Today (Friday Aug 30, 2019) is a national holiday here in Turkey for Victory Day so all of Team Möbius and Naval Yachts is taking a well deserved 3 day weekend. Victory Day in Turkey commemorates the key Turkish victory against Greek forces in the Battle of Dumlupınar (August 26-30, 1922). The outcome of the battle, which took place in Kütahya province in western Turkey, determined the overall outcome of the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1923).
Christine and I flew back into Antalya on Wednesday evening after a fabulous time away in Napoli and Sardinia so I was able to spend several hours aboard Möbius taking pictures and discussing all the new progress with the various team members so lets go aboard and see what they accomplished while we were away.
You don’t even need to go aboard to see the most visually obvious bit of progress this past week as the Starboard/Right side Paravane A-Frame pole or boom makes its presence very well known.
Everything is just tacked in place at this point to test out all the various dimensions and fits. This triangular brace provides a solid support to securely lock the A-Frame in its stowed position as shown here. The two inner pipe ends of this brace will be bolted to the Arch so they can be removed if needed when the A-Frames are tipped down on deck for canal mode journeys. They are just tack welded here for fitting purposes. I had to move all the way to the Foredeck to be able to get this more complete view of this vertical pole and give it some relative scale. Overall length from the bottom hinge pin on top of the Rub Rail to the upper end is 6.2m/20.3ft which is easily the highest point on the boat. However both these Paravane A-Frames and the whole Arch beside it can be folded down to dramatically reduce the Air Draft, the height above the water line for situations such as navigating canals or putting the boat in a hunkered down hurricane mode. This is a much earlier version if the Paravane A-Frames and rigging with much shorter pole lengths but will show you how the A-Frame hinges on the beefy Rub Rails and the basic components of the rigging to deploy and control the A-Frame booms and the “fish” or paravanes which are suspended from the outer ends of the booms and run in the water about 5m/18ft below the surface.
** NOTE: Don’t be confused by the apparent two A-Frames on each side as this design/analysis rendering is showing the A-Frames in both stowed (vertical) and deployed positions. There is only one A-Frame on each side. For those interested in the rigging:
GREEN controls the position of the A-Frame from stowed/vertical to deployed. This line turns through a block on the top (not as shown) corner of the Arch and runs down to an electric winch mounted horizontally on the outside of the vertical Arch pipes.
RED controls the UP/DOWN position of the Paravanes/Fish allowing the depth in the water to be adjusted and for launch/retrieval of the Fish from their storage racks on the outside of the boom poles.
ORANGE are the Fore and Aft Guy lines which add strength to the fore/aft forces on the end of the A-Frame pole.
NOTE: These are early iterations of the rigging and I will provide an updated version as the build continues.
Here is close up of the top/outer end of the A-Frame boom poles with the plates tacked in place and edges well chamfered to allow full penetration of the welds. The smaller diameter pipes on the left are the angled tension poles of the A-Frame.
Vertical pole is 110mm/4.5” pipe with 8mm thick walls and the smaller pipe is 80mm/3.14” x 5mm wall. At the other bottom end of the vertical A-Frame pole this massive assembly of 20mm / 3/4” thick plates and the disc inserted into the pole with full chamfer at the bottom of more through welds. These are some of the same kind of fittings where the smaller diameter angled poles of the A-Frame attach to the outer end of the vertical larger pole. These are the pair of hinge halves which will be inserted deep into the hull framing through the Rub Rails. These are machined from 50mm / 2” thick aluminium plate and will have SS hinge pins. The Starboard/Right side hinge at the bottom of the vertical A-Frame pole with all its parts tacked in place for test fitting. Comparing the length of the hinge plates in the upper photo you can see how these plates extend deeply through the 10mm thick Rub Rails and down the hull framing. When fully welded these will be about 5X the required engineering strengths which helps us SWAN when we have the Paravanes deployed.
SWAN = Sleep Well At Night There will be thick Delrin washers on both sides of the inner hinge cylinder to keep it centered and moving freely. The SS pipe is being standing in for test fitting only and will be a SS through bolt in the final assembly.
We designed the Arch and Paravane A-Frames to do their jobs well and while not compromising the access when walking along the side decks. This picture confirms what we succeeded very well I think.
Safety is the first of our four fundamental SCEM principles, Safety Comfort Efficiency Maintenance and you can see many examples of this in the photo above and this shot along the top of the solid railings on the bow’s pulpit and down the line of stanchions on the Port side. If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) you can see other examples such as the full set of handrails along the top of the Pilot House roof, the solid hand rail assemblies and stanchion poles and the A-Frame poles themselves all of which combine to make it very safe to walk along these side decks should it ever be neccessary in eXtremely rough seas. There should never be any need for either of us to be outside the Pilot House or SkyBridge in such conditions as we have designed all the systems and functions of the boat to preclude this, however we also design with “readiness for the unexpected” in mind and when it comes to Safety we try to account for such unexpected “Black Swan” type events as much as possible.
Uğur and Nihat were also busy on the Aft Deck fabricating and fitting the solid handrails for the Aft Starboard corner of the deck where the stairs go down to the Swim Platform.
One of the triangular support braces is tacked up in the foreground. Yiğit and I were able to continue our collaboration while I was away in Italy using Email and WhatsApp and Yiğit came up with this design for the Aft Starboard handrail.
There will also be a handrail along the side of the “dog house” on the left and there will be three Dyneema lifelines snapped across the stair well opening.
Here is the Aft Stbd Handrail all tacked up and ready for fitting into the same type of Delrin lined sockets through the Rub Rails as with all the other Stanchions and Handrails. Moving inside down the steps from the Aft Deck, the stepped aluminium and wood grid is all in place and forms an extremely rigid transition between the Galley cabinetry up top here and the Guest Cabin down below. Yiğit and I tried out our own stress test on this transition grid with each of us standing on one of those two aluminum step frames and jumping up and down on them. Solid as a rock!
Several of you asked why this type of stepped transition was used rather than bringing a full bulkhead up and you can hopefully see why here in this photo. The bulkhead running along the top of the photo is the most massive of any on the boat and it spans the entire beam/width of the hull to form the very aft end of the Pilot House and SuperSalon. Then on the left you can see how the top of the watertight Basement area creates the floor of the SuperSalon and the 3/4 wall in the Guest Cabin which along with the stairs forms an extremely strong combination of boxed beams surrounding this transition area between the Galley and the Guest Cabin. Building it in this way gave us both eXtremely strong and rigid framing as well as creating maximum use of both spaces. We are very pleased with how this has turned out now that we can see it in real life.
This transition takes a while to visualise and hopefully looking at this GA plan view and a few of the renderings of the finished Galley and Guest Cabin will help.
Looking straight down at this plan view of the whole SuperSalon and comparing this to the previous photo of the transition grid above you can see how the countertop with the induction stovetop and Speed Oven below at the end of the Galley on the right side here extends into the Guest Cabin space.
It may help if you look at where the bottom step down into the Galley area is in this rendering and the photo above to get an idea of the overlap.
Moving down into the Guest Cabin and looking across to the forward Starboard corner where the Basement bulkhead forms the Guest Cabin wall on the left side here you can see how the stepped transition is used to create the dropped ceiling on the upper left and how the bookcase fits in under this. Flipping back to reality here is what that transition step grid looks like from the Guest Cabin side. Meanwhile, forward in the Master Cabin Ömer and Selim have been busy building the wall grid for the shower and Head area in the Cabinetry workshop and then bringing them on board and fitting in place. The door into the Head up by the Vanity sink is now in place and the outer corner of the shower is framed in at the bottom of this photo along wtih the half wall which makes the transition from the glass wall to the Port side of the hull. There will be a similar header frame for the corner above to provide support for the aluminium channel which the edges of the two etched glass wall panels will fit into. Opening the door you can see where the toilet will sit at the far end up against the bulkhead with the Forepeak on the other side. Access to all those red handled ball valves on the hot and cold manifolds as well as all the hose connections to the drains and into the water tanks below the floor…….. …… will be provided through removable backs inside the cabinets running down the hull sides and below the seat in the shower which you can visualise better with this quick rendering. This overhead shot shows the overall layout of the front end of the Master Cabin with the two large hatches overhead and the Vanity sink in the center and wardrobes flanking the Starboard/Right side of the hull. Standing with my back inside the Head area with my back against the Forepeak wall looking aft you can see the inside of the half wall and the construction of the wall grid. Not bad progress for a four day work week and we’ll be back to full time again next week.
Hope you enjoyed this latest progress update and please do send in any and all comments, ideas and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Thanks for all your input and for joining us on this adventure. See you again next week for more.
Christine and I are in Italy for a combined anniversary celebration in Napoli last weekend and now a chance to catch up with dear friends on their catamaran as we sail around the island of Sardinia. While I may be MIA the rest of Team Möbius, the ones who really matter, were hard at work back in Antalya and they made great progress in all the various facets of work from cabinetry to electrical, plumbing and aluminium. When the cat’s away the mice really do play!
So with great thanks to our Möbius Project Manager Yiğit for taking on extra duties as photographer while I’m away I am delighted to bring you this week’s progress update and so let’s jump right in.
Nihat on the left and Uğur continue to work their way through the diminishing list of aluminium jobs to complete and those of you with sharp eyes and memory you can see evidence of one of those jobs in this photo. Can you see it? How about if I take you up on the foredeck and move in a bit closer?
Correct! They are building and fitting the aluminium stanchion posts. Further back on the Port/Left side deck where the Pilot House ends, you can see how the stanchion posts join together with the pipe railings for the side gates to provide eXtremely safe and sturdy protection along all parts of the deck to make sure we always stay onboard. Moving forward along that Port side deck you can see how the stanchion posts continue forward and then tie into the pulpit railings on either side of the bow.
All the pipe for the stanchions, pulpit, pushpit and gates are made from 40mm / 1.6” OD pipe with 6mm thick walls which are a snug fit into the socket pipes which are welded all the way through the 10mm thick Rub Rails down each side. To eliminate any wobbly and prevent any corrosion between the stanchion and socket pipes, black Delrin bushings you can see at the base of each stanchion have been machined and press fit in place.
There will be domed aluminium caps atop each stanchion which are now being machined along with the short aluminium bushings that will soon be welded into those three holes in each stanchion to provide a smooth surface for the Dyneema lifelines to run through without chafing.
Dyneema is a synthetic fibre line which is stronger than the typical stainless steel stranded wire used for most lifelines and it is lighter and much easier to see evidence of weakening over the years whereas SS wire usually hides cracks or faults until it lets go. Also much nicer on the hands and no chance of any “meat hooks” as we refer to an individual strand of SS wire when they crack and break off leaving a nasty hook to catch and cut your hands.
The stanchions and railings are 1m / 39” above the deck which is much higher than most boats but very much by design for the XPM boats for added safety. If you were to be thrown into lifelines at this height they would catch you well above the waist whereas the more typically shorter lifelines are below the waist and can result in flipping you overtop the lifeline and overboard. Our primary Person Overboard strategy is simple; don’t! High lifelines are one of the best ways to ensure we stay onboard at all times. If you do go over the side it would most likely be Ciao for you because it will happen at O’dark Thirty in very nasty weather. The scenario doesn’t play out much better and often much worse if you are clipped onto the boat with a tether as you end up trapped on the end of your tether partially submerged and nigh on impossible to be brought onboard. Hence very high and very strong lifelines and railings.
Dropping down to check out the Basement we find more evidence of Uğur and Nihat’s handiwork where they are fitting the watertight AL plates which seal off the coffer dams for the active stabilisers on each side of the hull. This coffer dam with the Basement exiting Sea Chest is on the Starboard/Right side and the Port side is shown below. Coffer dams are as the name implies, there to increase the safety factor in the rare event that an active stabilizer fin strikes something solid at speed and tears out or through the thick hull plates. While the protruding fins do introduce this possibility of being struck it is quite low, Safety is top priority for XPM boats so we design and build accordingly, hence these coffer dams. With the eXtreme plating thickness on all parts of the hull and all the welded in support frames for the stabilizer hardware the probability of breaching this area and creating a significant leak is eXtremely low but never zero so these strong cover plates are bolted and sealed in place with gaskets. Inside each coffer dam there is a sensor connected to an alarm system that would let us know if any water did collect in the bottom.
As you will see a bit later in this blog, Christine and I have chosen to use passive rather than active stabilizers so these coffer dams will be empty but still very well sealed. Throughout the design of this first XPM we have done our best to “future proof” these boats as much as possible by allowing for choices such as active/passive stabilizers by including everything needed for the installation of any of them within the initial design and build. In this case, if/when we or future XPM owners chose to install active stabilizers the hull and coffer dams are all ready for a relatively fast and cost effective installation.
Looking up overtop of the Basement Sea Chest Cihan and his plumbing team continue running more of the various pipes and hoses White hose against the aft Basement WT Bulkhead is sanitation hose carrying Black Water from the heads to the holding tank. The black lines in the foreground on the ceiling are part of the AirCon system with 20mm/ 3/4” PPR pipes (similar to PVC) wrapped in thick black EPDM insulation which carry the cold water from the chiller system to the individual air handlers in each cabin and the SuperSalon.
Above the Basement ceiling/SuperSalon floor we find more white sanitation hoses being installed. Left is the Vent box with the white being the vent for the Black Water tank in the Basement and the black hoses being vents for the fuel tanks. On the right is the Fuel Fill box which also has the two white sanitation hoses for pumping out the Black Water and Gray Water tanks though most of the time we pump out our Black Water through the Sea Chests when far enough out at sea.
Up forward on the Port side of the Master Cabin Head/Shower we find more plumbing progress with the installation of the Hot and Cold domestic water manifolds with all these red handled PVC ball valves.
These ball valves also make the transition from 20mm/ 3/4” PPR pipe which are the primary supply lines bringing hot and cold water from their sources to the 15mm/ 5/8” PEX tubing which connect to each of the hot and cold water consumers; sinks, shower, toilet, bidet. We also use the cold water manifold for the fresh water washdown pump in the Forepeak on the other side of this WT Bulkhead wall. The black EPDM insulated line above the manifolds is the Domestic Hot Water DHW loop which runs the length of the boat to deliver hot water to every hot water consumer as soon as you turn on the tap eliminating the usual need to wait for the water coming out of the sink/shower tap to get hot and wasting a considerable amount of water in the process. Efficiency is one of our four primary design principles so we seek out every possible way to increase the efficiency of all systems on board these XPM boats.
Not always as visibly evident rest assured that Hilmi and his electrical team continue to install more wire trays and fill them with more and more nautical miles of gray AC and black DC wiring. The black flex hose on his right is conduit for the wires which run up through the window frame mullions in the SuperSalon with other wiring in the horizontal white perforated trays just above the floor.
Looking up in front of where Hilmi is sitting you can see how he has also installed trays on the underside of these frames where the outer side decks run. Vent Box above. More trays at the aft Starboard/Right side end of the Guest Cabin are starting to fill up with wires and clear water hoses at the bottom. Moving aft to the Starboard/Right side “wing” of the Workshop alongside the Engine Room Enclosure wall Nihat and Uğur have wrestled the Day Tank aboard sporting its mounting tabs and ready to be test mounted to the WT Bulkhead at the far end. Matching mounting tabs have been welded to the ER Enclosure wall and threaded bosses welded to the vertical T frames on the WT Bulkhead. With the mounts installed and Day Tank successfully test mounted, Mummy and his insulation team can apply the thick AL foil overtop of the black EPDM insulation prior to installing the Day Tank and the AlucoBond panels.
One of the most eXciting projects this week is THIS! Uğur and Nihat started to fabricate the paravane A-Frames. As you might guess, the pipe on the right is the main “boom” and the two on the left will be the angled tension pipe that attaches to the tabs just below the end of the main boom. Hopefully this rendering from our Paravane design testing phase will help more than confuse and give you a better sense of the components of the overall Paravane system. ** Important to note that this rendering shows the hinged A-Frames in both their “up” vertical stowed position and their “down” or deployed position. Similarly there are multiple images the one paravane, sometimes called “fish” or “birds” as we were analyzing different positions, depths and angles.
If these Paravane A-Frames look familiar to you it is likely because many commercial fishing boats use the same system and use them daily in truly eXtreme conditions to help keep their boat decks as stable as possible to enable them to work safely and at all in such conditions.
We went through many, many iterations of the whole system, particularly the rigging and the final design is considerably different than this early design with the green boom lift now going out to the end of the booms and the booms being extended to be over 7m/24’ long. To the uninitiated the rigging may look a bit intimidating and complex but for us two sailors, and really to anyone after a few uses, it is a very simple and straightforward setup and we have simplified is MUCH more in the final design. I’ll go into those details in future posts as we install the Paravane rigging.
When deployed in the water, each paravane runs about 5m/16’ below the surface of the water and their shape is such that they “fly” through the water with a slight downward pull. When the boat rolls towards one of these “fish” they dive down lower and provide resistance when the boat tries to pull them back up.
Here is a close up of the outer end of the A-Frame boom with thick aluminium tabs and gussets let into the equally thick walled 10mm / 3/8” pipe which provide all the attachment points for lines and the angled pole of the A-Frame which you can see in the upper background. Once everything is all test fit to be just right every joint will be welded through.
Paravanes are somewhat similar to the pole a tightrope walker uses. Having one of these paravanes on each side provides two opposed points to help us remain “balanced” and goes a long ways towards countering any forces trying to roll the hull along her lengthwise axis when conditions warrant. While the forces within this system can be very high at times, one of the relationships you come to understand is that if a hull has lower initial stability, takes less force to cause it to roll, it takes equally less force to cancel out or resist this roll. As counterintuitive as it first sounds, lower initial stability is also a positive factor in terms of safety at sea and greater overall stability of a boat so these paravanes take advantage of this relationship to help keep the boat more level when Mother Nature is trying to cause her to roll.
At the other end of the A-Frames these bits of 25mm / 1” thick AL create the hinged attachment points connected to their matching 50mm / 2” thick other halves welded through the Rub Rails which transfer all the loads directly to the inner framework of the hull. To be clear, active stabilizers reduce the roll to a greater degree when underway but they come at a “cost” in both complexity, drag, maintenance, fault tolerance and expense so for us former long distance sailors we think that passive paravanes will be a better fit for us and our use cases. All yet to be confirmed by real world experience of course so stay tuned for that after we launch and start putting all these systems to the real test out at sea. We will extend these real world sea trials gathering data and experience once we start heading West across the Med and then crossing the Atlantic next summer. Such in person testing on multiple ocean crossings and other situations which will enable us to make much more informed decisions on the changes and improvements we want to make in the future including whether we would like to add active stabilization in the future. Stay tuned for much more of that.
Finishing up this Weekly Progress Update with the Cabinetry team they have been busy installing the grids for the walls in the Guest Cabin. You’ve seen the technique used in previous posts which is to glue solid wood spacer blocks through cut outs in the multi layered acoustic insulation to the underlying 5mm AL plate. The lattice style wall grids are then glued and screwed to the ends of these wood spacer blocks. All the wood is thoroughly sealed with multiple coats of white epoxy paint and provide nice smooth non porous surfaces which are easy to keep clean and help with one of our other fundamental principles of low maintenance.
If you look closely on the inside of second horizontal grid off the floor you can see how the grid is also used to mount perforated trays to carry hoses, pipes and wires across the Cabins. Omer continues this way working his way across the aft WT Bulkhead which isolates the Guest Cabin from the Workshop and ER. He soon has the grid completed surrounding the WT door at the end of the corridor outside the Guest Cabin where you can enter the Port/Left wing of the Workshop. Spinning around to look forward and diagonally across the Guest Cabin to the Starboard side Omer has picked up where he left off last week by mounting the grids where the Cabin transforms into the Galley cupboards with the stove and oven.
As we covered in last week’s update this transition and grid has aluminium stepped frames to span the offset area between where the Galley floor ends and the massive aft frame begins.
Zooming in on the far end to better see how the stepped grid as it clears the fuel hoses. The blue clamp is clamping the grid to the stepped aluminium frame hidden behind. If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) at the upper right corner of the photo above, you can make out this outer 50mm/ 2” L bar. That’s it for the week that was August 19 to 23, 2019 and all thanks to everyone on Team Möbius with an extra shout out to Yiğit for taking all these photos for your intrepid reporter who is now sailing past several of the worlds largest and most impressive “GigaYachts” (Super no longer applies) here in Sardinia including the Maltese Falcon, A and Dilbar. I’ll create a bit of a photo summary of these boats for you next week.
Everyone at Naval Yachts had a well deserved break to celebrate the big four day Kurban Bayramı holiday as families gathered to enjoy time with each other and friends and LOTS of great food. So a short blog update for this two day work week. As the title is meant to suggest most of the work the past two days has been on installing the wood grids on the walls in the Master and Guest cabins. These grids anchor all the walls and some cabinetry to the aluminium bulkheads, floors and ceiling frames and provide space for acoustic insulation and any wiring and plumbing which needs to travel through these walls. Let’s go check it out onboard XPM78-01 Möbius.
For orientation here is a quick render of the Shower and Head are in the Master Cabin. As we saw last week all the cabinetry along the Starboard/Right side of the Master Cabin and the forwardmost wall and door into the Head/Bathroom have all been fitted. This week the wall and door which sit alongside the Vanity sink cabinet you see here have been taken back to the Cabinetry workshop for final sanding and the new addition is this short laminated wood section of the shower wall that joins the glass wall to the hull sides.
Now Omur and Selim move on to putting in the grid on the other end of the Master Cabin where the WT Bulkhead between the Master Cabin and the Basement forms the aft wall. The white acoustic insulation is cut away and small 40mm/1.5” solid wood blocks are adhered to the underlying aluminium plate and then the lattice grids are attached to those blocks.
The grid is made light and strong using lightweight marine plywood and this tongue and groove construction with these triangular gussets in each corner. These grids create the foundation layer for attaching the finished panels using FastMount snap in connectors and a similar type grid will go on the ceiling as well. Where needed the spaces in this grid can be used to run wiring for wall switches as well as plumbing in a few places, but almost all wiring and plumbing is routed along the hull sides in dedicated trays.
For those that didn’t see it last week, the grids are fastened to the underlying aluminium plate with solid wood blocks that are adhered to the aluminium with industrial adhesive (Sikaflex) which protrude through cut outs in 3 layer acoustic insulation you see under my thumb here. Moving aft to the Guest Cabin & Christine’s Office we can see the whole process of installing the wall grids. Omer has built the lattice grids in the Cabinetry shop and brought the first one aboard that goes on this short section of wall at the end of the Guest Cabin Head. He starts by laying out the grid pattern for all the attachment blocks. Soon has all the blocks glued in place….. — checked to be sure they are all on the same plane using the laser level and they are now ready to be sealed with epoxy paint. Aluminium and Cabinetry teams meet as Uğur (right) and Nihat (partially hidden) arrive to weld in the aluminium step framing that will help support the cabinetry, marble countertops, stove and oven at the aft end of the Galley. This intersection between the Galley on the upper SuperSalon level and the Guest Cabin below takes awhile to visualise and this GA plan view will help. If you compare the layout of the Galley in the upper view of the SuperSalon with the Guest Cabin below you will see how they overlap where the aft countertop with the induction cooktop and Speed Oven extends a bit into the upper space of the Guest Cabin. Here’s a reminder render of the Galley looking aft and the Guest Cabin is below those big aft windows. If you study the upper left area in this render of the Guest Cabin you will see how this intersection works with the Oven and cabinetry from the Galley forming the step down from the ceiling with the bookcase underneath. With those visual gymnastics you can hopefully now see how this all works with the aluminium step bracing now in place here. Once the aluminium step frames were tacked in place Omer cut the slots in the upper edge of the grid and slid it in place for a test fit. Looks good, Nihat and Uğur double check their aluminium framing and Omer checks the grid and everyone is happy. Omer soon has all the grids attached along this wall and puts on another coat of white epoxy to seal the wood completely. Here is what it looks like from the upper Galley area looking aft and down into the Guest Cabin. The Galley cabinets will be built into this area with the aft countertop setting atop the uppermost aluminium step here. How if you look back at the renderings above of the Galley and Guest Cabin you will see how this busy complex intersection all comes together. That is where things are at when we finished up yesterday (Friday Aug. 16, 2019) and we’ll pick up from here in next week’s progress update.
I will be reporting on all that from afar mind you as Christine and I are taking time to go celebrate our anniversary with a few days in beautiful Napoli Italy and then an overnight ferry ride over to Cagliari on the island of Sardinia to get in some long awaited time with very dear friends and family on their 50’ catamaran “Wicked”.
So I’m with my Beautiful Bride and typing this from the comfort of the very nice Turkish Airlines lounge in the brand new IST airport. A very nicely done airport and while this lounge doesn’t have all the multi levels of the famous TA Lounge in the old IST airport it has even more individual cooking and food stations, over 20 and I lost count each one custom cooking and preparing pretty much anything you can imagine. One of my new favorite airports for layovers to be sure.
Not to worry though, Yiğit will be keeping us updated with lots of photos and daily calls, texts and Emails so I will be able to post a regular weekly update next weekend as everyone on Team Möbius continues to apply their skills and experience to this awemazing build process creating our Goldilocks just right, just for us, XPM boat.
This is an advanced notice that I a going to start posting some new type of articles here on our Möbius.World blog which will be different from and in addition to the typical Weekly Update posts I do to cover the incredible work that Team Möbius does each week. I have previously posted some more technical articles like this about things like the overview of the the design and use case for our new boat and the one on Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB main engine and a few other such topics since we started this blog almost two years ago and with growing requests for these detailed technical explanatory type articles I will be doing my best to increase the frequency of these kinds of posts now..
These new articles will be different in that they will be “Tech Talks” where I can go into more detail on all the various systems on the XPM boats and explain my logic such as it is for the design of these systems, reasons for choosing the equipment we have and how these systems will be installed and maintained. I will do my best to make these “as Show & Tell” as possible with illustrations and diagrams, and possibly some video versions, but by their nature these will be more text based explanations compared to the more visual orientation of the Weekly Progress Updates. Hopefully it will be a good contrast and combination for you and if not I’m counting on you to let me know!
It is also my hope that by separating these more explanatory and detailed technical discussions from the more visual Show & Tell type of Weekly Progress Updates, you will be able to more easily chose what suites you best. And I hope those of you who are interested in these deep dives into the technical aspects of the XPM boats will chime in with your comments and questions to help me cover the topics you are most interested in and provide the Goldilocks not too much, not too little type of content that you would value and which will provoke more discussion for all of us.
Before I go any further and as I will likely repeat several times in the articles to follow, let me be very clear about the context and conditions of these articles:
These are NOT recommendations on what YOU or any other boat owners should do or equipment you should buy.
I am NOT suggesting that our choices are “the best” I merely hope to explain OUR (Christine and my) logic and why we believe that these are the Goldilocks “just right, just for us” choices in the design, installation and equipment aboard XPM78-01 Möbius.
These articles are intended to generate lots of questions, suggestions, and ideas. Indeed this is the primary purpose and value of these articles, so don’t be shy! I only ask that you keep the above two notes in mind and of course keep the discussion respectful, polite and on topic.
Please keep in mind that the overriding context for ALL these articles, choices and equipment selection is for an XPM style of boat and use case which is an eXtreme eXploration Passage Maker for a crew of two, typically a couple who want to be able to go to remote locations on all latitudes from polar to equatorial with equally eXtreme degrees of Safety, Comfort, Efficiency and low maintenance and where the boat will be their full time or primary home.
I hope to learn as much as you do by writing these Tech Talks and more so by responding to your comments and provoking more good discussions. In doing so we can all contribute to the wealth of information and knowledge already out there for all of us to access and learn from.
Unlike the Weekly Progress Update articles I will edit these Tech Talk posts over time as decisions or equipment changes and as I get more information along the way. For these posts there will be two dates for each one, the date it was first published and the date it was last updated/edited.
I will create some new tags for these different type of postings to make your future searches more productive and right now my intent is to write articles on most of the following primary systems and topics:
ELECTRICAL
AC SYSTEM
DC SYSTEM
Batteries
Charging
Solar
NMEA
Lighting
Screens, Monitors, Displays
NAVIGATION
Charting
RADAR
AIS
Compass
DEPTH & SONAR
Onboard Computers
Portable Helm Station
BOAT MONITORING
Maretron System
Tank Levels
Temperatures
Electrical status
Alarms
Boat Data Logging
COMMUNICATIONS
VHF
SATELLITE
WiFi & CELLULAR
Networks
PROPULSION
Gardner main engine
Nogva CPP servo gearbox
Nogva CPP propeller
Propulsion Controls
Cooling
Wet Exhaust
STEERING
Steering controls
Hydraulic steering components
Auto Pilot
Jog Levers
Steering Back ups
Bow Thruster
STABILISATION
Paravanes
Flopper Stoppers
Rigging
HVAC
Heating
Ventilation
Air Conditioning
Engine Room venting
WATER
Fresh/Potable
Watermaker
Salt
Black
Gray
FUEL
Tanks, Filling & Venting
Filtering
Centrifuge Polishing (Alfa Laval)
Transferring
Hoses & Fittings
BILGES
Low volume
High volume
Emergency
FIRE & SAFETY
Fire extinguishing systems
Underwater maintenance
Drone
Exterior Lighting
Cameras
GALLEY
All electric cooking
Sinks
Refrigeration
Storage drawers & Garages
Outside Galley & BBQ
ANCHORING & GROUND TACKLE
Main anchor & Windlass
Stern & Kedging anchor
Ground Tackle
WORKSHOP
Tools
Equipment
BOAT DESIGN & PERFORMANCE
Hull Design
Stability
Handling Characteristics
Performance Expectations
Whew! Already a long list but if there are other large topics or systems you would like to have covered, please send me what you think I’ve missed in the “Join the Discussion” box below and I’ll do my best to add these to the list and cover as time permits.
And please note that this is NOT a promise that I will be able to write about all of the above or at least to do so fully but it is my intent to cover as many of these topics as fully as I can in all my “spare time” during the building of mv Möbius.
And NO I am NOT interested in or trying to write a book! We already have an author onboard who writes best selling books, also known by her nom de plume Christine Kling and aka Captain Christine and my Beautiful Bride so we’ve got the book writing aspect covered eXtremely well already thanks.
Looking forward to writing these Tech Talk articles and getting your suggestions and ideas as these new discussions begin.
Everything continues to heat up here at Naval Yachts with hot +40C summer days and lots more progress with the building of XPM78-01 Möbius. Onboard Möbius the Cabinetry team, Aluminium team and the Plumbing team continued from where we left off last week and in the Engineering/Design office lots of progress with Interior Design work, choosing materials and working out construction details and 2D drawings. Welcome aboard and let’s go check it all out.
Let’s start in up front with the work on the Head/Toilet and Shower in the Master Cabin with some quick renders from our awemazing Interior Designer Yesim. This is what you’ll see when standing beside the bed just after entering the Master Cabin. The two outer walls of the shower are solid glass and will be etched with an artistic pattern our talented and dear friend Sherry is busy designing for us. Cupboards for clothes, washer/dryer are on the Starboard/Right side which you’ve seen being built in previous posts and this week the Vanity Sink at the far end was completed.
Seen from above with the deck removed you can see a bit more detail such as the two big hatches above the Vanity and the Shower, the seat in the shower and the sink in the Head area. We are going with an open walk through into the shower with a clear glass panel going up from the sink counter to just below the hatch opening to allow air and light into both the Head and the Shower areas. Removing the door and the wall beside the Vanity sink gives us a better view of this whole space. There will be a “shower tower” diagonally mounted in the far corner of the shower and the seat will be done in either teak or rosewood. In the Head there is an iridescent blue/black countertop mounted sink to match the one in the Vanity with hers/his mirrored medicine cabinets in the side wall and the VacuFlush toilet/bidet on the far right. All the interior walls, ceiling and floor of this whole space will be built in place using fiberglass panels and hand laid cloth to make the whole unit fully sealed with no joints. Production boats and homes would make this as one piece in a mold and then lift it in place in the boat before the deck goes on. However as with all the interior cabinetry we wanted to bring all the interior components into the already welded up boat and fasten it all solidly to the aluminium frames and stringers.
Christine is busy hunting down some tiles to add a bit of colour and style to the interior and check out the sinks she found for here and in the Vanity. This rectangular one will go on the counter in the Head.
And this oval shaped one will go in the Vanity.
These are very unique sinks made from solid tempered glass that is about 20mm/ 3/4” thick with hand painted patterns on the outer surfaces with great depth and sparkle when seen from above. Matched up with our aquamarine colour scheme for things like the Horizon Line throughout the boat and 1seemed like the Goldilocks just right, just for us sinks. Back onboard this is about where we left off last week when Omur and Selim had the Vanity Sink cabinet roughed in place and the first wall of the Head/Bathroom positioned. This is where the oval glass sink above will be mounted. Matching cabinetry details throughout with these Horizon Line/Hand holds and well radiused edges on all the solid Rosewood. Back in the Cabinetry shop Ömür is putting together the medicine cabinet that will be mounted above the Vanity Sink. Dado/groove you see in the bottom edge for the LED indirect lighting. Ömür’s ever focused eye checking out the inner details before taking this onboard Möbius …… …… to fit it in place up against the Forepeak WT Bulkhead. The white epoxy painted grid in the background is affixed to the aluminium plate of the WT Bulkhead with epoxy painted wood blocks and provides the foundation for the cabinets such as this Medicine Cabinet to be screwed in place for now. With the Head wall removed you can see how the Vanity Sink cabinetry ties into the Starboard side cabinetry and how the overhead hatch will really light up this area. Yesim and Harken (middle) our gifted 2D cabinetry drawing wizard join Ömür and myself onboard to go over the many intricate details for this busy space with plumbing, wiring, cabinetry, doors, in floor heating, drains, water supply, fuel tank access and the list goes on. Every day is filled with hundreds of such details and decisions which keep all of us on our toes and at the top of our game. Here for example we are confirming the location of the hollow channel inside the door jamb in the foreground where the wiring will come down to the light switches below Harken’s elbow.
(for those wondering, my hand is the upper left to keep out the lens flare from the big hatch over the Shower.) With those details worked out for now Ömür screws the marine plywood backing that form the end wall of the Head. A similar construction will take place next week on the hull side walls and then all these plywood surfaces will be laminated with fiberglass sheets to form the continuous walls, floors and ceiling surfaces. Ömür and Selim move their attention to the aft Port corner of the Master Cabin and starts to attach more of those solid wood blocks to the aluminium plate behind the white acoustic foam insulation.
Next day when the adhesive has cured the grid framework can be screwed in place. Zooming in closer you can see how the grids are constructed with tongue and groove for the triangular braces and keeping this gridwork all eXtremely light yet strong. When the plywood panels are mounted on top of the grid it will create another layer of insulation of trapped air…… …….. that will sit atop the three layers of varying density acoustic insulation you can make out under my thumb. If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) you can see the thin dark gray middle layer sandwiched between the black foam laying against the aluminium bulkhead plate and the thick white outer layer.
On the other side of the aluminium plate inside the Basement is yet another layer of 50mm / 2” thick EPDM foam. Can you tell I’m just a wee bit fussy about building eXtremely quite boats??!!
Just before we leave the Cabinetry team lets go back to the Cabinetry shop and meet the newest team member, Ömer. Spelled with an E and not to be confused with Ömür, we find him busy working on the first of the cabinets for the Aft Guest Cabin. This will be the bookcase above Christine’s Office desk. Just before he put on the final frame board I was able to get this close up to show how the biscuits work to align and reinforce the solid Rosewood attachments to the laminated cabinet sides. These biscuits ensure everything lines up just right and then Ömer can clamp them while the glue dries like you see in the first photo above. Similar technique being used here to attach the solid rosewood edging around the perimeter of the door for the Head. In this case you can see how the wood wedges apply added pressure to push the solid edging against the laminated foam cored door. Next day Ömer has all the clamps off Christine’s bookcase. The middle shelf goes in to finish off the bookcase cabinet. The edge of this middle shelf will be painted with white polyurethane for some contrast so it is made from Birch rather than Rosewood. Heading back to the shipyard floor beside Möbius Uğur is busy prepping the intake sea chest that will go into the Starboard side of the Engine Room. The angled bottom end of this 120mm / 5” diameter by 10mm / 3/8” wall pipe will be welded to the bottom hull plates and bring fresh sea water up to the hole you can see here. There are two of these holes where the inlet pipes he is fabricating here will take sea water over to two strainers mounted on their ends. You can see a top view of all this in the drawing on the left with the top flange of the Sea Chest on the far left and then the two strainers on the right. Once he has all the pieces of pipe tacked in place Uğur takes the assembly onboard and fits it in place in the forward Starboard corner of the Engine Room.
The flanged top will have a Lexan cover bolted to it and sits well above the waterline making it easy to see if anything gets sucked inside. There is a threaded plug and a quick connect compressed air fitting in this cover so you can use either a broom stick or compressed air to quickly flush out any such intruder.
For the technically inquisitive in the shot above that is the 25mm /1” Starboard engine bed plate sloping aft at the bottom and the Starboard water tank sitting under the two sea water inlet pipes. The large opening is one of the access ports and the round SAE5 flanges with the SS studs are where the supply/return lines attach along with Maretron and Hart system tank level gauges and temp gauges.
The bottom flanges of two Vetus strainers will be mounted on top of those vertical pipe stubs on the right above and these will then feed into a manifold that supplies fresh sea water to things like the engine heat exchangers, water maker, wet exhaust, fire hose, salt water wash down pump and other such consumers.
Two strainers are used for redundancy and each pipe has a large ball valve on it with one open at all times to supply sea water to its strainer and the other one ready to be opened in an instant if the other is clogged or needs to be cleaned out. The black knobs make it easy to remove the lids of these strainers with no tools and have clear tops for quick visual inspection on each tour of the Engine Room which we do about every 1-2 hours when underway on long passages as part of our watch routine.
Standing up on the Aft Deck looking down through the big hatch into the Engine Room lets you see how this intake Sea Chest and strainers in the lower left corner will be setup. An exiting Sea Chest will be installed in the same position over on the right side bottom corner. Both of these Sea Chest tubes are coming up through Gray Water tanks which are seldom used but can be used to hold water from the Aft Cabin shower, Workshop sink and Aft Deck Outdoor Galley sink.
You can see the ER door on the angled corner of the ER Enclosure in the top right of this photo, the two thick engine beds running from top to bottom flanked by Water Tanks on either side. In the upper center you can see the long oval foil shape of the keel running down either side of the 25mm thick keel bar that runs the entire length of the hull.
Behind Uğur, Nihat has been working on the Day Tank, laying on its side here, and has welded in the 20mm thick plate you see on the bottom. This thickness is needed for the pipe threads that will soon be drilled and tapped for a series of 3/4” SS ball valves for the fuel lines bringing fuel into this Day Tank such as the return lines from the Gardner and supply lines from the fuel pumps that transfer fuel from one of the six integral fuel tanks. There are also a series of SAE5 flanges for Maretron and Hart tank level gauges. On the bottom is a sump to contain any water or contaminants that might somehow make it all the way to the Day Tank which is at the very end of our fuel polishing and filtration system. There is also a ball valve at the top and bottom of this Day Tank with a clear length of hose between to provide visual confirmation of the fuel level in this critical supply tank.
Never a dull moment for Nihat so he also looked after cutting in the air vent penetrations in the Aft Deck that come up into the two big Vent Boxes. The one he is cutting here pulls fresh air out of the Workshop and the one aft/right of that will be for extracting air out of the Engine Room. Techie Note; the ER vent is quite a bit larger than what you can see marked out here as you want to have the exhaust venting be about 120% greater than the intake to allow for the expansion of the air as it warms up in the ER and more so to ensure that there is a slight vacuum in the ER as the air exits to be sure that any fumes and smells are pulled out. Many boats don’t have this setup and their ER’s are slightly pressurized which tends to drive fumes into other areas of the boat. and tend to have higher engine room temps which can be very problematic.
Another job on the 2DO list for Uğur and Nihat was these vertical ends of the window frames that run atop the Wing Boxes on either side of the Aft Deck area. Here you can see that they have tacked a length of vertical flat bar and capped it with a matching length of 30mm / 1 1/4” pipe. This provides both a protective caps for the end edge of the 25mm thick glass windows and the pipe adds a sturdy vertical handhold that is in addition to the horizontal one above. Cihan was too much of a moving target this week for me to catch too many pictures of him but he and his plumbers continued to be very busy throughout the boat laying down hoses and pipes for various water lines such as bilge, potable, Gray, Black and Chiller along with fuel hoses.
These are potable water lines he is securing to the white perforated AL cable/hose trays. We didn’t put some of the frame penetrations into the 3D model until after the cut files were sent off to the aluminium supplier and CNC cutter because we wanted to make some of the hose layout and routing decisions later in the build. Additional penetration holes therefore needed to be cut into the frames and stringers for these new hose and pipe runs. While having these holes already CNC cut when all the AL parts first arrived is very nice, it doesn’t take too long to cut through the 10mm / 3/8” aluminium frame plates when you have great carbide tipped hole says like this! Like little mouse trails it wasn’t hard to see where Cihan and his helper had been this week with remnants such as these as telltale evidence. And that’s the week that was August 5-9 here at Naval Yachts as XPM78-01 continues to transform from virtual 3D models and renderings into the beautiful reality of aluminium and Rosewood. Hope you enjoyed this week’s progress update and thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to join us.
The very big Eid al-Adha holiday began here today and runs from August 11 to 14th so everyone at Naval Yachts gets a well deserved four day holiday and the yard reopens on Thursday so just a 2 day work week next. I will be using the time to keep making progress on system designs, parts and equipment order lists and designing a few things like hatch closing mechanisms, alternator and water pump belt drive systems for the Gardner and so on. I will also try to write and post some of the more technical outlines and explanations of the various major systems such as Electrical, Battery and Charging systems, engine systems such as exhaust and cooling and so on. Stay tuned for those if you are interesting in diving into those details with me.
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