Lest you be wondering, I can assure you that Santa is alive and well in Turkey and as you’ll see in this week’s update, I have a preponderance of evidence to support this claim So many new things have shown up this past week I won’t be able to cover them all but I’ll show you most of them as well as the progress aboard Möbius this last week of 2019.
As we make the final push towards launching the first XPM the demands on all our time goes up so we don’t get too many days or hours doing anything but working on Möbius but Christine and I did stay home from Naval Yachts on Xmas Day and although we both spent the day working on XPM related things we treated ourselves to working on things that needed our simultaneous attention and so we spent a great deal of the day in comfy chairs we pulled up in front of a big 50” monitor so we could discuss and learn things together, which for us is great fun. We are usually so busy working independently, often with Christine at home and me at the shipyard that we only get our evenings to discuss and work on things together so it was a real treat to have the whole day to ourselves.
Well, mostly to ourselves, we did have more evidence of Santa’s present in that we also spent the day with two of his best elves.
If you click to enlarge this photo you’ll get a kick out of that little wood plaque that Christine picked up at a little market in our neighborhood. Even though “Iyi Seneler” is Turkish for Happy New Year, you can see that somehow Santa, Frosty and Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer are a big part of this time of year. I’ll keep you waiting till the end for all the other evidence of Santa so we can dive right into all the progress that all the other elves on Team Möbius accomplished.
PLUMBING:
You may recall seeing these two water manifolds which Cihan expertly put together using PPR/PVC fittings and ball valves a few weeks ago. This week Cihan welded in the vertical flat bars and mounted both manifolds along the Starboard/Right side hull that runs alongside the Engine Room Enclosure walls on the left here and just aft of the Day Tank mounted on the WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin on the other side.
You can also see that more and more of the AC and DC wiring is showing up in more and more areas and those white perforated cable trays are rapidly filling up.
Several of you have asked about the PPR pipe and fittings being used onboard and if it is the same as PVC. It is similar but PPR pipe is a Pipe made of Polypropylene Random Copolymer (Polypropylene Random Copolymer type 3 to be exact). The PPR pipes are very common throughout the world and are mainly designed for the distribution of hot and cold water which is what we are using them for aboard Möbius.
Unlike PVC which is most often glued, PPR is a thermal setting plastic so special heating tools are used to melt or weld fittings to the pipes for a very rapid and leak free joint. One other nice thing about the PPR fittings we are using is that they have SS threads moulded into the fittings such as this 90 degree elbow which makes
And some of you were also asking about the vibration dampening mounts we are using to mount equipment that doesn’t come with its own such as in this case the three green circulation pumps you can see in the background which move the hot water through each of the PEX tubes in each zone/cabin. These are simple generic mounts with a SS stud on each side with thick rubber vulcanized between the two. The rubber also keeps all the equipment electrically isolated so that we can be sure that all electrical current onboard only travels through the wires we install and there is no current flowing through the aluminium hull or other components.
ALUMINIUM WORKS:
The Dynamic Duo of Uğur & Nihat continued their relentless work on aluminium based projects not the least of which was finishing the installation of the prop tubes. Hiding under the protective wraps is the big Nogva CPP propeller as it waits for the installation of the Nogva Servo Gearbox in the Engine Room.
This shot also shows the shape of the prop tunnel which enables the prop to sit up higher and thus reduce our draft below the waterline to a mere 1.2m/4ft which is eXtremely shallow for boats of any size let alone one this large. This becomes a huge advantage for us because we can make it through shallow passes and often be the only boat that can make it inside tropical atolls or go up rivers and fjords that other boats can’t.
The other benefit of the prop tunnel is that we can keep the prop shaft and motor closer to level and not tilting down too much. The closer a prop shaft is to being parallel with the waterline the more efficient it is.
Last week you saw Nihat & Uğur start fabricating this door for the HazMat locker on the Port/Left side of the Swim Platform and this week they finished it and mounted it on its hinges. They are waiting for the dogs/latches to arrive and will install those with their handles so this door can be fully watertight.
This door is the only opening in the Hazmat locker so it s is fully sealed off from the rest of the boat enabling us to safely store flammable or hazardous materials such as diesel fuel, paint thinners and the like. Taking a break from welding fumes Uğur and Nihat turned to building the ceiling grid that will be used to mount the removable ceiling panels in the Workshop and Engine Room which are both subject to a lot dirt, dust and fumes over the years and I wanted them to have a tough, fireproof, light reflecting and easily cleaned surface. We are using Alucobond Plus for all the ceiling panels in the Workshop and to cover all the walls and ceiling in the Engine Room. Alucobond comes in plywood size sheets which is easily worked with carbide tipped woodworking tools such as table saws, routers, etc. and the outer aluminium surfaces are painted white and delivered covered with a protective peel-off foil that will be removed just before we launch and protect these surfaces in the meantime.
The more traditional wall and ceiling coverings in the Engine Rooms of most boats is aluminium sheets that are perforated with hundreds of small holes to help dampen sound a bit but I find them to be a real bear to clean after a few years accumulation of dust and oil in the air starts to fill all these pores.
Alucobond’s smooth flat white (in our case) surfaces are extremely easy to keep clean and reflect light well so visibility is much greater as well. They also add to the fire rating of the Engine Room so what’s not to like?! Okan pitched in as well to help align the aluminium L-bars which they are fastening to the ceilings and walls to provide smooth flat mounting surfaces for the Alucobond to be screwed to. These panels will also help protect the wiring and plumbing running across the ceiling but be easy to remove whenever I want to access these areas.
Mounting all the Alucobond is very time consuming so you will be seeing a lot of Alucobond in the coming weeks as all these panels are installed.
Speaking of the Engine Room, look who decided to pay his first visit there? None other than Mr. Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox. This shot is taken standing at the forward end of the large hatch in the Aft Deck between the two Vent Boxes and looking down into the aft end of the Engine Room. Moving to the other end of the hatch looking at the forward wall of the ER you can see where Mr. Gee will soon be living bolted up to the Nogva Gearbox., both of which will rest on mounting struts coming off the thick longitudinal AL engine beds. The two vertical pipes in each forward corner of the ER are Sea Chests; Exiting on the Left and Intake on the Right. Mr. Nogva is resting on a wood pallet spanning the two Engine Beds for now as the mounting struts have not been made yet but you can see how it will soon drop down from here to connect its output flange to that red flange on the end of the prop shaft on the far right. This is the input side of the Nogva and that round SAE1 bolt pattern will soon be bolted to the matching housing on the aft end of Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB engine. The beefy cogged black rubber disk is a Centamax flexible coupling that the flywheel of Mr. Gee will drive. We are using a slightly different model but this image shows how the three parts of a Centamax coupling fit together. The outer aluminium flange is what bolts to engine’s output flywheel and those inner aluminium fingers mesh tightly with the matching groves in the thick black rubber disk which is attached to the keyed flange in the center which transfers the torque and power to the input flange of the CPP Gearbox.
Centamax are eXtremely heavy duty flex couplings which significantly reduce any vibration or noise in the propulsion system and help keep everything running smooth and quiet.
CABINETRY:
The Cabinetry Team mostly worked in the Cabinet workshop this past week so let’s head over there and see what Omer, Selim and Omur are up to.
Two weeks ago, you may recall seeing this shot of the countertops being fitted into the Guest Cabin Head/Bathroom.
VacuFlush toilet will rest on the roughed in plywood platform you see on the floor, sink on the right and the upper walls will be covered with leather panels.
Once all this was fitting up to Omer’s high standards, this week he brought all the parts back to the cabinetry shop to do the final sanding and prep work to send them up to the finishing shop to be sprayed with multiple coats of clear protective Polyurethane varnish. The cupboard below the sink is also here to be finish sanded before being sent up to the spray painting booth for its coats of PU varnish. As is this bookshelf from my Office area. Moving on to other Rosewood parts for my “clean room” Office area outside the Guest Cabin, Omer is gluing up the solid Rosewood for my infamous “Blue Horizon Line” and hand hold moulding. Once the glue sets he runs these long strips of Rosewood through the shaper to create the inside radius corner where your fingers grab hold.
On the right is the beginning of one of our “Swiss Doors” as we call the doors which close against two door jambs 90 degrees to each other. There are French Doors, Dutch Doors so we thought we would call these doors which do double duty in a kind of “Swiss Army knife way” Swiss Doors. Here is how they work. In the case of this door, in the position in this render it closes off the the Guest Cabin Head/Bathroom.
Note: that for clarity in this rendering I have removed the Shower that normally sits where this camera view is taken from.
My Clean Room workbench/office is on the left and stairs up to the SuperSalon in the center. Now you are sitting atop that workbench above and looking across to the Starboard/Right side and into the Guest Cabin with the Head behind the wall on the Left side and the Shower behind the wall on the Right. Door hinge is on the Left side so when the door is swung open from closing off the Head, it closes against this Cabin entryway and gives privacy when heading in/out of the shower or whenever else wanted.
Simple, elegant and allowed us to eliminate two other doors in this area alone.
A bit later, that same door, now flipped over with its solid Rosewood edging being applied. These interior doors are foam cored and built from the new super lightweight Poplar marine plywood which is helps our weight saving budget tremendously.
Lower portion of the door on the Left will be covered wtih Rosewood veneer seen on the right.
The upper framed area will have a leather panel inserted to match all the upper wall surfaces above the Horizon Line running throughout the boat.
Last week we saw Omur and Selim start building the liners for inside surfaces of all the aluminium hatches we designed and built in house here at Naval Yachts. Several of you asked about how the lamination process worked so here are a series of shots to answer those questions.
As we saw last week, Omur and Selim laid up the initial shape and size using the hatches themselves to form the first few layers.
Once the glue had set they slide the inner lining out of the hatch and bring them back to the workshop to start laying in the next round of laminations which provide the base for the Rosewood solid edges and top lamination.
Omur starts by fitting the next layer. The material being used for the laminations is a special type of thin and easily formed wood which is itself a series of laminations. With the next lamination piece ready Omur spreads and even layer of waterproof marine PU glue on all the surfaces. Sets the lamination in place with the end against the block he has previously temporarily tacked in place to match the length of the lamination strips. A scrap bit of plywood with a radiused corner is set in place to help apply even pressure when the lamination is clamped and also push the lamination fully into the radiused corner. Clamps in both directions press the lamination tightly against the hatch liner. More clamps are added to apply pressure all along the lamination and it is left to cure before the next lamination is applied. Rinse and repeat to make all ten of these hatch liners. While Hatch Liners dry, Omur and Selim move over to the countertop Galley Garages now that they have all been fitted onboard Möbius. First all edges receive their solid Rosewood strips. Selim on the Left and Omur clean up and sand the insides of all these Garage interiors and start fitting the doors. Each door will have a gas spring cylinder inside so that when you press the locking latch that will be on the lower center of each door, it automatically opens fully and is held there till you push it back and it is locked in the close position. All latches onboard for doors and drawers are high strength positive mechanical latches so they cannot suddenly open in rough seas even if heavy contents inside were to come loose and fall against the doors.
Captain Christine, aka my Beautiful Bride, admires and inspects Ömür’s work on her Galley Garages. Back onboard Möbius the window sills along the Stbd/Right hull are now being fitted. This one is the back of the Settee with the Galley being on the far Right.
Same area looking along the other Settee back with the Galley and one of the Garages on the far Right.
One more perspective of the Settee looking at the armrest end that ensures you can’t slide off the Settee down into the steps to the Master Cabin.
As you can see there is voluminous storage everywhere you look. And that pretty much covers all the progress this last week of 2019!
But WAIT!!! I promised you more of the preponderance of evidence that Santa is alive and well in Antalya Turkey now didn’t I? Well, there you go………………..
SANTA’s WORKSHOP:
First of the many new arrivals at Naval Yachts shipyard this week is this crate apparently full of fragile items.
Any guesses? It might be a bit confusing if you remember some of this same gorgeous Turquoise Turkish granite arriving last month but you are correct this is more pieces from that same block. There were a few problems with the first shipment having some cracks and poor colorations so Yesim contacted the stone quarry and they agreed to send us new replacement pieces. You will have to wait a few more weeks to see what these look like installed in the Galley but here is a sneak peek at one piece. And this overhead render which Yesim created using a photo of the actual granite to create the surface mapped onto the countertops will give you a bit better sense of how fabulous this will look once installed along with the finished Rosewood cabinetry. What? You want more?
Well OK then. Mrs. Santa, resplendent in her Vancouver sweatshirt and Starbucks Holiday latte in hand is about to inspect the next pallet full of exciting new equipment, this as you can see being from Webasto. This pallet, there are more to come, is filled with the components for the Air Conditioning and Heating system. This Webasto BlueCool V-50 Chiller at the center of this HVAC Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning system and will be located out of the way in the Workshop.
This V-50 feeds either cold/chilled or hot water to …….. …… one or all of the four of these BlueCool A-Series air handlers located in the Cabins and SuperSalon. There is a 12,000 BTU air handler in the Master Cabin, one in the Guest Cabin and then one 12,00 and one 18,000BTU on either side of the SuperSalon. We chose this system for its versatility, robustness and quiet. The Air Handlers are relatively small so they can be easily tucked behind the cabinetry in these living spaces and use ducting to direct the cold or hot air to the different diffusers located within each room. When the tropical temps and humidity become too high the chiller sends cold water to one or more of the air handlers where it circulates through a radiator with a fan blowing across it cooling the air as it enters the room.
In colder climes we have two options to keep things nice and toasty inside using this same V-Cool system. If the air and water temperatures are not too low the chiller can be run in reverse to extract heat energy from the surrounding seawater and use it to heat the fresh water inside the pipes running to each air handler. With hot water now flowing through the radiators the exiting hot air warms up the room.
More likely though, if we wanted to use the Chiller to heat the boat’s air we would more likely use the second option which is much more efficient than the reverse cycle method described above and when the seawater temps are below about 10C. Instead of using the Chiller to extract the heat energy from the seawater, we send some of our DHW Domestic Hot Water to the BlueCool Chiller and circulate this hot water to the air handlers to heat the air in each room.
The Kabola Ecoline Combi KB45 is our primary source of hot water and with a rating of 94% efficiency, low energy consumption and 100% soot free it is eXtremely efficient at heating our water onboard so this will be the most likely source of hot water we would supply the Chiller with. All our DHW comes from our Webasto/Indel Istotemp Calorifiers which provide us with three ways of heating the 75L / 20USG of water it holds:
Kabola diesel boiler
Gardner engine (when running)
220V AC heating element
The first two options heat the water in the Calorifier by circulating their hot water through coils of copper tubing inside the Calorifier and the 220V immersion heater heats the water directly with its heating element. Having these three independent sources to heat our water enables us to chose the most efficient source in any given situation. Whenever Mr. Gee is running we get to use some of the heat he produces to heat our water for “free” and then when anchored the super efficient Kabola kicks in to keep us with as much hot water as we need for either showering, washing or heating. On those rare occasions when we are plugged into shore power we can use that typically very cheap and efficient method of heating our water.
When it comes to keeping us all warm and toasty when we are in colder locations however, the coup de grâce will be our in–floor heating system, the beginning of which you have been seeing installed in the past few weeks. Those of you who have experienced living with in-floor heated homes know that they create THE most comfortable living spaces and we will now have that same luxury aboard Möbius no matter how cold it gets outside. Stay tuned here for more as Team Möbius gets busy installing all this HVAC equipment.
But wait! There’s Morrrrrrrrre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not content with just the pallet full of Webasto equipment, Mrs. Santa just had to tear into this other new arrival yesterday. A double pallet full from our favorite US supplier Defender Industries where we get the vast majority of equipment we source from the USA.
Such as you say? Well, glad you asked!
All our Furuno marine electronics and navigation equipment. I will cover this in MUCH more detail in the coming weeks of 2020 but a short list of our Furuno gear includes:
Furuno FAR-1523 BB Radar
with this XN13A 6ft Open Array antenna
Furuno SC-33 satellite compass for eXtremely precise heading information for all our other navigation devices such as …. our two NavPilot 711C Auto Pilots. Given the kind of passages we are on Auto Pilot becomes a critical bit of kit so we have two completely independent 711C systems onboard which we can switch between at any time. Just as important as knowing what is around us and steering us on safe courses is knowing what is below us and on the bottom of where we are considering anchoring so we also have a bottom discriminating depth sounder
On an even larger scale, we live and sail by the weather so knowing everything we can about weather is also critical information for us and we have this Furuno/Airmar 220WX Weather Station.
In addition to critical weather based information such as wind direction and velocity, air temp, humidity, etc. this solid state (no moving parts) instrument also has a killer 3 axis compass, rate gyro and axis accelerometer which is the technical way of saying it provides us with another source of spot on heading information no matter how much the boat is pitching, rolling and yawing, often through every one of the six degrees of motion! I put this on our previous sailboat and even up atop a 70+ foot mast the heading data was rock solid which is a huge determining factor in our AutoPilot efficiency and effectiveness.
Lots of other Furuno gear in these boxes which you will be seeing and reading about as they get installed including a very cool ultrasonic water speed transducer which like the 220WX Weather Station above has ZERO moving parts which provides MUCH better longevity and low maintenance. Some of you fellow passage makers and sailors might be wondering why there is no mention of a Furuno TZT2 MFD Multi Function Device or Chart plotter and that is because we are going with an all PC based navigation system on Möbius. I will elaborate on all the details of this decision in coming posts and the short version is that we feel this gives us much more flexibility and control over our navigation system and lets us upgrade to things like new graphics cards, processors, added memory and so on.
Our House/Boat computer enables us to do everything and more that a dedicated MFD can with while being more flexible and future proof and with much more bang for our rapidly diminishing bucks! Captain Christine and son Tim have built a wickedly powerful “boat computer” last month and we brought back with us and have been running here at the house getting it all setup and loaded with software the most important of which might be one of our TimeZero v4 Pro licenses which is what the screen shot above is showing.
You might think that Furuno was the only thing that Santa packed into this pallet full of boxes from Defender, but you’d be wrong. He also included many other equally important bits of kit such as all our many Maretron black boxes and senders which monitor and control most of the systems onboard.
Our Maretron system, with additional input via our NMEA 2000/N2K network of other equipment, enable us to create custom built screens such as this example above which if you click to enlarge will give you a good idea of some of the systems we monitor, alarms and rules we program such that we know what’s working, how well its working and are alerted immediately when they are not. While we absolutely LOVE being at sea and seeing the world this way, we need to be eXtremely well connected to our boat and what’s going on all around us as our lives quite literally and directly depend on this.
BTW, the Maretron N2KView screen shot above is thanks to a pair of our many mentors and favorite teachers out there, James and Jennifer Hamilton aboard their Nordhaven 52 mv Dirona. If you have not done so previously or it’s been awhile, do spend some time on their awemazing site to learn as we do from all their travels around the world. A truly mind boggling collection of eXtremely valuable information, learning and adventure.
Rounding up just a few more of Santa’s gifts he also brought us some of our many different communications equipment such as this Standard Horizon GX6000 VHF with RAM4 remote microphones along with an integrated AIS Class B receiver. This amazing device also manages to include a loud hailer with pre-programmed fog signals, GPS compass and DSC Direct Station Calling.
The Class B AIS receiver in the GX6000 above will be backup to our primary em-Trak Class A transceiver to ensure that we are seen by other ships out there, especially the big guys, and that we are equally able to know they are where they are and can contact them directly at the push of a button.
We had an em-trak AIS and this same multi talented Standard Horizon GX6000 VHF on our last boat and it was rock solid so we are sticking with what we know works and also have its little brother the GX1850G 25W VHF for the Tender. We chose this smaller GX1850G VHF above which does not have AIS because on the Tender we wanted a full transponder AIS so we now have a Vesper XB600 which gives us a great AIS to know what other ships are around us when we are out on the Tender and that the Mother Möbius also knows exactly where the Tender is when one of us or guests are out exploring on the Tender.
OK, there was still much more inside all those boxes from Defender but that’s enough to give you a good idea of the bountiful booty which the overly generous Santa brought us and I think meets my promise of showing you a preponderance of evidence that Santa is indeed live and well here in Turkey too!. Apparently we must have been a VERY VERY good little boy and girl this year, or at least managed to get Santa to think so.
Both Christine and I hope that all of you were equally good this year and that Santa showered you and your family and friends with a similar excess of evidence of just how good you boys and girls were this year. My next update will be the end of the first week and month and decade of 2020 so we both want to wish ALL of you the very best New Year and we hope that a year from now you will be able to say that 2020 was one of THE best years yet for you.
Happy New Year from the crew of Möbius and everyone at Naval Yachts. See you next year!
Say it isn’t so?!! We’re heading into the last week of the year? How the heck did THAT happen so fast??
In my naïve youth I used to think that time would slow down as you got older and especially when you “retired” but I’ve never been busier in my life and time has never whizzed by faster. I think that the reality is that time is one of the few constants in life and doesn’t care how old we are, how busy we are, how much we need to get done, it just ticks away like some rock solid metronome one second at a time. Back in 2009 I recall a similar year end experience in what was then my second year of single handed sailing around the world in my former sailboat sv Learnativity, where I was recalling all the different experiences I had been through in the past two years and not being able to believe it was possible that ALL that could have happened in just two years. Drove me crazy for a week as I was sure that somehow my “math” was wrong because it MUST have been more like fife years. But nope, it was just two. Over time, hehehe, I came up with the notion of Learning/Living Density or simply Experiential Density and that is perhaps the variable; same amount of seconds in the year, just varying amount of experiences, learning and living for each of us. Whatever the case 2019 has been a year VERY densely packed full of awemazing experiences and learning for Christine and I and I would hope that is the case for all of you as well. But enough philosophising and let’s get busy reviewing the density of experiences building Möbius this past week of December 16-21, 2019
STEERING SYTEM:
As per part of the title there was some eXciting progress with on the Steering related equipment on XPM78-01 this week as well as many other systems and I’ll take you through all of those as well, however steering is perhaps THE most important system on any boat and especially on a power boat and eXceptionally so on an XPM given the eXtremely remote locations we and other eXtreme Passage Maker type boats tend to roam. On a sailboat if you were to lose all your steering such as having your rudder fall off then it is relatively easy to steer the boat using the sails. Ask me how I know! However with no sails if we were to ever somehow loose ALL steering capability on Möbius about the only option we would have would be to use one or our drogues or other warps you can fashion from long knotted or weighted lines and drag them off the Swim Platform and change the direction of the boat by moving the attachment point from side to side. All that being a VERY Waynewinded way of saying that we take the Steering System on the XPM’s VERY seriously. Uğur will help give you a better sense of size and scale of the rudder so you can see that it is both eXtremely strong and eXtremely big.
The other photos above show the rudder in various stages of construction and it is now all complete and ready to be installed so let’s go check out this week’s progress. These are the pair of self aligning PETP roller bearings which I worked closely with Thor Christen Hermann. the Systems Designer at Jefa Rudder Bearings in Greve Denmark to get them just right. Thor and everyone at Jefa was fabulous to work with and I can recommend them highly for any of your rudder related needs.
In the photo above the bearing on the left is the top bearing, lower on the right and the white ring in the middle is a thrust bearing to deal with any vertical forces and the black ring is anodized aluminium lock ring that is secured to the Rudder Post with locking setscrews. This section view from Jefa clearly shows how these bearings are mounted inside the yellow coloured rudder tube which is an integral component welded into the hull’s framing. A closer look at the lower bearing lets us see the black rollers for the 127mm/5’” aluminium Rudder post to smoothly glide on and down by my thumb you can see how the white inner race with these rollers inside, rotates inside the white spherical outer race which is fasted into the top and bottom of the Rudder Tube as seen above.
Next up, the 200mm/8” thick walled aluminium Rudder Tube is tacked in place after being precisely positioned with laser levels such that it is perfectly aligned in all directions and exactly on the centerline of the hull.
Let’s go see where those beautiful tendrils of smoke are coming from?
Aha! Now that Uğur and Nihat have tacked the Rudder Tube into position and also tacked on the additional 25mm/1” thick support braces, everything can be fully welded into the hull. This is one of the last major welding jobs to be completed and only leaves the installation of the Nogva CPP propeller and shaft to literally float our boat in the sense that she will be fully watertight.
Naval is using the latest Pulse MIG welders and in photos like this one you can actually see the pulses refracting the light which I thought was cool. Good comparative shot of the tack welds and the fully finished welds around the circumference of the Rudder Post where it exits out the top of the curved 15mm/ 5/8” plate of the Prop Tunnel. That same area now fully welded on the inside …. … bottom of the Rudder Tube fully welded on the outside….. … and top of the Rudder Tube fully welded to the Rudder Shelf inside the very aft end of the Workshop area. Door on the left puts you out on the Swim Platform.
Once everything cooled down the Jefa Rudder Bearings could be test fit into the Rudder Tube and we are looking up from under the boat to see the bottom Rudder Bearing here.
Next step will be to pump a special adhesive through a hole drilled through the side of the Rudder Tube and out a hole in the other side to fill up the special groves in the outer white bearing race and solidly affix the outer bearing to the Rudder Tube. OK, we’ve got a Rudder, we’ve got a Rudder Tube and Rudder Bearings, but how do we TURN the Rudder?
Oh right! The Tiller Arm I designed and has now been fully machined and fresh off the table of the CNC milling machine over at Tasot. If you’ve been following these weekly progress updates recently you’ll recall seeing this at huge block of aluminium being machined into the finished beauty you see here. I walked over to Tasot a few days ago with my rolling cart and brought this work of art and engineering over to Naval to test fit it to the Rudder Post.
Easy to see how these two halves will be clamped to the top of the Rudder Post with four long M16 bolts running through the four holes in the wings of the body of the Tiller Arm. These hardened and precision ground 25mm/1” OD pins are a close sliding fit into the Tiller Arm. Providing a super strong axis for the Heim joint ends of the two big Kobelt hydraulic steering cylinders we will see shortly below. Locking nuts threaded onto the ends of these pins will hold them in place. Back at Naval now for the first test fit. I have implicit trust in 3D models and the precision of CNC machining but we didn’t take the Rudder over to Tasot while the Tiller Arm was being machined so it was a great feeling to set this half onto the Rudder Post and have it fit perfectly! And of course the other half fit just right too.
Note the 18mm wide keyway cut into the top of the Rudder Post and in the photo above you can see the matching keyway cut into the Tiller Arm body.
The large through hole at the top of the Rudder Post is also part of the Steering System, the very end of the chain of redundancy and backups. There is a 70mm/2 3/4” OD thick walled aluminium pipe that is 2m/6.5′ long that can be inserted into this hole in the top of the Rudder Post and be used as an Emergency Steering Tiller. At the other end of this Emergency There are attachment points for block and tackle lines to run from the end of this Tiller to the hull frames on each side which would be used to lock the Tiller pipe in any location and move it as needed to steer. Obviously a bit of kit we hope to never use, though we will test on sea trials, but all part of the “belt and suspenders” approach we take for Steering and throughout the whole boat which enables us to be “Ready for the Unexpected”.
Continuing with this “knee bone connected to the thigh bone” and connecting the dots of the Steering System components, we now need to connect the Tiller Arm to the Kobelt hydraulic cylinders and that is what this next bit of Steering beauty is for. The bronze part in my hand is technically referred to as a Heim joint which is a spherical ball and socket type of joint which transfers the force from the Steering Cylinder to the Tiller Arm.
Kobelt equipment is eXtremely robust with their two favorite materials being bronze and stainless steel which you will be seeing a LOT of in the coming weeks as we get all the Kobelt equipment installed. With this Heim joint you can see how it is built to last for thousands of hours at sea with very little maintenance. A quick squirt of grease in that Zerk fitting to ensure these spherical SS ball and bronze socket are well lubricated and don’t wear is about all that should be needed throughout the long lifetime of these critical joints. OK, so now the Heim joint connects to ………???
This next example of the result when art meets engineering are these Kobelt 76mm/3” ID 7018 Hydraulic Steering Cylinders. The mounting base is where the cylinder is through bolted to thick pads on the Rudder Shelf you saw earlier. This is another SS/Bronze spherical joint the same as the Heim joint at the other end just encapsulated in this cast bronze base and again a simple Zerk fitting to keep this joint well lubricated, friction free and long lasting. And the Heim joint threads onto the other end of the SS shaft Steering Cylinder tom complete the Steering System’s connection to the Tiller Arm. But wait! What causes those big beefy hydraulic cylinders to move in and out you might ask, and I’m so glad you did.
Because I get to show you the final entry into this week’s Art & Engineering Beauty pageant, these Kobelt/Accu-Steer HPU400 Hydraulic Power Units. The anodized blue assembly on the right end is the very powerful hydraulic pump and the white cylinder under my hand is the 24V motor that drives the pump. There are two of these two speed pumps, one for each cylinder and we designed these with Kobelt engineers such that one pump and one cylinder exceed the steering requirements under the most severe conditions. Most of the time we will run them this way, one pump/one cylinder and alternate between the two every day or two when we are on multi week passages so we know they are both working and to keep them balanced for wear and use. If conditions were severe we can chose to run both pumps and both cylinders at the same time for even more power. In situations such as close quarter maneuvering such as docking in tight spaces, we can switch the pumps to their high speed and cut our 45 degree lock to lock time, 90 degrees total, in half.
Stay tuned for upcoming episodes where we are installing these pumps.
Some of which Cihan (right) and Okan already got started on this week as well. They are busy making the two AL shelves to mount the two Accu-Steer HPU400 suspended above the Tiller Arm in the aft end of the Workshop. The shelves have flat bar edges so that any spills of hydraulic oil over time are contained and easy to spot as well as easy to clean up. The three L-bar pieces tacked in place are for the six SS and rubber isolation mounts that secure the HPU pumps in place and keep them running silently. Next week you’ll see these shelves being mounted.
Whew! And that only gets us through this week’s work on just the Steering System so let’s move on to the next area of progress; plumbing!
PLUMBING:
We’ll stay with the multi-talented team of Cihan and Okan as they work on more of their plumbing jobs down in the Basement. While they were in the fabricating mood and tools they built this support rack for the Potable/Drinking Water tank. This poly tank is another example of the “Readiness for the Unexpected” approach in that it will hold 210L / 55 USG of fresh water that will be kept independent of the rest of the boat’s water tanks and domestic water systems. It will be plumbed to an independent water pump and connected to a second faucet at the Galley sink.
The only potable water we allow onboard is what comes out of our 200L/52USG per hour watermaker, never any shore side water so we know the quality of the water is the highest, being essentially pure H2O. However, there is always the chance, however remote, that the water in the six integral aluminium hull tanks could get contaminated or even more unlikely could escape. So this tank with its own pump and filtration system will always be at the ready just in case the unexpected should happen.
The white unit on the right is the Vacuum Generator for the Guest Cabin VacuFlush toilet.
Above the VacuFlush Vacuum Generator is this manifold which controls the hot water flowing to the three zones of the in-floor heating in each Cabin. Cihan has done his usual masterful job of installing these manifolds and picking up where we left off last week. Domestic Hot Water DHW from the IsoTherm Calorifier flows into the red handled shiny SS upper Supply manifold and then out the three fittings with the red flow meters on top.
Zone 1’s gray PVC/Red handle ball valve is dry fitted in the center to help determine the location of the circulation pump mounts which are the two aluminium L-bar pads on the right. Zone 2’s pump will mount on the pads you can just see at the bottom right and more fully in the photo below.
After circulating through the 15mm PEX tubing embedded in the floors in each zone, the slightly cooler water flows into the bottom of the polished SS Return manifold through the 3 SS threaded fittings below the 3 white flow control valves and returns the water back to the Calorifier via the black insulated PPR pipe with the blue handled SS ball valve.
There is a temperature gauge on both the Supply and Return lines to make it easy to see the temperature differential and performance of the system. The vertical SS units on the left ends of each manifold are for draining/filling the system and for bleeding off any entrapped air.
These are the AL brackets which Cihan has come up with for mounting each of the three speed Zone Circulation Pumps to the bulkhead. Here is the completed bracket test fitted to one of these pumps. Longer bolts will be used with an additional nut on each end to keep the clamping of the pump’s sealing flange independent of the mounting nut. Each one of these pump mounts will be bolted to those pads you saw in the photos above with rubber noise isolation separating the mounting bracket from the pads and keeping noise and vibration locked up in the Basement.
NOGVA CPP PROP & SHAFT
Well, let’s give Cihan and Okan a bit of a rest and move on to the ever busy Aluminium team of Nihat and Uğur.
After spending the weekend in the freezer to shrink, the orange coloured Cutlass bearing was pressed into the outboard end of the Nogva Prop Log Tube you saw being installed last week. The groves in the upper half ensure that water flows freely out of the tube and provides a steady supply of clean water to lubricate the prop shaft. When rotating the prop shaft “floats” on a thin film of water so that the Cutlass Bearing material and the prop shaft only touch when the prop is not moving.
That all set the stage for the Nogva CPP Controllable Pitch Propeller to be test fit. The smaller diameter end of the CPP prop hub at the bottom here is what fits inside the machined AL housing you see in the photo above. The stepped flange slides in about half way 20mm/3/4” into the AL housing and acts as a rope guard when, never if, you happen to snag a lobster pot, fish net or other underwater debris. At the opposite inboard end of the CPP Prop Shaft is the push/pull rod that runs inside the hollow prop shaft all the way from this threaded end to inside the bronze CPP prop hub. As this rod is moved fore/aft by hydraulic pressure inside the Nogva CPP servo gearbox the bottom end of each of the four prop blades is rotated in synch to change the pitch from zero to full forward or full reverse. Okan then gave the whole prop and shaft a thorough cleaning and a small army of men picked up the eXtremely heavy prop/shaft assembly and carefully slid it through the Cutlass Bearing until that stepped bronze end of the prop hub was the correct 20mm inside and attention can now turn to positioning the mounting brackets for the Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox inside the Engine Room and which we will pick up on in next week’s installment.
ALUMINIUM WORK:
Speaking of the Engine Room, Nihat and Uğur were busy in there as well this week. With that clue can you guess what they were working on based on this photo? Full marks to those of you who guessed Sea Chests! These are located at the very front end of the Engine Room with the larger Supply Sea Chest on the right and Exit on the left. There will soon be two Vetus strainers flange mounted to the two pipes coming out of the Supply Sea Chest which will then both feed a sea water supply manifold for consumers such as the Water Maker, Gardner heat exchangers for cooling engine oil and coolant as well as the Nogva heat exchanger and then exiting into the wet exhaust system.
The 25mm/1” thick Engine/CPP beds are the flat sloped surfaces running top to bottom in this photo, water tanks on either side of them with their respective access ports bolted in place and SAE flanges around them for tank gauge senders and fill/supply lines. Engine Room diaphragm Bilge Pumps can be seen on either side of the WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin/Office on the other side.
Not easy to get the MIG gun all the way down here but the welder did a great job of getting a full set of deeply penetrating welds around the circumference of this Supply Sea Chest.
WATERTIGHT DOORS:
Yet another exciting bit of progress was Nihat (left) and Uğur getting started on the frames for all the WT Doors! They started with this door on the Port/Left side of the Swim Platform that provides access to the HazMat where we can safely store any Hazardous Materials such as diesel, paints, thinners, etc.. This one door they will build entirely in house here at Naval and the others will be high end WT fully certified WT doors from Bofor.
Here they are fabricating and tacking in place the inner flanges for the HazMat door frame. Which they complete very quickly, With the exact sizes of the frame now set, they moved on to fabricating the HazMat door. And had that knocked out just as quickly. Next week they will fabricate and mount the hinges and seals. Sliding over to the opposite Stbd/Right side of the Swim Platform they tacked the inner frame flange for the Bofor WT door. These doors will be bolted in place with industrial adhesive in between to seal completely.
Bofor is custom building all the WT doors for Möbius to our specifications but will look similar to this one. To be fully WT certified there will be two dogs/locks at the top/bottom rather than one as you see here and our doors will be left unpainted AL to match the rest of the boat.
The WT off the Aft Deck into the SuperSalon will have a full length window whereas the one on into the Workshop and the one between the Guest Cabin/Workshop will have a single window like the example here. With the mounting flange tacked in place, Nihat trims it to final opening size for the Bofor door frame to set into. Cihan clowning it up to show how the door frame and flange look from inside the Workshop. The Accu-Steer pumps and Tiller Arm you saw earlier in this post are sitting off to the right of this photo. And before you know it the frame flange is fully welded in place and ready to have these corner welds cleaned up and radiused.
CABINETRY WORK:
More beauty to be found inside of Möbius this week as always. Omur, Selim and Omer often get to steal the show as their expertise and craftsmanship really shines as they work with the rich grain patterns of the Rosewood. This corner where the lower Freezer cabinet meets the taller Fridge cabinet is but the latest of many examples of their attention to detail with things such as matching the grain patterns to perfection. Stepping back a bit from that same intersection to show how the grain swirls forward onto the wall cabinet for the 50” monitor on the Port side of the SuperSalon and Main Helm. A few more steps back to show how the wall has been recessed for that large monitor. It will be on a HD swiveling mount which allows us to pull it all the way out of the cabinet, swivel it forward and aft and tilt it up down. This enables us to use this screen for both entertainment viewing of movies and photos from either the Lounge chairs or the Settee for our “dinner and a movie” nights and then quickly reposition it for ideal viewing from the Helm Chair when underway. Yet another example of Ömür’s creativity and craftsmanship are these little cut outs so you can easily slide your fingers round the back of the monitor to pull it out.
Over in the Cabinetry Workshop with his compact sold edge router in hand, Omer shows one of his latest examples of grain matching mastery on this panel that will soon go into the Guest Cabin. Back aboard Möbius and down in the Master Cabin, Omur and Selim start a new job of fabricating the laminated Rosewood liners for the insides of each of the ten hatches we designed and built in house. They use this special laminating material which as you can see is extremely flexible and can be easily shaped and formed however you wish. Solid wood corner blocks are glued in place to provide the backing for the large radius corners of each hatch. Then successive thin layers are glued up, let dry and the next layer applied.
We will pick up on this process next week as the laminations continue and then the solid Rosewood edges and veneer goes on to finish these beauties off.
NEW ARRIVALS THIS WEEK:
The pace of ordering picks up as we get nearer the end of the build so there are more and more new arrivals showing up each week now and here are a few quick examples to leave you with.
Like these four bolts of leather for our interior walls and ceilings!
One bolt of black leather for the Helm Station surfaces and ceiling above to minimize reflections, one bolt of white leather for the removable ceiling panels and two bolts of this gray/green leather for the upper wall panels. Can’t wait to see and be able to show you these as they get installed! And then five cartons like this one from LiteMax in Taiwan.
Can you guess what’s inside?
Yup, our five sunlight readable monitors!
Two 19” ones side by side at the Main Helm station, two 24” side by side up in the SkyBridge Helm and one 43” on the Starboard/Right side of the Main Helm Chair.
I think Captain Christine likes them. As well she should as she spent months researching and tracking these down. Our requirements are eXtreme as usual as we need monitors which are:
Full Sunlight readability (1000 nits+) most new smartphones are about 200-280 nits
Dimmable all the way to black for night watches using real front mounted buttons and knobs
Multi-Touch enabled (PCAP) same as your phone
SXGA resolution 3840 x 2160 or better
Waterproof & Ruggedized
Oh, and affordable too please!
A tall order to say the least and Christine and I would like to give an eXtremely BIG shout out and thanks to Peter Hayden of mvTanglewood fame for all his help in the early stages of this search as a result of all his efforts in searching for monitors for his previous Nordhaven 62 and now the new N68 he is having built. Peter had tracked down several of the companies who are the OEM Original Equipment Manufacturers for these kind of high end monitors for the marine industry. If you are not familiar with Peter’s work on mvTanglewood and his constant flow of expertise on the Trawler Forum, do yourself a favor and go check this out ASAP. Peter is an endless source of great ideas and expertise and writes outstanding explanations of his work and experiences. A MUST read for Christine and I and we hope to share an anchorage with our two boats in the not too distant future.
This led us eventually to LiteMax in New Taipei City in Taiwan who make the monitors for airports, railways, stadiums, ATMs and the like and who were willing to make us the Goldilocks just right monitors for us. It took several months of working with them to get these speced and built and then air freighted to us here in Antalya but they arrived his week and we could not be happier as you can see from my Captain’s face!
They only arrived on Friday and we had a busy Saturday with no time to do anything more than unbox one but we hope to get them setup and tested next week and will bring you more details then. Just one of the literally thousands of decisions we make and problems we solve every week on this grand adventure of designing and building our just right new boat and home.
Thanks for joining us, please put your comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below and we’ll see you here again next week.
Another busy week here at Naval Yachts for all of Team Möbius as we ramp up for the final push to launch as early in the new year as possible. It remains a labour of love for Christine and I but it certainly is all consuming of our time and attention. This week saw progress in everything from CNC machining the new Tiller Arm now that the Rudder is pretty much finished and ready for installing in the hull to finishing the installation of the prop shaft tube into the hull, plumbing for the in-floor heating system, wiring and of course lots of cabinetry work. It will take me awhile to get through it all for you so grab a beverage and a comfy seat and let’s go aboard Möbius and check it all out.
TILLER ARM
Most of our work with Aluminium to date has been with large plates which are CNC cut to shape and pieced together to form the hull and superstructure. However as you can see in this photo this hunk of aluminium beauty ain’t no plate!
If I tell you that this 152 x 255 x 275mm (6” x 10” x 11”) and 30kg/66lbs block of solid aluminium is just one half of the part, can you guess what this is going to be?
That 150mm/6” long 25.4mm/1” precision ground threaded pin is specially hardened steel to easily withstand the eXtreme forces which can be exerted on it where the Heim Joint ends of the cylinders attach to the Tiller Arm body. I ordered these and 2 spares from McMaster Carr and brought back with me from our recent trip to Florida.
A bit of a no brainer given the title of this section I guess!! A Tiller Arm.
These two quick screen grabs show the design I came up with using Autodesk Fusion 360 which I must say is my all time favorite design and drawing software of all time and in my case that is a LONG time!
You can see how the right side is the second half I mentioned and those four large bolts clamp the Tiller Arm to the 127mm/5” Rudder Post with the 20mm key that goes in the slot on the left side main body.
Turning on some hidden components you can see how the two Kobelt 7080 bi directional hydraulic cylinders with a bore of 76mm/3” ID and stroke of 305mm/12” provide plenty of torque as they push/pull the Tiller Arm which in turn rotates our big rudder up to 45 degrees to each side.
eXcessively massive, time consuming and expensive? Of course, this is an XPM! and the steering system is arguably the most important system on a passage maker so I’m delighted with such eXcess.
Each cylinder is connected to its own dedicated Kobelt/Accu-Steer HPU400 Hydraulic Power Unit. Dennis and I worked extensively with the great engineers at Kobelt to come up with this eXtremely robust steering system. We have designed it such that just one cylinder and one pump significantly exceed the steering requirements to safely steer the boat in even the most severe conditions.
There will be controls at each Helm station to allow us to select either Steering A or Steering B and our SOP Standard Operating Procedures will be to alternate using A and B for a week or so to ensure both systems are fully operable and being used equally. At any time for situations such as close quarter maneuvering we can have both pumps and both cylinders working at the same time which cuts our lock to lock rudder time in half.
In the unlikely event that both pumps and cylinders were to fail we then have a Kobelt 7005 manual hydraulic steering pump with wheel at the Main Helm. And if all of that were to somehow fail we then have an emergency tiller which can manually control the rudder.
Back to real time photos, the CNC machining is all happening in a building 2 blocks over from Naval Yachts here in the Antalya Free Zone at Tasot Waterjet Cutting Technology. They have a small warehouse filled with some of the most advanced metal cutting machines of every description and having the literally next door is one of the great advantages of building here in the Free Zone.
Here is the whole gang responsible for transforming my design into a very real aluminium Tiller Arm. From right to left, Yigit our XPM Project Manager, Hamdi Uysal CNC machinist, Ufuk Bekci Tasot Owner and Tuncay Mutlu Production Engineer
This is the 5 axis CNC machine in the middle of machining the body of the clamp block. Closer view of the Clamp Body with one side finished and ready to be flipped over to machine the other side. Hamdi proudly showing the finished Clamp Body. One half done, now on to the Tiller Arm Body. With one side of the main Tiller Arm body finished, roughing out the second side begins. Easy to see why this is called “subtractive manufacturing”. 3D printing is the opposite “additive manufacturing”. Here is a short little video I’ve put together to show you what this looks like in action.
I was too busy on Friday to get back to see the finished Tiller Arm body so I’ll show you that in next week’s update.
Meanwhile back at Naval Yachts, the Rudder is all finished and patiently waiting to be installed as Nihat and Uğur ae busy getting the 10mm thick walled 200mm ID Rudder Tube tacked in place as they prepare to insert the finished Rudder. Choosing a few relevant layers in the 3D model and using “ghost” mode this quick render will help you see how the various pars such as Rudder, Prop, steering cylinders and Tiller Arm fit together. This is in the aft end of the Workshop with the door out to the Swim Platform in the upper left.
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In reality mode here is the Rudder Post Tube now tacked in place and just sticking up above the Rudder Shelf. Same Workshop to Swim Platform door on the upper left. Next week when the Rudder Post Tube is fully welded in place you’ll see the Rudder post sticking up through this tube with the Jefa self aligning needle bearings top and bottom and the Tiller Arm on top. Looking underneath the Rudder Shelf reveals the 25mm/1” thick AL brackets which tie the Rudder Post Tube to the stringers, frames and prop tunnel of the hull and make this all one integral hull assembly. Limber Holes or ”Mouse Holes” in the corners where these tube braces will be welded to the hull plates ensures that any water which finds its way in here can easily flow to the lowest point and be removed by the bilge pump and not trapped in these compartments.
PROP SHAFT & LOG MOUNTING
You may recall from an update a few weeks ago that the machined Aluminium tube, the one with the holes in it here, which the Nogva CPP prop shaft runs inside of, had been fitted into the larger aluminium prop tube that is part of the hull which you can see running up to the top left corner here.
See something new though?
What’s that Orange stuff in that little stubby bit of pipe? And what might this bit of kit be that is on the floor just below the prop shaft tubes? And what are they mixing up here? Some of you will recognize this quite universally used Chockfast Orange which is a special 2 part compound which is pumped in fill voids between two parts and rather permanently fasten them together once it hardens. After being thoroughly mixed with the hardener the syrupy Chockfast Orange is poured into the red tank you see in the photos above, the lid is bolted down and the tank is filled with compressed air.
Then a tube connects the bottom of the tank to the filler tube which is temporarily welded to the hole in the top of the hull’s prop shaft tube and the Chockfast flows into the 12mm/ 1/2’” space between the outside of the Nogva Prop Log tube and the larger inside diameter of the Hull’s larger welded in prop tube. Up inside the Engine Room, the other end of the prop tubes which have been precisely locked into position with this clamping jig and a tube has been inserted into the pipe that has been temporarily installed where the two tubes have been sealed off to stop the Chockfast from leaking out. A few minutes later the Chockfast has filled the entire void between the two tubes and exits out the tube. Several cupful’s are collected to make sure any entrapped air escapes and then the valve on the Chockfast tank is turned off and we leave this to fully cure in the next 48 hours. Once fully hardened the two tubes become essentially a single part and provides plenty of space for water to surround the spinning prop shaft at its center. With the Chockfast fully hardened the prop shaft was fitted again to double check the position of this red flange which will soon be bolted to the output flange of the Nogva CPP gearbox.
Where the prop shaft exits the prop log tube there will be a “dripless” seal that fits over the end of the prop tube and seals against the spinning prop shaft to keep all water where it belongs; in the sea and outside the boat! A close up view of the threaded push/pull Pitch rod which runs inside of the prop shaft. This rod threads into the Nogva gear box and is moved fore and aft by the Pitch Control lever at each Helm. As the rod moves fore/aft the four prop blades rotate in synch and changes the pitch to anything from neutral, forward or reverse and as more pitch is added the speed of the boat increases. All a very simple and mechanical system which gives us the ultimate prop, one that is perfectly pitched for any condition. At the propeller end of the prop tube, water exits out these holes drilled around the circumference of the machined end of the Nogva prop tube.
Next week the Cutlass Bearing which supports this aft end of the prop shaft will be press fit into place and the CPP prop and shaft assembly can be carefully slid in place for checking of the final fit as we prep for installing the Nogva CPP Servo gearbox. ELECTRICK GRILL One of the many items in that big crate you saw arriving from Florida last week was our Kenyan “Frontier” 220V electric grill that is part of our Outdoor Galley on the Aft Deck. We no sooner took the box out of the crate than Nihat and Uğur whisked it away and cut in the opening for the grill in the Starboard/Right Vent Box. Deciding to go all electric for this BBQ was part of our ability too make Möbius be a single fuel, all diesel boat. The other big part of this was going with an internal diesel engine in our Tender and I’ll have more for you on all of that in the coming weeks.
All the top surfaces of these two Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck will be countertops, probably using some of the left over turquoise granite from the Galley countertops. There will be a SS sink in the open space you see here in front of the grill.
Speaking of electrical, I only managed to catch a few shots of Hilmi and Okan’s progress with some of the wiring this week. Okan was busy in the Basement prepping these cable trays to be mounted on the ceiling which will be used to support those huge 120 mm2 / 5/0000 AWG red and black cables.
PLUMBING
Cihan was also a busy boy this past week installing plumbing pieces for several different systems.
He has masterfully crafted these two manifolds for some of the Cold and Hot water systems for moving water from one of the six tanks to another as needed to adjust ballast as fuel is removed and others for getting water from the watermaker you saw last week, to each of these tanks. He has done a beautiful job of insulating all of these to increase efficiency of the DHW Domestic Hot Water lines and also keep the Cold water lines from absorbing ambient heat in the Workshop when we are in hotter tropical climates. Moving forward to the Basement, more of Cihan’s fine work this week was getting the dedicated Galley Water tank in place. This is probably more “eXcess” as we can hold as much as 7100L/1875USG of potable fresh water in our six integral tanks in the hull and we have the 190L/hr / 50USG/hr Delfin watermaker. However as you’ve read previously and often, we always design with our “Readiness for the Unexpected” in mind and this additional 200L/55 USG polypropylene Potable Water tank is one example. We will treat this similar to the Day Tank for our diesel fuel by keeping it full at all times and it will be plumbed to an independent faucet at the Galley sink.
Wonder what that shiny item sitting atop the Water tank is? Yet another bit of kit out of that crate from Florida, this is the manifolds for the three in-floor heating zones. To my eyes it is a beautiful work of art in its own right and is almost a shame it is down in the Basement where not too many eyes will see it. The top 3 red towers are flow meters which you adjust with the white knobs on the bottom. After some discussion, Yigit, Cihan and I decided this would be the best location for these manifolds, secure against the WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin on the other side. Supply of hot water enters on the top right and goes out to each of the 3 in-floor zones from the bottom of the Red upper manifold and then returns through the three fittings under the White knobs and back to the Domestic Hot Water system on the bottom right. Ball valves on all lines coming in and out and temperature gauges on both supply and return so I can monitor the difference.
Each zone has one of these 3 speed 1/25HP pumps on the supply side to keep the water circulating through the 15mm PEX lines embedded in the floors. In the foreground on the left is a Watts mixing valve plumbed into the floor heating water system to help manage the lower temperature water needed for in-floor heating which wants to run between 30-500C/85-1200 F.
In the background is the Azel I-Link three zone Pump Controller which is controlled by individual temperature sensors embedded in each cabin floor.
I’ll have more to show you as Cihan progresses with the installation.
CABINETRY WORK:
My Beautiful Bride, aka Captain Christine is at the shipyard most days now and here she is going over the details for the cabinetry and fixtures in this Guest Cabin Head/Bathroom. Standing in the Guest Shower for this shot you can see that Omer has been practicing his cabinetmaking craft very well in this Head. With the Guest Cabin serving as her Office the majority of the time and with this Head being so close to the SuperSalon entrance and the aft Workshop, it will likely get more use than the Head in our Master Cabin so worth making sure it has the Goldilocks touch of being “just right, just for us”. Christine spent a LOT of time searching for this just right sink and finally found one and had it shipped to me in Cannes when I was helping out Naval at the boat show there back in October and I brought it back on the plane with me.
Raised platform in the back is where the VacuFlush toilet will rest at the Goldilocks height. Up in the SuperSalon Omur and Selim continue to make great progress. Here Omur is putting in the perimeter framing for the rigid foam insulation on each stair tread leading down into our Master Cabin. All the floors have 40mm/1.6” thick rigid foam board which the 15mm PEX tubing is embedded into and then some of that light weight poplar 10mm marine plywood covers that and the edges of the plywood attach to these epoxy coated solid wood frames. Opposite the stairs where Omur and Selim are working you can see how this white framing also provides the perfectly level foundation for all the cabinetry to mount to. By week’s end the wall boards were being fitted and will give you, and us, a better sense of how this room will look.
The large opening on the far right is for a 50” high def monitor which will serve double duty as both our primary entertainment screen for displaying movies, photos, web browsing, etc. However it is also on a 3 axis mount which enables us to pull it out and rotate it forward where it is perfectly aligned for viewing charts and boat data from the Main Helm chair when underway.
The large vertical openings on the far left will soon house two Vitrifrigo 130L/35USG fridges with doors opening from the center. The center cabinet is for two of Vitrifrigo’ s band new DRW70 70L/19 USG slide out drawer freezers which can double as fridges with a simple change of their thermostats.
Over in the Cabinetry Shop I happened to catch Omer as he was gluing up one of the Galley drawers and shot this sequence of shots for those of you who have been asking how the wood “biscuits” I’ve been mentioning work to align and strengthen the glued up wood joints.
You can see 2 biscuits with freshly applied glue on the right…. One of the drawer sides which has a matching grove for the biscuit is slid in place. Same thing for the opposite side. Two biscuits and some glue for the final drawer side. Thanks to the ingenious biscuit power tool which cuts all these grooves everything lines up just right. The biscuits are made from highly compressed wood fibres so as they soak up the glue they expand and make the joint even tighter and stronger. Rinse and Repeat the process and this collection of glued up drawer carcases starts to form. Once the glue dries plywood drawer bottoms slide into place and are glued and screwed in position to create very stable drawers which slide in and out on their ball bearing self closing slides with just a touch.
POWER!!
Remember that crate we build and filled with all sorts of parts and equipment that we were sourcing out of the US and arrived last Friday? Uğur helped me open it up and unpack it all this week. Literally hundreds of items inside from Milwaukee cordless tools for me to premium Belgium made pots and pans for Christine and then LOTS of parts for Möbius and they all made it on their flights from Miami to Antalya just fine. Two of Möbius’ items whose arrival we are most excited about are these two bright red beauties from Electrodyne. I have been working closely with the fabulous people at Electrodyne Inc. for well over a year to have them build these eXtremely heavy duty 250A 24V alternators for us which combined will put out almost 14kW. So when I say that we don’t have a generator onboard I guess that’s not entirely true?!
** WARNING: mini Tech Talk Ahead! Skip over if not interested
I’d known Electrodyne alternators since I was working as a HD construction mechanic in my youth and Electrodyne alternators were the ultimate choice for large construction and mining diggers, railroads, trucks, busses, emergency vehicles where they often ran 24/7 for weeks or months. They are literally built like tanks and each one weighs 40kg/90 lbs!
I’d initially worked with Pete Zinck until he retired early this year and turned things over to his Production Manager Dale Gould and who could not have been more helpful and responsive to my many Emails and requests.
What you are seeing in the photo above are two identical Electrodyne G250-24 models which are de-rated down to 250Amps @ 27.5V @ 3750RPM which would give each one a maximum output of almost 7kW (6.875) for a combined output of almost 14kW. However I will make the serpentine pulley ratios such that their max speed will be about 3200-3400 RPM for even longer life. Dale stripped these down for safer, and slightly lighter shipping and I have not had time to mount the HD steel wiring boxes which house all the wire connections you see here for the six large external direct AC output cables which then run over to the external rectifiers and regulators which I will mount outside the Engine Room with thermostatically controlled fans to ensure they are always running nice and cool and at maximum efficiency. I’ll cover all that in the coming weeks as I get these alternators installed on Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB and wired into the electrical system.
I had a list of key features I wanted for our dual XPM alternators running off our single main engine and I knew that it was going to be a challenge to find a company that would build these so with my long past experiences with their alternators I turned to Electrodyne and sure enough they were able to built in all the features I wanted, In addition to being rock solid, high output and lasting “forever”, perhaps the most significant features that I wanted were that they be brushless and I wanted them to have everything other than the rotating stator to be external. No built in regulators and no rectifiers. Why go to such extremes? In a work; HEAT, which is the largest factor in shortening an alternators output and lifespan. Rectifiers can produce more than half the total heat within an alternator so by removing these and going with industrial grade 3 phase bridge rectifiers I can reduce the internal head of the alternator by more than half AND control the heat of the rectifier bridges outside the ER and with their own fans. This also creates an alternator with only one moving part, the spinning rotor so MUCH better airflow through the alternator stator windings and rotor. The Goldilocks alternator for an XPM; consistent high output with low heat and low maintenance.
I will cover these Electrodyne beauties in much more detail in future posts here once I get them all assembled and installed but suffice it to say that I am VERY excited about getting these Electrodyne alternators installed and tested. Equally as exciting are the WakeSpeed 500 Advanced Regulators that were also in this same crate of equipment we unpacked this week and will be controlling and managing our two mighty Electrodyne alternators.
If this stuff interests you as much as it does me then please stay tuned and be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss any of the new articles as they go live.
OK, now back to our regular programming.
Mr. Gee Gets Naked!
Captain Christine is now working at the Naval Shipyard with me most days now as we make the final push to finish this build and bet Möbius and ourselves back were we belong; ON THE WATER!!
Amongst her many jobs Christine has literally rolled up her sleeves, donned her HD latex gloves and become Mr. Gee’s personal degreaser! Our Gardner 6LXB serial # is 196071 which means he emerged out of the Gardner and Sons building in Patricroft in Manchester England in February 1975 and was in constant use powering a tugboat in the Thames river everyday thereafter. After 45 years of such use we are giving Mr. Gee a serious bath to start his second life as our main engine in Möbius. To do so we have removed every single part, nut, bolt and cotter pin and have now removed pretty much every bit of grease and guck that has accumulated over his glorious 45 year past.
With all the other duties I’ve unexpectedly taken on here along with the regular demands of building a new boat I’ve not been able to get as much time as I had expected to attend to Mr. Gee’s needs but I am contributing more of late and managed to get this massive chrome molly (chromium molybdenum steel) crankshaft all cleaned up and returned to its original shiny self. This is Michael Harrison, the CEO of Gardner Marine Diesel Engines who continues to keep the Gardner name alive and very well. Michael was also the one who found Mr. Gee for us after a very long search for this completely original unrestored marine version 6LXB.
The Gardner 6LXB, and most Gardner engines for that matter are built with four primary building blocks:
Cast Aluminium Oil Pan
Cast aluminium Crankcase
Cast Iron Cylinder Block with pressed in dry liners
Dual cast iron heads
After one of several strip downs, I had reassembled all these major castings and had the exterior thoroughly sandblasted and then put on several coats of high temp silicone based primer.
Now stripped down naked once again and ready for the bath of his lifetime, Hakan helped me drag the bare cast aluminium crankcase outside. Armed with some super HD degreaser, lots of wire brushes and our newly acquired Bosch pressure washer, it was bath time! I had spent the previous 3 days scrubbing every nook and cranny with the degreaser and wire brushes so this final pressure wash took us back down to virgin raw aluminium throughout. I also wanted to be sure to blast out every oil gallery and hole to remove not only the old grease and grime but also any new particles that had climbed aboard during the sandblasting. And here is the result, a VERY clean Mr. Gee! This is the front end of the crankcase which will soon be filed with lots of sprockets and an eXtremely large double roller timing chain that drives everything from the camshaft to the PTO for one of those Electrodyne alternators to the water pump and fuel pump. Whew!! It is now late on Sunday night and I’m exhausted and so are you probably if you’ve made it this far!
Thanks so much for joining us, makes this adventure all the more exciting and rewarding to know you’re out there and along for the ride.
Do please add your comments, questions and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below. Even though I am WOEFULLY behind in responding to those of you who have done so in the past 3 weeks. Rest assured I DO read them all and think about all you say and I will respond to each one in the next few days so thanks for your patience.
Wow! Surely my calendar is fooling me; December already? Another year winding down to a close? Where does the time go??!? I’ve long been fascinated by the dichotomy of how our sense of time past works where the same amount of time can seem to simultaneously much longer and much shorter. In the case of Möbius it seems like both yesterday and a lifetime ago when we first started this crazy idea of switching from sail to power for our future voyaging. Then we dove head first into the deep end of the crazy pool by deciding to design and build it from scratch and started this wild adventure we are now on.
Here are just a few examples of the kind of mental dichotomy that fascinates me; Last month we passed our two year anniversary of being here in Antalya, 612 days ago (April 6, 2018) the first shipment of aluminium CNC cut plate arrived and construction of the hull began and in a few days (Dec. 19, 2018) it will have been one year since we signed on with with Naval Yachts to build the fully finished boat with them and have it be the first “prototype” of their new line of eXtreme eXploration Passage Maker XPM boats. How is it possible that SO much has happened in SO little time?
Well, not to waste any more time, I will ponder and wonder that question for a long time to come but for now let’s get on with catching up on all the progress Team Möbius has made this past week of December 2-6, 2019.
WIRING
Let’s start this week’s update with the electrical wiring. The cables referenced in this week’s title include these four black and red eXtreme beauties which carry the eXtremely high amp 24 volt current from the 1350A @24V house battery bank to the fore and aft DC distribution panels. As per their labeling, each of these cables is 120 mm2 which would equate to about half way between the American Wire Gauge or AWG of about 4.5/0000. By any measure these are huge and we are doubling these, two positive and two negative so that each pair carries half the amps. Why such eXtreme sizes? In short, Electrical efficiency such that we keep the voltage loss occurring on these long cable runs as low as possible, meaning that as much of the current that leaves the batteries arrives at the consumers on the other end. Our standard maximum voltage drop for all DC circuits is < 3% and for the main supply cables such as these, we keep it under 2% and hence the large cable size. Last week Hilmi ran the four cables from the Basement up to the Forepeak using the cable trays you see in the photos above and this week he ran the other set of cables up from the basement and along the cable trays under the side deck space flanking the SuperSalon you are seeing here and running back to the Aft DC Distribution Panel in the Workshop. Down in the Basement where the House Battery Banks are located we find this growing collection of different cables which now includes the four 120 mm2 Red/Black cables. We had ordered the negative cable in Yellow which is the preferred new ABYC standard to help differentiate the DC negative from Black AC wires but this large size cable is difficult to find and the Yellow jacketed version wasn’t available for several months so we went with Black and will add extra labels along each cable run to maintain clarity. Not that anyone would likely confuse these huge cables for anything but high amp DC, but you can never be too careful when it comes to all things electric.
The two House Battery Bank bays which as you can see here are integral parts of the framing of the hull straddling the 25mm / 1” thick Keel Bar which is what the floors of these two bays are setting upon. Nihat has been welding in the side framing which will hold the composite containment boxes in place and bolting these floors to the hull. Even though all our batteries are fully sealed AGM type batteries with no actual fluid in them, we are building composite containment boxes to add an eXtra layer of safety to cover any possibility of a leak in one of the batteries. The L-bar frames hold the base of the batteries in place and then there will be a separate frame that wraps around the tops of the batteries and clamps them down to the hull so they can not move even in the unlikely event of a full 360 degree roll.
ALUMINIUM WORK
Uğur and Nihat continued their work on fabricating the framing for the glass and acrylic windows up in the SkyBridge. They have all the L-bar tacked in place that will provide the frames for gluing in the lower glass “eyebrow” windows and then started to weld in the flat bar on top to create the window ledges for the upper removable acrylic sheet windows.
Note the large vent seen in the foreground here. This will have a large mist elimination grill in front of it before all the fresh breezes flow down into overhead diffusers in the SuperSalon.
The front three 380W solar panels attach to a frame which sets just inside the upper angled edge of the space in front of this vent opening and hinges along the upper edge of the vent frame. This hinged frame of solar panels allows us to lower its front edge down onto the aluminium roof panel and seal off this space when we are on passages and then unclip it and raise it to its horizontal position which creates a huge wind tunnel to capture all the breezes coming from the bow when we are at anchor and funnel them all to this big vent and down into the SuperSalon. The flat bar window sills were slot welded to the tops of the L-Bar glass window frames and then ground flush and invisible. The angled support you see on the far right here is the articulated support post that is put in place when the roof needs to be folded down into either Cyclone or Canal mode. Most of the time it is removed and stored in Workshop. The front four support posts for the roof are attached with these bolt on flanges so they can be removed prior to folding down the roof. Same bolt on flanges are mounted vertically where these four posts attach to the the roof frame.
CABINETRY WORK
Both of the Cabinetry teams continued to make great progress on their respective cabinetry work for the Galley and the Guest Cabin areas so let’s go check in with them.
The spacious SuperSalon is difficult to capture well with photos but perhaps these two panorama shots will help. This one shot standing in very front where the Helm Chair will be looking Aft.
Click to enlarge any photo. Shot standing on the stairs up to the Aft Deck looking forward. Obviously very distorted views but when combined with the regular photos I hope it helps you visualise this truly Super space. Switching back to normal photo mode AND sparing no expense we have brought Chef Christine aboard to inspect her rapidly evolving Galley. Testing out a simulated pot stirring position where the induction cook top will soon be installed, the Chef seems to approve. Omur and Selim spent much of the week painstakingly fitting the Gull Wing door Garages into the Galley cabinets. With mitred corners and being recessed into the countertops requires very exacting dimensions along all three X,Y and Z axis in order for it all to work and for these Garages to be able to slide into their final position. And when they do, it looks abfab!
For those wondering, the Garages are “floating” above the countertops to allow for the 20mm/ 3/4” thick granite countertops. eXacting is what Naval’s Cabinetmakers eXcel at and here is another example as Omur (left) and Selim try out different sheets from the flitches of Rosewood we’ve purchased. When the thin sheets are sliced off the solid slab of Rosewood they are laid together in in the sequence as they come off so each sheet is different but matched with the one before and after. Omur has brought a series of these sheets onboard and is now trying out each one to find the Goldilocks match with the sheet on the right which forms the back of the dining settee. Selim and Omur also fitted the armrest end of the dining Settee. The top will be padded and upholstered and there will be a door in the Rosewood outer side to provide access to one of the electrical panels that will be housed inside.
LOTS of storage space below and behind the seats as you can see. Opposite the Settee on the far right here, Selim has removed the top of the cabinet for the two side by side freezer drawers and taken it back to the Cabinetry Workshop. Once he has these solid edges attached and trimmed flush, he will take it over to the big veneer press and apply the veneer sheets he and Omur have so carefully chosen. Over on the other side of the Cabinetry Workshop, Omer, perfectly framed by this cut out in the wall panel that goes on the outboard side of the stairs leading down into the Master Cabin, has been making great progress on the complex little cabinet for the sink in the Guest Head/Bathroom.
We’ve made quite a few changes to this early rendering of the Guest Head and my apologies for not having an updated render to show you but if you do a mirror flip of this render in your head (sorry) you’ll be close to the new layout. Omer is demonstrating how the countertop with the sink setting atop the right end will appear to float above the cabinet below and if your mental gymnastics worked well, the image in your head should augment the reality you’re seeing here. Earlier in the week it looked like this with the sink area on the left and the L-shaped that runs down the side of the Head and then wraps around to create a handy shelf behind the VacuFlush toilet similar to what you can see in the original render above. A good example of how the solid Rosewood is glued up to create the large radius corners and the sink surround edges. Which soon looks like this as Omer turns his attention to the veneer he has chosen for the wrap around countertops. He has also fabricated these two large radius corner posts for the cabinet below the sink. Which he is gluing up here. Closeup of those large radius corner posts now glued with reinforcing biscuits into the completed under sink cabinet. Here is how the countertop and sink cabinet will fit together.
Mr. Geeeeee gets a Beautiful New Mechanic!
Mr. Gee as we affectionately call our mighty Gardner 6LXB engine has also been getting some much needed time and attention the past few weeks so let’s catch you up on that. Since she returned from her short sojourn in Spain two weeks ago, Captain Christine has added new title to her already long list by becoming Mr. Gee’s new mechanic! With Commodore Barney thankfully supervising very closely. Currently Mr. Gee more closely resembles Humpty Dumpty as he is all in pieces again after being put together briefly for a complete sandblasting of all his external parts. Now we are busy cleaning up all the internal parts which have accumulated over the 50 years of his previous life in powering a tugboat on the Thames River in England. Christine has these valve lifter assemblies all cleaned up and ready for their new life as the heartbeat in Möbius. Looking back a few weeks, this is what Mr. Gee looked like after giving him a very thorough sandblasting and several coats of high temperature silicone based primer.
Ruby the Wonderdog on the left and Barney the Yorkshire Terror always on duty supervising every step of the way. Loosing his head, two cast iron ones in fact, each of which must weigh at least 70kg/150lbs, next up for removal is the cast iron cylinder block sitting on top here. I had previously removed the old cylinder liners and had new ones pressed in and machined to finished size so they are all ready for their equally new pistons and rings.
One of the great things about these Gardner engines and what makes them surprisingly viable for reuse is that while complete engines are no longer being manufactured almost every part is still being made and available from Gardner Marine Diesel which carries on the Gardner name and heartbeat. So with the exception of the primary castings such as the cylinder block, crankcase, and crankshaft I was able to buy every other part new from pistons and rings, to every bearing, every gasket, fuel injectors, etc. Once Christine and I have him fully scrubbed clean we begin to put Humpty Dumpty back together again and bring Mr. Gee back to his original glory or better.
I have Mr. Gee fully disassembled for about the fourth and hopefully final time since I first picked him up in England two years ago. Here he is stripped down to just his all cast aluminium crankcase. Next week I’ll take him outside for a thorough de-greasing and pressure washing to flush out every nook and cranny to get rid of all the accumulated oil sludge and the sandblasting sand that has crept inside.
Yesterday I tackled the truly massive crankshaft by scrubbing every surface and all the internal oil galleries with degreasing liquid and LOTS of paper towels. Old on the right, partially cleaned on the left. About 3/4 clean now before getting a good pressure wash and some new fibre discs in the torsional damper on the left end.
Visible below the crankshaft is the Cast Iron cylinder block with its new liners and ready for its equally thorough cleaning and prep for reassembly. Old meets new!
The shiny new aluminium ring I’m holding in front of Mr. Gee’s massive marine flywheel is the outer Centamax ring that transfers Mr. Gee’s rotational torque of the spinning flywheel to the Nogva CPP input shaft. Easy to see how simple this Centamax flex coupling is with the outer aluminium ring’s fingers fitting tightly into the matching grooves in the thick rubber disc bolted to the Nogva’s input shaft. The grey cast aluminum housing on the left is off Mr. Gee and mates perfectly to the the matching SAE bolt pattern on the red Nogva servo box. Fortunately for me, the Society of Automotive Engineers or SAE began creating standards for things such as threads and bolt hole patterns back in 1905 and are still being used to this day quite universally and ubiquitously in the manufacturing world globally. Gardner and Sons Ltd. was founded in 1868 and began building engines in 1895 and so they were amongst the very first to adopt SAE standards for their engines. Sound boring? Well not to me! Our union of old and new provides a great example of why such standards matter an enable me to simply bolt our almost 50 year old Gardner 6LXB engine to our brand new Nogva CPP using in this case the SAE14 bolt hole pattern to fasten the new Nogva/Centamax ring to the Gardner’s flywheel. Michael Harrison now runs Gardner Marine Diesel after his Dad retired after working for Gardner and Sons Ltd for most of his working life and then started Gardner Marine Diesel when he bought the entire inventory and much of the machinery when Gardner and Sons closed shop in the early 1990’s. Michael not only found Mr. Gee for us when he was being removed from that tugboat so they could upgrade the tug to the more powerful 8LXB for the tugs newly upgraded job requirements, but he also found this original solid steel marine flywheel “blank”. Next week this flywheel will be machined with the SAE14 bolt pattern on this outer face so I can bolt the Nogva/Centamax ring to it prior to mating the Gardner with the Nogva and lifting them into their new home in Möbius’ Engine Room for the first time. Just a wee bit eXcited about that and so stay tuned for more in the coming Weekly Progress Updates.
But WAIT! There’s more!
NEW ARRIVALS @ Naval Yachts
Remember that crate Christine & I built when we were back in Florida last month? and then filled with the many, many, many parts which we had been ordering and sending to our Florida addresses? And then trucked down to Miami to have it air freighted over to Naval Yachts?
Well, it showed up here on Friday! We’ll have great fun unpacking it and showing you all the contents next week.
But WAIT there’s even mooooooooooore!!!
Look what else showed up on Friday!!
Can you guess what’s inside THIS crate and why our brilliant interior designer Yesim is almost as excited as we are about it? This should help you guess? Do Hakan and Yesim help you get your guesses warmer? Or a peek inside perhaps? Good Guess!! It is our eXquisite Galley countertops which have all be cut from this slab of Turquoise granite at Stoneline. It arrived at the end of the day on Friday so we only had time for a quick inspection and we’ll show you much more as it gets installed in the coming weeks. But we were able to see the bullnose rounded edges and some of the other details and can’t wait to inspect it fully tomorrow. and I promise it is the LAST time for this week but ……………………………………
WAIT! There is just ONE more HUGEY thing to show you………………………………
Christine and I regard ourselves as two of the most fortunate people on the planet because we are surrounded by the most awemazing friends who, in addition to being very good friends, also have talents you just wouldn’t believe. One of dearest friends and most talented artists we know is pictured below, the one and only Sherry Cooper.
Sherry and I first met back in 1981 when she and her husband Rick arrived in Baden Baden Germany where I was living at the time. I was a High School teacher for the Canadian Air Force jet fighter base there and Rick joined us from his English teaching gig in Vancouver BC. In addition to teaching there for the next three years we all traveled extensively throughout Europe, Africa and beyond and our friendship continued to grow ever since.
And I am I telling you this because??
Because Sherry agreed to put her incredible artistic talents to work and design the patterns for those two plate glass walls that form the corner of our Master Cabin shower that you may recall seeing in some of the early renderings of the Master Cabin.
Plain clear glass just wouldn’t fit with the eXtreme beauty aboard Möbius now would it? Plus, unlike me, Christine has a modicum of privacy and wasn’t thrilled by the idea of being on such a well lit stage when she was showering. So we came up with the idea of having the glass etched with some fun and beautiful pattern. But where would we find such a pattern?
Ha! Easy peasy as some of my Canadian friends might say, we mentioned it to Sherry on one of our visits and she delighted us by jumping at the chance to be so involved with the creation of our new home. Several meetings and lots of Emails later we evolved the idea of having a theme that would involve some of the art and imagery of the Aboriginal Peoples of Möbius’ Home Port of Victoria BC. The term “Aboriginal” refers to the first inhabitants of Canada, and includes First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. This term came into popular usage in Canadian contexts after 1982, when Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution defined the term as such.
Then we asked Sherry if it might be possible to incorporate some pictures we so vividly recalled from her prodigious photography work of some otherworldly reflective waters where she and Rick have their boat near Gambier Island? Of course she said!
My apologies to you Sherry for this amateurish picture of your pictures, but really people, can you believe that these are untouched photos Sherry took when she spotted these patterns being reflected in the water as Rick was docking their boat??!!!
So what did Sherry come up with?
Check out what we awoke to find in our Email inbox this morning!
We will now be having one of these images etched into each of the two plate glass shower walls and can’t wait to show you the results when they are done and installed in the Master Cabin.
You are AWEMAZING Sherry! Thanks and just let us know when you are flying over to come see your work on display inside Möbius!
OK, as promised that is finally it for this week’s update. See what I mean about that conundrum of time? How could so much happen in so little time? But it did and I have the photos above to prove it!
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Thanks so much for taking the time to join us on this week’s adventure and PLEASE do be encouraged to add your questions, comments and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
It has been Thanksgiving week for all our American friends and family back in the USA and while Christine and I are far away and Canadian Thanksgiving was over a month ago, we will take any opportunity to remind ourselves just how many things we have to be thankful for. Working on XPM78-01 Möbius this past week here at Naval Yachts has been filled with many such reminders that I’ll show you in this Progress Update. What I am personally most thankful for thought is that my Beautiful Bride and Captain Christine is now finally back in my arms after spending a week in Spain where she was doing some boat and pet sitting for some very dear friends who have their boat enjoying a lovely little marina for the winter in Sant Carles de la Ràpita which is about 3 hours drive SW of Barcelona.
But I”m sure you are much more interested in all those many other things we have to be thankful for this pas week onboard Möbius so let’s go check all those out.
CABINETRY:
I’ll let Cabinetry work take the lead this week for a change which is easy to do given all the progress those two teams made this past week.
Some of you have been asking how all those mesmerizing swirling grain patterns in the Rosewood are all so beautifully aligned and flow across the different cabinetry components and this shows you one way this is done.
Omer has picked out a series of matching slices of Rosewood from the stack you see above, carefully aligned them into this series and temporarily taped them together. Next he lays one of the long vertical pieces for the doors and walls in the Guest Shower and Head/Toilet area on top of these strips and uses the edge to guide his razor knife to crosscut the piece of veneer a bit larger than the board it will soon be glued to. After a short trip to the big heated veneer press, the board is ready for its solid wood edges and further machining. In a case such as this piece, the bottom side has Rosewood veneer and the top surface has Beech laminated to them and then the edges and corners are machined with their respective radius, dados/grooves, and rabbets. The result?
This kind of matching grain patterns flowing horizontally across multiple pieces and around corners.
In case you don’t recognize it, this is the Guest Shower you are looking into with the Guest Cabin to the left and the WT door into the Workshop/ER on the far right. The shower door itself will be all glass in this case. Standing in the Shower and looking across the entryway to the Guest Cabin is another example of the matching grain patterns on this outer wall of the Guest Head in the corridor leading up the stairs to the SuperSalon. From the same spot just rotating counter clockwise to Port/Left side of the hull a bit you can see how my “clean workbench” and Office area is shaping up with lots of storage areas above and below the workbench.
Dual Fridge cabinet with more examples of the matching Rosewood is at the top of the stairs. This is what you’ll see coming down those stairs from the SuperSalon looking aft into the Workshop/Engine Room with the Workbench/Office along the hull on the right and Shower/Head on the left. The cut outs in the upper half of each wall are where the padded light gray leather panels will go with the Blue Horizon line and handhold separating the upper leather and the lower Rosewood. This is a rendered approximation of what this Workbench/Office area will look like when finished. For one final perspective I scrambled up the stairs into the SuperSalon and put the camera down on floor level looking Aft to catch this view of the Fridge cabinet on the right and the inside peninsula cabinet of the Galley on the left. You can see my workbench/Office area in the distant background between the stairs and the Fridge cabinet. Next door to the shipyard is Naval’s Cabinetry workshop and over there we find Omur and Selim continuing to make good progress on the smaller cabinets which run along the back edge of all the countertops. I refer to these as the “Garages”. This render looking over the Galley to the Stbd/Right side windows lets you see how these Garages are mounted on top of the rear edges of all the marble countertops. This bird’s eye view shows how there are four banks of these Garages surrounding the Galley providing a lot of super convenient storage at your fingertips. Note that the depth of these Garages are all different to provide different amounts of countertop area in front of them and different sizes to each Garage that can be maximized for their contents. One of the keys to make these Garages super efficient is to make access super quick and easy and so we have created these “gull wing doors” work like this with the top and front surfaces being made into a single piece that hinges at the back and latches at the bottom. There are small gas assist cylinders inside so you just lift the latch and the door swing up and out of the way. I’m quite a car buff and part of the inspiration for this door design comes from one of my all time favorite cars, the 1956 Mercedes Gull Wing 300SL Roadster. I couldn’t ever afford this model but at one time I had two of the sister 190SL’s I brought back with me from living in Germany in the 80’s. My grizzled hand and the spray can provide a sense of scale of this set of Garages which go along the the countertop that runs athwartships/side to side, with the dining settee behind and the Stbd/Right windows on the right end.
This is the long bank of Garages running along the Stbd/Right side with their back edges up against the window glass. Selim putting the solid Rosewood edges on one of the Gull Wing Doors with the bank of Garages in front that run along the windows on the aft end of the Galley. Omur has three of the four banks of Garages laid out on this platform as they will be placed in the Galley so he can cut the very complex set of angles for the mitered ends where two banks intersect. The bank on the floor on the far right fits into the spot where Omur is standing. The bottom corner here is where the Aft on the left and Stbd Side windows on the right meet and the short bank of on the right side of the platform is the one with the dining settee behind (to the right) of it.
Looking from the other side now that Omur has this corner miter roughed in you can see how the bank of Garages will connect to each other. The short bank on the left is again the one with the settee behind it on the far left side.
Once all these banks of Garages have been fully fitted into the boat they will come back here to have all the Rosewood veneer applied to their outer surfaces and have all their solid edges machined with their radius corners.
PLUMBING:
Cihan continues his progress with things like getting the Day Tank fitted on the Stbd/Right side of the Engine Room Enclosure so he can now start running all the diesel fuel lines going in and out of this Day Tank.
He has also been running more lines along the sides of the hull such as the Chiller lines wrapped in black EPDM insulation on the bottom here, clear water lines above them and then hot and cold supply lines running up vertically on the far right where they then run across the ceiling over to the other side.
As each new section of plumbing is installed it is checked for leaks with compressed air and this pressure gauge. Doing this testing at steps along the installation process is more time consuming but makes it much easier to find any leaks that might show up rather than waiting till the whole circuit is installed and having to track down any leaks along the whole run. In the Forepeak up at the other end of the boat Cihan was busy installing the second Black Water (sewage) Holding tank with the VacuFlush Vacuum Generators underneath.
These Dometic BW Holding tanks are a very complete BW Holding Tank system with the diaphragm pump on the right for pumping BW over to the exiting Sea Chest barely visible on the far right end of the tank by the black/red wires and a second independent exit for a shore side pump out connection in the center with the white/green sanitation hose connected. Well designed with all hoses coming in/out of the top only so there are not any hoses that retain sewage when not being used. The black cylinder on the far top edge is a vent line filter and the round disc to the right of this is a vacuum release valve which prevents high volume shore side pump out stations from collapsing the tank sides with too high a vacuum inside the tank. And on the left middle those wires are for three float gauges that connect to green/amber/red lights for empty/mid/full indicators. We will also install a digital tank level sensor using Maretron submersible pressure sensors that put the precise tank level information onto the NMEA2000 network so we can see and display that data on any monitor throughout the boat or on our phones and tablets.
These 150L/40 USG holding tanks can weigh up to 160kg/350 lbs so they need to be very well supported and you can see how Cihan has welded in T-bars under the reinforced bottom stringers molded into these Dometic BW tanks.
These T-bars are further strengthened with the AL plate he welded in to mount these two diaphragm low water Bilge pumps. And the space under the BW holding tank provides a nicely sheltered home for the VacuFlush Vacuum Generator.
WIRING:
While it may look like Hilmi is laying down on the job he and Okan are actually hard at work putting in this DC junction box for lighting up in the SuperSalon and forward Master Cabin. This is located on the right side of the stairs going down into the Master Cabin where the 43” monitor will later be installed. Just roughed in here but you can already see that Hilmi does very neat and well detailed wiring of all our electrical systems and is now taking full advantage of all those cable trays he installed a few months ago. Looking aft from that Junction box you can see one of the many benefits of this design with all this volume running down both sides of the SuperSalon where the side decks run overtop. These volumes provide unprecedented space that makes installation and future maintenance a breeze as well as providing areas for mounting equipment we want to keep out of the way such as the AC Chiller Air Handlers. More of Hilmi’s handiwork is seen here along the Stbd/Right hull in the Master Cabin where he has now installed the four massive Red/Black cables that bring all the 24V DC current up to the Forepeak to run things such as the Bow Thruster, Windlass and Kedging Winch. Each of these cables are120 mm2 / 4/0000 to ensure less than 2.5% voltage drop from the batteries. For those wondering, these high amperage cables are purposely twisted to help reduce the magnetic fields that are created around each cable whenever current is flowing. The direction of these circular magnetic fields is in one direction for the red positive cable and the opposite direction for the current flowing the other way in the black negative cables so twisting them slightly like you see here helps cancel the magnetic field out.
Why do we care?
Magnetic fields can negatively affect things like compasses and more so interfere with current flowing in other nearby wires so as you can see we also keep these high amp DC cables in their own cable trays mounted as far away from other wires such as AC lines and then we keep data carrying cables even further away and over on the opposite side of the boat wherever possible.
ALUMINIUM WORK:
Uğur and Nihat are relentless in their pursuit of completing more and more of the seemingly endless list of aluminium work to be done and this week was no exception as they finished dialing in the prop tube and started working on the aluminium framing for the glass surrounding the SkyBridge coamings. Let’s go check it out.
Using all the measurement tools available from low tech string lines and tape measures to laser levels and dial indicators, the prop tube was brought into full alignment in preparation for being permanently attached to the hull.
Here Uğur is getting a line representing the centerline of the rudder post precisely positioned so measurements can be taken from that to other parts of the CPP propeller, prop shaft and keel. Nihat is sitting directly above Uğur inside the very aft end of the Workshop adjusting the position of this centerline extending down through the hole where the rudder post bearings will mount. Using these reference lines they were then able to move the inner Nogva CPP prop log tube with precise and tiny increments by tightening and loosening these four screws to move the tube up/down and left/right until it was in just the right position and then do the same at the other end inside the Engine Room where this tube and the prop shaft enter.
The vertical pipe on top is where the epoxy like ChockFast liquid will be pumped into the space inside between the two tubes and once it is fully filled will be left to harden and lock the whole assembly into one solid component for the prop shaft to run inside. Now we wait for the ChockFast to arrive for the next stage.
Next up they started to remount the workbenches and shelves that run the full length of both sides of the Workshop. Just the lower shelf has been installed on the right to give more room for Cihan to finish plumbing the Day Tank, Chiller pipes and other lines on this side.
But you can see how the Workbench and shelves will look the same on the opposite side. Moving up to the WT door leading into the Workshop from the Guest Cabin area to get this shot looking aft to give a better sense of just how much shelf and workbench area these provide. The big new job they started this week though was putting in the AL framing for the clear glass “eyebrow” that runs around all four sides of the SkyBridge. This raises the height of these partial walls or coamings from about knee level to almost waist level for greater safety but without affecting the 360 degree views when looking out. At the four corners up front there will be tubular supports to both support the forward end of the SkyBridge roof as well as provide frames for the acrylic sheet windows. First job was to tack the lower socket portion of these pipes in place atop the flat tops of the front AL coaming. The framing for the glass panels which will be glued in place with industrial glass adhesive similar to what is used in building high rise glass sided buildings, is fabricated from L-bar so that was tacked in place next. It is important that the top surface of the glass frames are perfectly level and on the same plane as this will also be the surface that supports the roof when it is lowered down into “cyclone” or “canal” mode and the laser level makes that very easy. They are a well oiled team and they quickly worked their way around the whole perimeter tacking the L-bar in place.
More to follow next week so stay tuned!
But WAIT! There’s more!
Several surprise guests showed up and added to the things we have to be thankful for.
First was this crate which Yigit is busy removing the top from.
Any guesses as to what’s inside???? Some of you will know immediately when you see this and for those not familiar these three white tubes are the membranes for our watermaker. Underneath is this beauty, the heart and soul of the watermaker containing most of the other components such as the high pressure water pump, the pre filters and the gauges for low and high pressure as well as salinity and product water (pure H2O) flow rate. Back side has the insulated high pressure lines carrying the seawater into and out of the high pressure pump and you can se one of the filter housings on the left end. Not too heavy so quite easy to bring all the components up the stairs and into the Workshop. The watermaker will actually go directly opposite of here but as you saw earlier, that workbench isn’t installed yet so we set all the components on this side just to check out the fit on the workbench.
The 3 membrane tubes will mount up on the wall behind the WM and on the far right is the remotely mounted low pressure feed pump which brings sea water out of the Sea Chest into the High Pressure pump.
Hard to see but the main control station box is wrapped up on the far left side.
I was delighted to be able to source this watermaker from a Turkish Company just north of us as one of my very best friends and fellow liveaboard cruiser had great experience with the watermaker he got from them last year for his boat. The key thing with Watermakers for me is that ALL the components be “generic” off the shelf items rather than proprietary ones as this makes it so much easier to find replacement parts anywhere in the world as needed over the years. Fortunately Watermakers have gone this way and everything from pumps to membranes to switches and gauges are all industry standard items that can be found almost anywhere.
For those interested in some of the technical details, this is a Delfin “Maxi 4500” and some of its specs are:
Ceramic piston high pressure pump
Powder coated aluminium frame
316L SS high pressure control valve
316L SS by-pass valve
316L SS low and high pressure gauge
Fresh water flow meter
Sea water flow meter
Low pressure switch
TFC membranes
FRP membrane housing
316 SS high pressure fittings
25&5 micron pre-filter
Manual fresh water flush
Operation time indicator
Automatic salinity monitoring and bad product rejection
Feed pump
The pumps are all 220V AC and the membranes are standard 2.5” x 40” size which produce 190 L/50 USG per hour.
It was also important to me that our watermaker be all manual rather than all automated. We are eXtremely dependent upon our watermaker for both potable/drinking water as well as all our domestic water and water we will need to produce during passages to use as ballast to replace the weight of the fuel as it is used. This added to the challenge of finding the just right watermaker because the trend has long been to make these more and more fully automated where you just “set it and forget it”. No thanks, I’d much rather start up and shut down our watermaker each time so I know for sure how it is working and can adjust it for optimum output and operation as sea temperature and salinity change and require different settings.
But WAIT! There’s still MORE!
Hilmi, our electrical whiz, came and asked me to come off the boat with him to check out the new pallet of equipment that had just arrived.
Which turned out to be THIS pallet full of beautiful blue Victron boxes!
I will go over this in MUCH more detail in the coming weeks but at the risk of causing some serious drooling by some of you, I’ll just leave you with the following photos of what’s inside some of these boxes………….
And so that’s the week that was Nov. 25 to 29, 2019 here on Project Goldilocks with Team Möbius.
Thanks SO much for taking the time to join us and PLEASE be encouraged to put your questions and suggestions into the “Join the Discussion” box below.
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