and gluing each section into the maze of areas between frames and stringers and around every corner and edge.  However it is well worth this investment and is turning out to be a fabulous solution to provide an Xtremely safe,  easy to clean and bright surface for the life of our boat.
Hilmi who is our main electrician has led the way putting in what amounts to something akin to a superhighway system with corners, on and off ramps and about everything but a cloverleaf all in preparation for the nautical miles of wires and hoses that will soon be riding in this support system.
Wires?  Did someone say wires??

Yet another part of the exciting developments this week was seeing the first wires start to go in.  These are some of the cables for lighting up in the Master Cabin and as the weeks go by you will see all those cable trays filling up quickly.

But WAIT!  There’s MORE!!!!!

For the past few months we have been working with Naval’s incredibly talented interior designer Unzile (pronounced “Un zee lay” and as part of this we’ve been spending lots of time rummaging through what sometimes felt like acres piled high with stacks of all different wood veneers at several different lumber yards.  After MANY hours of searching for our Goldilocks wood species for our interior cabinetry, we finally zeroed in on two woods known here as “Pelesenk” and “Santos” both of which translate into types of Rosewood.
Unzile has been working up in Istanbul lately so most of our discussions of late have been via Email but she has that rare talent to be able to understood eXactly what we meant when we told her things like we were looking for a wood with Xtreme character in its grain, not even and consistent, not too dark, not too light, grain that swirled wildly and differently in each board, not brown, not blonde, some tones of red wine with burgundy and purples.  Proof of her talents arrived on Thursday when these four samples were delivered by courier so you don’t need to take my words for it, you can literally see what I mean about Unzile’s talents and the woods we were looking for.

One of the biggest challenges has been finding a wood that we can get in both veneer AND solid wood planks so the lumber yard sent this small sample of the rough sawn Santo/Rosewood planks they have.

The equally talented Naval cabinetmakers and finishers have been busy making up samples of the veneer laminated on marine plywood panels with solid wood edging and some large radius sold wood corners and then varnishing these.  Varnish wasn’t quite dry by end of the day yesterday (Sat) so you’ll have to wait until next week’s update to see how they look when finished, but trust me, it will be WELL worth the wait!

Once we see the finished samples we’ll make our decision of the lucky wood that Möbius’ cabinets wears.
With all the business of Möbius and the many other boat projects Naval has underway, Daddy Dincer did not have time to get me any pictures of the twins for this week’s blog so you’ll sadly have to be content with just the time lapse video overview below.

Whew!!! What a week!  Hope you enjoyed watching and reading as much as we have enjoyed living it and we’ll be back next week with more.

Till then, we hope all of you are making good progress with your projects and lives and we can’t thank you enough for taking time out of doing so to join us here.  Please do add even more by putting your questions, comments and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.