Another very busy week here at Naval Yachts and the weekend even more so with visitors coming to check out our XPM78-01 Möbius in person from the Netherlands and Germany but more on that later.  I’m sure that I am more eXcited than most of you can understand about the newest feature that Team Möbius started working on this week, the workbenches in the Workshop!  But check out the photos below before you judge me and see what you think.  And work also continued on other parts like the cleats and the insulation so let’s jump right in and get your caught up.

Picking up where we left off last week, Sezgin finished TIG welding the cross bars into the double vertical posts of these double cross bollard style cleats that will run along the outer edges of the Rub rails down the length of the boat.

Uğur quickly started to work on getting them installed into the robust Rub Rails.
There are five of these double cross bar bollard style cleats on each side, one on the aft swim platform, one at the very aft end of the Rub Rails, one aft of midships and then these two you see here up near the bow.
My hand will give you a better sense of size and proportion and you can refer to the drawing in last week’s update for exact dimensions. 
The vertical posts run all the way through the top and bottom surfaces of the 10mm plate the Rub Rails are bent from and then welded all around both top and bottom where they enter/exit the Rub Rail.

This shot will give you a sense for how well these cleats are supported with more below the surface than above.

While Uğur and Nihat were busy installing the cleats into the Rub Rails, Sezgin was keeping his TIG gun busy welding in all the stand off pipes for the hand rails running down each side of the Pilot House roof.
This rendering helps to show the ample side decks running along the Pilot House windows with 1m high stanchions and lifelines on your outboard side and the 30mm pipe hand rails on the inboard side.  These handrails will also make great lashing points for stowing things along the upper side decks flanking the sides of the SkyBridge for things like our inflatable double kayak and Grandkid toys when we are anchored.

Moving inside and down in the Guest Cabin and Christine’s Office Hilme and crew are busy working their way forward painstakingly installing all the EPDM insulation.
It is very slow and exacting work to ensure that ALL aluminium surfaces are fully covered and there are no thermal bridges from outside to inside.  The order of application is important too.  10mm thick EPDM is first glued to each of the vertical frames and then the horizontal longitudinal stringers.  Once these are fully covered the 50mm thick EPDM is carefully fit into the larger cavities between these so that the edges of the thick 50mm blocks create a snug fit up against the thinner 10mm foam and everything is fully sealed.

Once they have finished the insulation in areas where wires, cable and pipes will run they can mount all these wire trays on the short vertical pieces of flatbar you can see which have been welded in between the stringer and covered with hard rubber.  These perforated trays provide the perfect platform for quick and secure fastening all the pipes and wires with nylon zip ties.  We are standing in the Guest Cabin here, looking at the Starboard side forward into the SuperSalon as the Galley cabinetry has not yet been installed in the space between them.
Looking forward along the Port hull in the corridor between the Workshop and the aft Guest Cabin you can see how the 50mm EPDM wraps around the undersides of the side decks running alongside the SuperSalon up to the bottom of the windowsills.

And finally let’s get to the REALLY exciting part.  Can you guess what Nihat and Uğur are working on here?
How about if we look from the other end?
Does it help if I show you that there are two of them?
These are the workbenches for my Workshop!  All 11 meters/38 ft of them!  These will be mounted down the Port and Starboard hull sides and run the entire length of the Workshop/Engine Room.  The cut outs are where the workbench wraps around the frames and the outer edges are raised to contain any spills when changing watermaker filters or when I’m working on messy mechanical parts.
It is a bit difficult to show but this rendering looking forward into the Workshop through the aft Swim Platform door shows the basic layout.  Workbenches on either side are in dark purple and you see that there will also be a matching shelf below the workbench surfaces.  Some of these will be used for mounting equipment as shown on the right Starboard side here.
Way back on the far right/Stbd side Meccano Man is busy fine tuning the Kabola diesel boiler with the Calorifier on the shelf below.  The Alfa Laval  fuel centrifuges sits atop the orange Day Tank on his left side and on his right in white is the watermaker up top and the AC Chiller down below.  Some of the other workbench surfaces will provide homes for my Workshop equipment including things like my grinder, drill press, 3D printer, CNC router, air compressor etc. and still leave me plenty of room for working on projects.

Those of you who are DIY’ers and Maker type people, and especially those who have lived on boats for any length of time will understand my excitement at having all this full headroom space and these vast expanses of workbench area but I know most of you will just be shaking your head.  And just wait till I show you my cubic meter of tool chest drawers and other storage you can’t see in this render!

But wait!  There’s more!

We also had some very special guests this weekend when Rob and his daughter Imke flew in from the Netherlands to visit and get up close and personal with XPM78-01 Möbius.
Baris & Dincer joined us and we spent the rest of the day exploring every nook and cranny of Möbius with Rob and Imke. 
Rob looks after Artnautica Europe where two of the five LRC58’s have now been built at the Aluboot yard in Hindeloopen Netherlands.  The other three were built by Dickey Boats in Napier New Zealand.
The LRC58 is the elder sister of these kind of boats which our gifted designer/Naval Architect Dennis first designed with his company Artnautica and then built the first one for himself and his wife Raquel to be their full time home.
  Rob not only manages the European side of the Artnautica world he also had LRC58 #3 built for himself and his wife to spend more and more time exploring the world.  They spent the summer sailing up to Sweden in between dashing back for the birth of not one but two of their newest Granddaughters.  Click on that last link to see photos of the launch of mv Britt last July and you can also follow along through the whole build on this site.

You will also find photos of the building and launch of LRC58 #4 “Raw” at Dickey Boats in New Zealand and proceeded to sail off to her new home in Thailand which is outlined here and then follow along with the build of LRC58 #5 at Aluboot in the Netherlands and watch her get turned upright last month.

It is late Sunday night here now and we’ve had a whirlwind weekend enjoying time with Rob & Imke in glorious sunshine when we weren’t inside Naval shipyards and Möbius.  Thanks for a fabulous time and the great discussions Rob & Imke, look forward to more soon.

Our next visitors arrived this afternoon from Munich to spend time exploring Möbius, Naval Yachts and Antalya with us and I’ll bring you updates on all that in next week’s posting.

Saving the best for last though, here is this week’s other Naval update on the progress that Yiğit and Mert, Dincer’s twin boys have been making.  They have almost doubled their 2.2kg birthweight and are growing every day.  Mum, Dad and brother Demir are also doing well so as you can see it is nothing but growth and progress here at Naval Yachts.

Hope your week and weekend was a fun as ours and thanks for joining us here.  See you again next week.