Team Möbius was back to making some very visible progress this week that definately rubs me the right way as you’ll soon see.
A good thing this progress doesn’t depend on me as Christine and I spent most of our time this week renewing all the various aspects of residing here in Antalya for another year or more. Hard to believe that we have now been living here for almost a year now and it was time for us to renew things such as our residency permits, health insurance, vehicle registration & insurance, apartment lease, etc. each with their own labyrinth of bureaucracies to negotiate, some online and some in person. In the grand scheme of things this really didn’t take too much time, just all time away from building boats and writing books which we so much prefer and are now back to.
But enough of such sniveling and let’s get caught up with what’s been going on with the good ship Möbius this past week.
** NOTE: Please Click to enlarge any photo in these blog posts
Let’s start wtih another mystery shot of the most recent shipment of aluminium to arrive here at the new Naval Yachts shipyard and see if you can guess what these are for??
More clues for you ……
… there are quite a few of them ……
….. and they are made by bending 10mm/ 3/8” thick aluminium plate into these 6m/20’ long U shaped sections.
Hint:; Remember the title of this weeks update and you can see them very clearly here in this quick rendering of the bow.
That’s right, we’ve got Rub Rails baby!
This quick rendering shows these beautifully brutish Rub Rails as the dark turquoise coloured pieces that wrap all around the deck to hull corners.
This short section from the bow to the forward anchor roller cheek was the first to go in and then behind it you can see the first full length 6m long section has also been tacked in place.
Looking straight up from water level along the side of the bow you can get a sense of scale for how these Rub Rails extend sideways about 140mm / 5.5” to create a rim of eXtremely strong “bumpers” from stem to stern.
If you look at the rendering above and you can see that additional gussets will be welded in to fill in that triangular space between the forward anchor cheek and the front Rub Rail to add even more strength and stiffness to the anchor assembly.
These Rub Rails come in eXtremely handy when we are up against big rough wood or concrete pilings as we often are when bunkering (fueling up) at the large commercial fuel docks where the big ships get their fuel and where inflatable fenders are just not up to the task.
Up on deck at the bow shows a before and after view with the Rub Rail tacked on the Port/Left side while the Starboard/Right side waits its turn for the same treatment.
Before/Without; looking aft down the Starboard side and ……
After/With: Rub Rail in place on Port side.
But wait a minute!
What’s wrong with this picture?
And this one too?
We seem to have a bit of a square peg in a round hole problem here don’t we?
How are you going to fit such a long 6m/20’ straight 10mm thick U channel up against that beautifully curved edge of the hull?
Easy Peasy when you are working with aluminium and have these two strong Push Me/Pull Me helpers! The Mr. Yellow ratcheting chain tackle Pull Me brings the far end in most of the way ….
…. while his buddy Mr. Blue Push Me pushes each spot along the length in to just the right spot to line up with the guide line scribed parallel along the length of the deck to show where the inside edge should sit to overlap the deck by 30mm.
Credits due to the supporting cast as well such as the big 25mm thick bridge tacked onto the deck and hull for Mr. Blue Push Me
and some smaller bridges to secure some hammered in wedges to get the upper surface flat and parallel to the water.
And now just tack and repeat.
Have Mehmet prep the edges of the next length …..
……… prep the end of the previous length …..
Push/Pull into place and tack ….
… bring in Sezgin to lay down the first of several continuous beads ….
…. along the top and bottom (not shown) edges ….
… and you soon have all the Rub Rails in place!
Having no paint policy and just raw aluminium exterior enables us to use these Rub Rails as a fulcrum point up against pilings and rotate the boat as we sometimes need to do when docking in high winds or other close quarter maneuvering.
These eXtremely sturdy Rub Rails will also be home for the vertical 60mm/2.4” AL pipe sockets that will soon be through welded top and bottom along the entire length of the hull for the 1m/40” tall and 40mm/1.6” OD aluminium stanchion posts and railing legs to slide into and create equally super sturdy lifeline and railing system around all the deck edges.
Nylon bushings will line the inside of each pipe socket to keep this joint tight and non corroding for easy removal when needed over the years.
Continuing with the eXtremely strong and eXtremely low maintenance theme, the three horizontal Lifelines will be gray 8mm Dyneema synthetic line running through the three short lengths of 10mm AL pipe inserts you can see in the rendering above along the length of the stanchion tubes. This “stronger than steel” synthetic line provides just the right balance of slight give and yet plenty of strength for us to lean against or pull on, never corrodes and is easy to splice and fit to traditional hardware bits such as turnbuckles and pelican hooks for tensioning and where we have removable gates for boarding along the sides.
Throughout the week there was the constant crackling of MIG welders and the din of angle grinders as work also continued inside the hull. Looking down from the Aft Deck through the big ER hatch into the ER Enclosure for example they are finishing the welding in of these Engine Room Enclosure walls and the water tanks on either side of the engine beds
The swirl marks also show how they are wire wheeling all surfaces clean as we get ready to start gluing in all the nautical miles of EPDM foam insulation on every bit of the interior aluminium surfaces.
Meanwhile work also continues on finishing off the new Naval Yachts shipyard building and offices. Speaking of offices, Naval are eXtremely kind and generous in providing a new office for me to work from which is located on the 2nd floor just behind the wall the red arrow is pointing to.
And if I stand just outside that door onto the triangular walkway I have this birds eye view of Möbius and her bay mate mv Legacy sitting in front.
Below me on the main floor work continues on what will soon be this bright and airy reception area at the sliding front entrance doors.
Behind the glass windows on the right here are …
… offices like this for the engineering staff as well as …
… large all window meeting rooms for guests, suppliers and sub contractors.
This also provides shelter for weird white haired old guys who seem to hang out here all the time and work late into the evening with the rest of Team Möbius.
Zooming out a bit more to the surrounding area of Antalya, you can see here that we lucked out weather wise on Thursday when we were driving to various offices all over Antalya picking up all the various forms and paperwork I noted at the beginning of this post. This is the view we had to put up with as we waited for our health insurance provider to print out all our paperwork for residency permits.
Our apartment is across the crescent shaped coastline on the right right about where that tall pine tree intersects the west end of Antalya. As you can see it is winter here with all that fresh snow on the mountains right behind us and the whole area just pops with stunning beauty on sunny days like this.
All in all a very good week and back by popular demand I’ve put together a short video compilation of some of the work on Möbius this week. Enjoy!
Please add all your comments, questions and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below and let me know how to improve these posts.
See you next week.
-Wayne
Hi Wayne,
Yes, those are mighty big rub rails. Given Play d’eau’s rub rails are fairly low, they not only protect us from fender rub, but also from improperly fendered vessels which come alonside, such as marina dories, customs launches and (if i dare say) yachts.
Piers
Yes, we used to get our share of marks on the beautifully shiny painted hull sides of our previous boat and this was one of the many reasons we have chosen to go with the “no paint” rule on all our exterior surfaces and leave them in bare aluminium. We have not made the final decision as to just how or what kind of “finish” we will put on these surfaces, right now we are kind of liking the random swirl pattern that is left from the brass wire wheels that they guys are using to clean up all the welds and surfaces. Over time the outer aluminium surfaces oxidize and this darkens the colour to a deeper grey/silver than it is right now but as with how unfinished teak turns grey we find this to have its own beauty which we love almost as much as the lack of maintenance! 🙂
Good progress Wayne, well done.
The rub rail looks massively strong.
So tell me, when you force a rail like this into position with rams, does the aluminium yield and take up a permanent bend. Or does the tension remain in the metal, permanently trying to straighten itself out? Any problems getting a nice steady bend, does it want to kink into steps round the bend?
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As an aside, there is a banner picture of an Antalya port on your website. About 8 years ago I took my yacht into that port and tied up with the fishing and tourist boats right where your picture shows. The locals were very welcoming. It was mid summer very hot and they showed my kids how to turn on the 3 inch fire hydrant on the pontoon to have a massive cooling power shower blast! Crazy fun things used to happen in Turkey…
Hi Nigel, sorry for this delayed response and thanks for your interest and questions.
The Rub Rails are indeed massively strong being 10mm AL plate that we had custom bent to create the very stiff and strong shape to cap off the deck to hull corners. The Rub Rails are great examples of why we chose to build from aluminium and this was quite a dramatic example of just how pliable AL is. As you can see in the photos where the Rub Rails are still straight the bend around the curve of the hull sides was quite significant and yet the AL was relatively easy to gently push/pull into the hull sides and there was not a trace of any buckling at all as many might suspect. While I’ve worked with AL for many years, though not on boats so much, I’ll admit to also being pleasantly surprised at how well these 6 metre long Rub rails conformed to the hull. You can sight down the tops of these Rub Rails now and confirm that the top surfaces are completely flat and the curve along the side is beautifully smooth. Even the guys bending these Rub Rails in place were a bit surprised at how well this worked as these seemingly stiff strong lengths just curved to the hull like they were pliable plastic. I had thought there might be a need to press out a bit of buckling along those flat top surfaces but turned out to not be needed and the only tools needed were the ones you saw in the blog with the yellow chain tackle to pull the ends in and then the blue jack pressing against the tacked on U bridges to press the rail into the line scribed along the length of the deck tops to indicate where the edge was to stop and then tack to hold and move on to the next spot. They did these “push and tack” spots about every 20-30cm or so as they worked their way along the whole 6 meter lengths.
Fun to find out that you could recognize some of the background of this area from your past and I’m also delighted to let you know that “crazy fun things” not only “used to happen in Turkey”, they still do! We appreciate this place and the people more every day and we continue to marvel at how this seems to be one of the most comfortable places to live in terms of the joy of every day life we see and are becoming more and more a part of. There is a great sense of family here, we see people of every age out and about, young children still walk to schools on their own every morning and afternoon, parks are plentiful and always filled with Moms, Dads, Grandparents and children of all ages. People have a great wit and sense of humour and everyone is so genuinely accepting and very much of the “vive la difference” attitude. One of the things that has struck me for some time now is what I would characterise as the almost complete absence of any underlying tension or anger. Driving is an interesting example where you soon learn that “laws and rules are more like guidelines” and so there isn’t much observance of things like staying in “your own” lane and the car behind you often honks a millisecond before the light turns green BUT you also soon come to find that there is not a trace of anger or “road rage” to be found, no one is muttering under their breath “Hey! He cut me off!”. Silly examples perhaps and we see this calmness and peace everywhere and in all walks of life and has taken me awhile to understand and consciously observe. Anyway, just thought you’d enjoy knowing that while Turkey has certainly gone through lots of changes since you were here, there are many things that have not changed and we continue to be happier each day with our choice to build our new boat with Naval and here in Antalya.
My understanding of the physics of it all is that as the AL is being simultaneously compressed and stretched, the internal tension is released in the form of heat and thus the “preservation of energy” laws are upheld. I believe that this continues over time so that if we were to cut them off right now there would be a bit of spring back from their current curve but that in time all the tension is slowly released and the curve would be set as is.