All of us on Team Möbius had last week off as it was the big holiday for the 5 day Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca for the Muslim world so Christine and I seized the opportunity to go eXplore more of the many sites surrounding us here in Antalya Turkey.  I put together THIS separate post with pictures of our week’s adventures in this post if you’d like to see more of the awemazing sites we saw.

This week it was back to the shipyard at Naval Yachts and back to work for all of us and more time to get to know our way around Möbius now that she is right way up at last.  I have some pictures of the week’s progress but I shot a series of videos to take you on a bit of a guided tour through all the spaces on Möbius now that she’s right side up and hope it will give you a better sense of the layout and scale of our soon to be new home.

The last remaining area of the hull needing to be assembled is the prop tunnel and skeg and this rendering shows what it will look like when finished.

Enver is standing on what will be the aft section of the prop tunnel as he and Umit complete the welding and preparation of the 25mm/1” thick frames where this 15mm/ 5/8” tunnel plate will be inserted.  The large hole by Enver’s foot is where the 225mm/ 8” diameter aluminium rudder tube will be welded.

The aft most tunnel plate is lifted in place and mechanical jacks are used to carefully move this complex plate into just the right position on all axis.  With everything lined up the tunnel plate is tacked in place to the 25mm thick frames on the inside.
This is quite a tricky plate to fit as you can see here.  To assure that everything aligns the CNC cut slot slides over the aft vertical web of the skeg.

Then the outer edges of the tunnel plate are lifted up tight against the edges of the curved cut out in the hull plates until they are flush and tacked to hold them there.

Next week these two complex curved plates will form the rest of the tunnel going forward and create the carefully engineered transition from the convex shape of the hull to the concave tunnel.  The curved cut outs on the top right edges are where these tunnel plates fit around the foil shaped curves of the skeg.

Further aft on the shop floor Uğur and Nihat putting together the walls that will form the enclosure around the Gardner Engine Room. 

Rather than creating a full width Engine Room by running a bulkhead across the whole beam/width of the hull as is common, we have decided to create a smaller Engine Room Enclosure that wraps around the Gardner and Nogva CPP servo box to create a smaller dedicated Engine Room.

We can ventilate this ER Enclosure very thoroughly, keep it cooler and isolate engine heat, noise and vibration to just this space.  There is still plenty of room to easily walk around all sides of the Gardner and the two “hallways” created between the outsides of the ER Enclosure and the hull provides excellent spaces for workbenches and places to mount other equipment such as the Day Tank, water maker, Alfa Laval fuel centrifuge and more.  This also let’s me keep engine related equipment such as fuel filters, batteries, pumps, etc. al outside of the ER and away from all that heat and vibration so everything works better, lasts longer and is much easier to work on and maintain.

Can you guess what this equipment is for?? 

This black and silver cylindrical part looked to me like it had been brought over from some 1950’s science fiction movie set.

The partially welded Day Tank was put onto a rolling table cart to help position that cylinder the right distance from the hull.

On the inside Master Welder Sezgin and this visiting expert were carefully positioning these rectangles of black plastic film and taping them over welds along the whole length of the hull in about 20 places.

Then similar sized plastic rectangles were taped in the same spots on the outside of the hull plates.

A beam of light from the cylinder was used to aim it at the center of these outer plastic rectangles and little wooden wedges were used to hold the steering wheel like ends of the mystery cylinder in that position.

Next, various bits of data were entered into this control box.

Everyone in the shop area was moved outside along with the mystery guest expert who carried this remote control in his hands and the pressed the buttons.

Solved this mystery yet? 

Would it help if I told you that this plastic divider box is full of small lead numbers and letters of the alphabet which the mystery guest carefully taped to the outer plastic rectangles?

Or does the acronym NDT ring any bells for you?

CORRECT!!  It was time for the first set of Non Destructive Testing aka NDT of the welds!  This is the X-Ray machine you’ve been seeing and hence the safety issues of keeping everyone clear while X-Rays are momentarily present.  Remember how your dentist used to step out of the room when they were X-Raying your teeth?  Same thing here.

Those lead letters and numbers were taped to each plate with the plate #, Möbius and other identifying information that appears on each developed film plate.  Other forms of NDT are being used as well to check for things like porosity and we will have the results back in the next few days.

OK, let’s climb up on top and explore the various compartments of Möbius now that she is right side up.  I’ll start wtih some very rough renderings of just the interior cabinetry to give you an initial orientation of where things are and how the living spaces fit together and then I will let you watch the videos at the end for a tour through these spaces as they exist in very rough form right now.

I’ve turned off everything in the model but the interior cabinetry and this is an overall rendering of all three living spaces; the Pilot House or SuperSalon up top and in the center, Main Cabin forward on the right side and Christine’s Office and the Guest Cabin aft on the left.

Zooming in a bit on the inside of the SuperSalon and moving counter clockwise from the bottom corner is the Galley with the Dining area forward and adjacent, stairs down to Master Cabin, Main Helm chair in blue front and center, Lounge Chairs upper corner and along Port side, cabinet of drawers at the base of the stairs coming down from the aft deck WT entrance and the stairs going down to Christine’s Office and the Engine Room/Workshop access.

We have changed the layout of the Galley cabinets to have a cabinet and countertop running along the back of the adjoining Dining table seat back but not had time to update this model yet.

This looking from the Port (left) side into our Master Cabin.  Moving clockwise from the Queen walk around bed bottom right, shower and head lower left, washer/dryer and wardrobe closets upper left and a series of drawers and cabinets along the walkway for the rest of the Starboard side to the doorway coming down from the SuperSalon.

It is difficult to capture from any one angle but this is looking from the Stbd/right side into Christine’s Office and the Guest Cabin.  You are seeing the inside of a large full height wardrobe in the bottom left corner of this shot with a pull out Queen bed to the right along the hull which will also have a fold out Pullman bund above.  Christine’s Office desk and chair can just be seen to the left of the wardrobe running along the Engine Room wall and the doorway on the right side of her desk leads to the shower on the left and head/toilet on the right.  This also leads into the short hallway that connects the stairs down from the SuperSalon on the right to the Engine Room/Workshop WT door on the left.
This side section will give you a sense of the scale of things and how the different levels work.  Each of the numbered frames are 1 meter apart and there are several 180cm/ 5’ 11” human figures to give you an idea of headroom.

These plan views of the two floor levels show the scale and layout of the interior spaces.  As in the rendering above the Galley counter against the Dining table seat back has not been added to this drawing yet.

The real thrill this week though was a long overdue visit with our dear friend Philip who made a slight detour from Switzerland back to his boat in New Caledonia via Antalya.

Philip and I serendipitously met back in 2009 when we were both single handing our sailboats around the world and were waiting to check into Ecuador.  We had lunch together and have become best of friends in the years that followed as our wakes continued to cross and we shared many anchorages throughout the entire South Pacific.

I had Philip and Christine aboard for both of their first tours of the inside of a right side up Möbius and Philip snapped this shot along the way with us standing in the SuperSalon about where the Lounge area will be. 

Thanks for a GREAT visit Philip hope you can make it back before or for the launch around the end of next year.
This week’s video below is much longer than usual as they are running in real time rather than the usual 4-8X speed I’ve used on the previous videos but I hope my guided tour will bring the interior spaces more to life for you as it is doing for us.  Use the fast forward button as needed to get through them quicker if you get bored.

Enjoy!