I am finishing up my last week of being on the road and very much looking forward to being back in Antalya and back with Team Möbius at Naval Yachts and back with our already beloved Möbius.  Thanks again to Yiğit, our brilliant new Engineer and CAD whiz at Naval for taking pictures of the progress on Möbius while I have been away.  I’m as excited as you are to see these as right now this is the only way I am able to keep up with all the work they are doing back in the Antalya Free Zone.  So here is the quick update for you on the progress during the week of Sept. 22-28, 2018 on the good ship Möbius.

Work continues to be focussed on the same two primary areas as last week; fully welding up the miles of places that have been previously tack welded on the interior of the hull, the tank baffles in particular and then work continues on assembling the above deck Pilot House framework or super structure and then sheathing all this with aluminium plate.

As you may have seen in lots of previous posts, almost all of the area inside the hull below the waterline consists of 14 individual tanks to hold our voluminous quantities of fresh water and diesel fuel.  Each of these tanks then requires a full set of baffles which are aluminium plates welded to each frame plate to create a tight grid of spaces for these liquids and prevent the “sloshing” or what is technically referred to as the Free Surface Effect that would happen as the boat moves.  Imagine a tanker truck that is half full of milk or fuel braking suddenly or going around a sharp corner; if the whole inside of its tank was open the liquid would exert tremendous forces on the truck when it all sloshed up against the front or side of the truck’s tank and would likely tip it over. 

This photo shows an example of one of the grid like set of baffles in one of our tanks and if you consider that inside each compartment formed by these baffles there are at least six rows of welds, each about 1m/3’ long, down each side and along the bottom of each baffle plate.  Count how many such compartments there are in this picture alone (about 25)and multiply by 6 you are looking at 150 m/ 492 ft of welding for just this one small part of the boat!

Peering into one of these compartments you can see some of these welds on the baffles and there are more where the hull plates on the bottom have welds and then there are welds you can’t see underneath the rows of flat bars running along the top edge of each baffle plate.  These flat bars are where the tank top plates will be slot welded in place when we are ready to close up all the tanks and create more miles of welding to do.

This is the world that Sezgin and Mehmet live in pretty much every day and my hat is off to them for their perseverance and quality of work.

And lest you think that the bottom of the boat is the only place where there is a lot of welding going on, let’s jump up on deck and check out the Pilot House which is now coming together.

Standing on the Starboard (right) forward corner of the Pilot House looking aft through the Super Salon you can see our Energizer Bunny Mehmet working away to clean up some of the initial welds this week on the plates that have gone on top of all the Pilot House topside framing which creates the ceiling inside the Super Salon and the floor you stand on when up in the SkyBridge above.

Here is a fun fish eye shot Yiğit took standing in the aft Port (left) corner of the Super Salon where the stairs down from the aft deck door will take you. 

You are looking forward all the way through the Super Salon through all the frames for the 360 degrees of glass windows and you can also get a good look at all the welds now in place to fasten the floor plates to all the stringers and frames.

As was done on the stringers on the hull plates the welds here are done in alternating lengths on either side of the stringer to reduce the warping in the floor plates above from the heat of welding.

A more accurate view of the ceiling/floor of the Pilot House and another look out through these window frames that helps you understand why we have come to call this the Super Salon.

Shorter in length but eXtremely important welds where the upper frames of the superstructure join up wtih the lower frames that were part of the initial hull building process before the boat was flipped upright.  With their top members now welded in place these frames now become a continuous single piece that is eXtremely strong as an integral component of the whole hull and transfers the loads evenly throughout. 

The window frame plates will soon be welded onto the outer edge on the right to create a full I beam profile.

Looking up above the window posts we can see some of the detailed folding and welding of the I beam top frames on the lower left and the stringers and folded plate that makes up the outer shape of the Pilot House roof.

Stepping out onto the back of the aft deck you can see how the cantilevered roof that extends back from the end of the Pilot House to provide very nice protection from sun and rain when we are BBQing outside behind the Pilot house.  The vertical supports are just temporary braces to hold everything in alignment while they are being assembled and before the plating is welded on.

This quick rendering shows how this aft deck area will look when we are done.  The two vertical boxes you see behind the Pilot House serve multiple purposes as Vent Boxes for the Engine Room below as well as fresh air vents down into Christine’s Office and Guest Cabin.  The vents receive their fresh air through demister grills on the inside surfaces of these Vent Boxes which filter out any water or mist that is in the air and these vents are positioned such that even if the boat were to do a full roll over they would not allow any down flooding of seawater into the Engine Room. 

These same Vent Boxes also create our BBQ area with sink and counters on the outside and aft deck wash down hoses and taps on the inside.

And that’s where things are at back at Naval Yachts as of Friday Sept. 28th.  Christine and I fly back into Antalya on separate flights on Friday Oct. 5th and can’t wait to be back home and back with our pups and back with Team Möbius.  So I’ll be able to bring you the next update in person and show you more of the great progress being made on this XPM eXtreme eXpedition Passage Maker. 

Let us know how well or not these posts are working for  you and add your comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.