Another fun week for Team Möbius as they kicked into their mass production mode manufacturing all the shiny new double cross bollard style cleats outside and continued gluing down miles of EPDM insulation on the inside.  Let’s check it out.

You are looking at the production coming out of the cleat factory with most of the finished double cross bollard style cleats stacked up and waiting for final welding into the Rub Rails along both sides. 

But let’s review what led up to this …………….

You will recall these four very different and slightly more eXtreme style and size of  “Crane cleats” which were all welded in a few weeks ago and which are literally strong enough to lift the whole boat by crane, should the need arise. 

These four Crane Cleats enables quick and easy lift and load of Möbius by crane onto any container or cargo ship but we will most likely use them when we need to be hauled out while in very remote and isolated parts of the world, our favorite, and there are no shore side facilities or marinas for hauling out. 

We have run into this situation in the past in places such as the Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga and parts of Fiji and found that these areas all tend to have commercial shipping or shoreside building projects which have huge cranes  which can easily lift our svelte 45 tonnes from the water to a cradle or pit we can create ashore. 

These Crane cleats will also come in eXtremely handy in the not so unlikely event that we need to haul Möbius out for one of our extended trips to be with our Grandkids and other family and friends while we happen to be in a cyclone prone time and area.  Another experience we have had several times in our boating past.  Once the Crane or other lifting method hauls us out onto the hard, aka land, we can then use these same cleats to tie Möbius down to huge stakes we drive into the ground to help secure her in what could be winds in excess of 200 MPH.  Ask us how we know?

Fortunately that scenario doesn’t present itself too often and even for our eXtremely over engineered XPM eXtreme eXploration Passage Maker, these Crane cleats were Papa Bear size and not the just right Goldilocks fit for the more common needs we’ll have for secure cleats when docking, fueling up, rafting alongside big commercial boats and the many other situations where we need to have super secure lines between Möbius and docks, piers, pilings, etc..

After considering several different cleat styles we have used over the years we decided to go what I believe is technically called a “double cross bollard cleat” which is a mouthful so I’ll just refer to them as cleats now.  These are in keeping with our KISS approach to Keep It Simple & Safe and we have found them to best handle the largest range of types of lines, sizes and options.  

So I fired up Fusion 360 and quickly created the 3D model of the just right sized cleat for Möbius you see above and and then the and 2D drawing on the left.  Good thing I am no longer teaching draughting as I would not have given this drawing a very good grade drafting convention wise! 
However it got the job done and provided all the dimensions and details for our machinist to quickly crank out the three individual parts that make up these KISS cleats with their nicely rounded solid end caps.
Which fit together and are quick tacked like this.
We need 12 of these cleats all together so Uğur quickly created this jig to hold each of the two 60mm/ 2 3/8” vertical bollard posts and the 30mm / 1 3/16” cross bar in just the right position and cranked out all 12 of them in the flash of his MIG welding gun.
and stack them up ready for Sezgin to take over with his
own trusty little jig he made up to hold them while he laid down his beautiful TIG welds around each intersection of the cross bars to the bollard posts.  

Check out this week’s video summary to see Sezgin in action!
And soon this pile formed behind him.
While Sezgin was busy at the bow Uğur, Nihat and Mehmet got to work on the last length of Rub Rail on the aft end of the Starboard side.   The Rub Rail you see laying on top of the deck here was supposed to have gone in here last month but the company that did the bending of these 10mm plates somehow bent this one “backwards” or inside out and the new corrected one just arrived last week.  It is now all fully welded in place to complete the full set of Rub Rails down each side and they can now get to work cutting the holes through for each of the 60mm pipe sockets that hold the stanchion and railing pipe

Down below the deck Sezgin has finished fully welding in all four of those massive Crane Cleats we saw above where they wrap around the tops of the 12mm frame plates, so they are now an integrated part of the hull and ready for action.
Dropping down one level to the Workshop and Engine Room area we find Himi in the foreground who is actually our electrical technician and Faruk who is the head of Naval’s Insulation & Composites team busy in their own mass production factory as they cut miles of the 50mm EPDM foam insulation and glue it to all the interior aluminium surfaces.
Himi is very motivated to get this all done so he can install all the wire trays he has cut and ready to go and then get started with installing even more miles of electrical wires and cables to carry all of Möbius’ electrons traveling at 12, 24, 120 and 240 volts as well as all the data dashing back and forth for all our instrumentation, navigation and communication.
The photo above is looking aft along the Port/Left side and this one is looking forward along the Starboard/Right side of the hull.  The Engine Room is on the far left and the 550L Day Tank will be going in at the far end against the WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin & Christine’s Office on the other side.
And finally I will leave you with this zoomed out shot taken from up on mv Legacy, the ship sitting in front of Möbius.  Christine and I spent the day, Saturday, in the yard aboard Möbius working out some of the interior cabinetry details and also took some time to go through Legacy to see all the progress on her major refit.  This shot is taken while we were standing on the bow of Legacy looking down at our beloved  Möbius and thought you would enjoy this perspective.

Of course we can’t leave you without your weekly fix of cuteness from the Dincer twins, Yiğit and Mert and their adoring big brother Demir so here you go!

Hope you enjoyed this week’s progress update and thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to join us.  Please add your most valued and appreciated comments, questions and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below and I’ll do my best to get back to you ASAP. 

And last but hopefully not least is a very quick video synopsis of this week’s progress building mv Möbius here at Naval Yachts.