Good thing 2020 is a Leap Year so we get an additional day to work on Möbius here at Naval Yachts as the time goes flying by and I can barely comprehend that it is already the end of February 2020. However as you are about to see and read below, the progress is very believable and that’s all we can ask for as everyone leans in to push us ever closer to Launch Date.
We get a lot of questions about “When will you launch?” which is quite understandable, we think about it too, and I finally have an answer for you; Thursday. Not to be flip about it but the reality is that we don’t know the exact date when Möbius will be ready to dip her beautiful aluminium belly into the waters of the Med other than my second response which is; as soon as possible or ASAP. I might even borrow and tag on one of my favorite quips, apparently from Albert Einstein“and not one bit sooner”, which he apparently said in reference to simplicity as in “Everything should be made as simple as possible but not (one bit) simpler. We are all working towards the shared goal of building the best boat we can that will meet and exceed the clearly outlined fundamental principles which Christine and I have created based on our decades of full time sailing and live aboards. This is further exasperated by the fact that this is very much a “version 1.0” boat of the XPM class so most things are completely new to all of us. We are all working as hard and as efficiently as possible towards this mutual goal and so “Thursday” and ASAP, seems to be the best answer for the launch of our Goldilocks boat.
So let’s go see what Team Möbius has been up to this past week and you can decide how well it is going.
ALUMINIUM TEAM:
Let’s start this weekly update with our Aluminium Team of Uğur, Nihat and Okan now that they are back after almost a month away while Uğur was out with his badly broken thumb.
I’m going to be mean and hold you in suspense for a wee bit longer about what exactly this three massive AL bars are for but the wait sill soon be over in the next week of two once they start installing these in the hull. I can give you a hint that these will be very solidly welded into the hull and they will be in the Aft Deck area. My hand will give you a better sense of their size and 50mm/2” thick mass. All the sharp corners are about to be fully rounded over including the edges of the large hole in the top.
Does that help you guess what these are?
Stay tuned, answer coming soon. Moving on to the next quiz, any guess as to what this new AL frame is for? Here it is mostly completed now and ready to be lifted up onto the front of the roof of Pilot House.
Now you know right? Correct! This is the frame that will hold the front three (in Blue) solar panels which fit overtop of the angled space in the front roof area of the Pilot House. This frame or rack will be hinged on the aft end in front of the SkyBridge windows such that it can be raised when we are at anchor such that the solar panels are horizontal or whatever angle puts them perpendicular to the sun’s rays. Then when we are heading out on passage, the whole solar panel folds down and locks into the angled recess in the PH roof.
As you may recall seeing last week, our solar panels have arrived so I will soon be able to show you photos of them being installed in this rack on Möbius. In our typical “Swiss Army Knife” strategy of making as many things as possible serve multiple purposes, when lifted up the hinged solar panels creates a fabulous wind tunnel to capture all the breezes blowing over our bow at anchor and direct them down through that bright Green frame you see at the end of the “wind tunnel” and then down into the SuperSalon below.
So while they were working on the PH roof, Uğur and Nihat also fabricated and installed the Green frame you see above. The flanges of the L-bar frame will be used to mount the Mist Eliminator grills which remove most of the salt and humidity from the air flowing through and further increase the comfort of everyone inside. And here is the fully installed frame all ready to have the Mist Eliminator grills bolted in place.
You can see how the fully EPDM insulated interior surfaces have been covered with AL foil cloth to increase the air flow down into the air plenum on the ceiling of the SuperSalon below.
The Red & Black cables will soon have their MC-4 connectors on their ends to attach to the outputs of the three Solar Panels and then run down into their individual MPPT controllers in the Basement.
I received several questions about this drawing I showed last week of the vent shut off lids we have built into all the Dorade and other vents bringing fresh air into the interior of the boat so here are a few more pictures to better answer those questions. Consistent with my opening Einstein quote about “as simple as possible but not any simpler” or as I usually refer to it KISS Keep It Safe & Simple, you can see how that applies to these simple yet effective vent shut offs. This is the simple to fabricate inner frame that holds the threaded rod in the center of the 100mm/4” ID vent pipes when it is welded in place.
Not pictured but you can see in the drawing above, there will be a simple knob on the bottom of this threaded rod and a round plate on the top so to close these vents you just reach up inside and turn the knob to bring the rubber lined lid down and sealed against the vent pipe.
Given the build in water shedding design of Dorade vents we will only need to do this in eXtremely severe seas when we think there might be a chance of a roll over. Hopefully that ends up being NEVER! But you also never know. Jumping down below, Uğur and Nihat picked up on their work to install the Prop Shaft removal tube in the Rudder which just came back from the waterjet company next door who cut the complex angled hole for this pipe. Here it is from the other side where the prop shaft would slice through when being removed
This is one of the many examples of us applying the lessons learned from decades of sailing the world. When, never if, you need to remove your prop shaft it adds an appreciable amount of time and work if you need to first remove the rudder and then replace it when you’ve got the prop shaft back in. Simple in theory, this hole through the Rudder nicely solves that problem by making the eliminating the need to remove the Rudder. As is often the case though, executing on this simple solution is quite complex.
ELECTRICAL:
Hilmi has also been off sick the past few weeks and is till not back to 100% but he was able to get several important jobs done this past week.
Starting here with the wiring of the three 230V and then the …….. ……… two 120V Victron Multi-Plus Inverter/Chargers on the other side of our Victron Rack in the Basement.
We’ve always had great experience with Victron products on our previous boats so we are using them throughout Möbius.
The high amperage carried by the 24V amp cables requires doubling up two 70mm2 cables and as you can see Victron provides for this with dual positive and negative bus bars inside each inverter charger. We find that connections overall are particularly well thought out in Victron equipment. All the AC and data wiring comes up through WT cable glands in the bottom of the cabinet and the slots for the larger DC cables are well insulated with nylon inserts all around. This kind of attention to detail makes it so much easier to access in the future and to connect initially. Hilmi has a good selection of special tools for thigs such as this hydraulic cable lug swaging tool. I have a similar one I carry onboard as well for whenever I need to make up new cables. Fully tined lugs on the ends of all the DC cables provide an eXcellent resistance free connection BUT only if you create a perfect connection between the copper wire of the cable and the inside of the lug. These tools make that much easier and I have yet to have a bad connection inside lugs I’ve installed so we are aiming to continue that trend on Möbius. We also need Hilmi at 100% because this is only one small collection of the many electrical devices that are piling up in our store room and a new shipment arrives on Monday!
Seen here are some of the many Maretron black boxes for monitoring systems throughout the boat, the FLIR night camera in the top Left and some of the OGM nav lights on the right.
Mr. GEE our Gardner 6LXB Single Engine
I wasn’t able to give Mr. Gee as much of my time as I would have liked this past week but he did get some TLC such as this newly machine flywheel which just returned from the neighboring machine shop. The massive flywheel needed two modifications the first of which is machining the recess your see here with the 8 M14 threaded holes where the AL SAE14 flange I’m holding up will be bolted on. This AL flange has a series of rounded “teeth” on its inner surface where the rubber flexible coupling slides into and transfers all the power from Mr. Gee’s crankshaft to the Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox and propeller. They machined this inner recess such that the SAE14 AL flange is a slight press fit onto the flywheel to ensure both parts are eXactly concentric and spinning on center with no vibration.
The second job was to machine this outer recess on the outside edge of the flywheel. This recess is needed so that the flywheel clears the inside of this aluminium housing that surrounds the flywheel and bolts to the Gardner engine block. You can see the clearance that has been created for the inner edge of the flywheel housing and then there is a similar clearance underneath those threaded holes between my fingers. I also started to ready the many aluminium parts that bolt to the outside of Mr. Gee such as this water manifold on the Starboard side of the block that I’m holding and the coolant overflow tank in the upper Right and the water manifold below my arm on the bottom Left.
All these parts will be sand blasted and many of them will be polished to a gleaming shine to help create the work of art and engineering that is Mr. Gee. One of the many unique features of our Gardner 6LXB which makes it so incredibly strong and long lasting are these threaded through rods which extend from side to side at the bottom of the massive cast AL crankcase. Each pair of rods extend through each aluminium crankshaft bearing cap and creates an unbelievably strong and solid “bottom end” to this engine. This degree of solidity eliminates any vibration or flexing of the crankshaft and provides a truly rock solid base for it to spin freely in for another fifty years. One last part I worked on this past week was a new spacer for the camshaft. This part establishes the just right amount of lengthwise play of the camshaft which is supposed to be .004-006” but over the many years of non stop spinning in his former life, this had grown to .009” when I tested it so I drew up this quick hand sketch for Yunus, which is Turkish for Dolphin BTW, in our Machine Shop so he can make a new one. I will show you that when I’m installing it next week or so.
PLUMBING:
Cihan our Master Plumber was busy as always throughout the boat so let’s go see what he’s been up to this past week starting up on the anchor platform on the Bow where he is installing these two wash down outlets. One is for Fresh water the other for Salt. We first experienced these beautifully made SS and plastic quick connect fittings on a boat we were delivering a few years ago and were so impressed by how well they worked we tracked some down for our four deck wash fittings; these two at the Anchor Platform on the Bow and then two on the Aft Deck. As you might know I am loathe to allow ANY penetrations of the deck plating but I’m happy to make an exception to these two in the Forepeak area. As you can see they are very well sealed and even if/when they do leak many years from now the water would go straight down into the bilge area below. At the very opposite end of the boat, Cihan was also hard at work installing the complex network of pipes, fittings, mixing valves and manifolds for the hot water system. You are peeking underneath the Starboard/Right side workbench at the very aft end of the Workshop where the IsoTherm Calorifier/Hot Water Tank is located. This is one of two manifolds in the hot water system which provides hot water for both our DHW Domestic Hot Water for sinks and showers as well as for our in-floor heating system that runs through all the interior floors on the boat.
I will have more of Cihan’s craftsmanship in the coming weeks as he completes this system.
MASTER CABIN SHOWER:
Let’s go back up to the front of the boat and catch up with the new Composite Team who have been busy glassing all the walls, floor and ceiling of the Master Cabin Shower. In the past few weeks you have seen them complete the initial glassing by applying a layer of fiberglass resign and cloth to all the plywood surfaces. Next they cut out these 3mm/ 1/8” thick composite panels with White gelcoat outer surfaces.
The shapes are rather complex with no right angles anywhere to be found so they built templates inside the Shower and use these to cut each panel to match the shape of each area, Then they apply a layer or thickened resin and press each panel into place with bars and clamps.and clean up any squeeze out. It all goes quite quickly as the panels cover relatively large areas. The two rectangles on top Right are where the two mirrored upper cabinets will mount and the two lower ones are for the lower cabinet with the sink on top. The cut outs provide access to the plumbing and electrical systems behind.
The two etched glass shower wall panels will complete the corner closest to you. The “Shower Tower” mounts on the diagonally angled wall on the Left and the seat with its own access door is on the Right with the grinder on top.
MASTER CABIN:
At the other end of the Master Cabin, Omur, Selim and Şevki are finishing up the cabinetry for the bed area. All the White dots on the headboard and dropped ceiling are the female FastMount clips where each of the upholstered panels will snap in place. Zooming out you can see more of these FastMount clips on the end and side walls now ready for their Ultra Leather upholstered panels. Speaking of which, here is a sneak peek into the Upholstery Shop of some of the wall panels having their foam and Green/Gray Ultra Leather applied. We’ll have much more of this to show you in the coming weeks. Looking up above the dropped ceiling we can see that it has now been solidly attached to the overhead AL frames of the hull with three AL L-brackets and now White epoxy coated spacers are attached for the ceiling grid to mount to. And off to the Starboard/Right side of the Dropped Ceiling the solid Rosewood header above the Master Cabin door has been fitted.
SUPER SALON:
Moving up to the SuperSalon it has been pretty much gutted this week as all the cabinetry has been fully fitted and has been taken over to the Finishing Shop where about five coats of Polyurethane varnish are applied and rubbed out to a beautiful satin lustre.
With all the cabinets gone, Selim on the Left is now busy putting in all the pink rigid foam insulation as he preps the floor for cutting in all the U shaped grooves for the 15mm/ 5/8” PEX tubing for the in-floor heating. At the Aft end of the SuperSalon where the Galley is, Selim is also now able t install all the 4 layer acoustic insulation panels in these White stepped inner surfaces that make the transition from the Galley countertops to the Guest Cabin below. Up at the front of the SuperSalon, the Main Helm station is being completed with both wiring and cabinetry being installed.
The angled Helm Dashboard with two 20” monitors is in the center with a large triangular storage area on the Left and angled wall on the Right with the forward electrical panel below. Before heading to the Finishing Shop the Cabinetry makes a stopover in the Cabinetry Shop so Omur and Selim can do the final sanding and preparation for final finishing. Here Omur is cleaning up and sanding the inner surfaces of the opening where one of the two Fridges will eventually be installed. All five surfaces of these Fridge and Freezer walls will be lined with 50mm / 2” of rigid foam to insulate their already highly insulated Vitrifrigo boxes. Selim and Omur add some of the details to the SuperSalon cabinetry such as cutting in all the ventilation grooves into the back panel where the 50” SmarTV will mount. These vents are needed to provide a ready source of fresh air for the Port/Left Air Handler that is housed in the area behind and to the Left of this TV panel as well as one of our House Computers which is behind this hinged TV panel.
The multi directional TV mount will sit flush inside the rectangular box in this panel so unfortunately you won’t see this work of art too often, but when we do …………………………. Elsewhere in the Cabinetry Shop, Omur and Selim are also finishing up more details such as this door in the outside panel of the Galley Counter that runs alongside the stairs leading up to the Aft Deck entrance door. Both the door and its outer frame are made of solid Rosewood so that’s what you see them fitting in these phots. With all the grain fully matched of course!
GUEST CABIN:
Never one to be outdone in the friendly competition between our two Cabinetry Teams, Omer has been hard at work finishing things up in the Guest Cabin. His latest project has been installing the ceiling grid that provides the foundation for mounting all the ceiling panels, lights, ducts and hatch trim.
The combination of 12mm/ 1/2” lightweight Poplar marine plywood and all the lightening cut outs keeps this grid very light yet very strong. Down on the ground, Omer has also been installing the same 12mm marine plywood on the floors.
The aluminium plates are all access ports to enable us to access all the baffled areas in the four diesel fuel tanks underneath.
Each of these access ports in all areas of the boat will have their own fully finished floor covers that can be lifted out if needed but will normally be largely invisible. Each one of these removable floor panels have specially made SS threaded hold down hardware to prevent these hatches from coming loose in the unlikely event of a full roll over. The floors of the Corridor outside the Guest Cabin get the same floor treatment.
BUT, can you spot the most exciting new development hiding in plain sight in this photo???? Hint, it was a multi team project and Omer is working on part of it here and ….. …….. here. That’s right! The first of our shiny new WT Bofor doors is being installed!!
Nihat is threading the SS bolts through from the Workshop side of the Corridor with Omer helping on the other side. Which looks like this when they are finished and it is closed. And like this when open with Uğur nicely framed as he cleans up some of the Sikaflex adhesive used to seal the door to the aluminium bulkhead. This is the only WT door on the interior so it is powder coated White. Bofor custom built this door to eXceed all requirements for strength and water tightness even if the boat were to be completely flooded on one side.
The other two WT doors are external doors, the main entrance from the Aft Deck into the SuperSalon and the door into the Workshop from the Swim Platform and they also exceed all requirements several times and but are left in raw aluminum.
FINISHING SHOP:
As you can imagine things are really piling up in the Finishing Shop as all the cabinetry is taken off the boat and brought to them for the final preparation and then spraying of the PU varnish. Just the first coat on this Freezer cabinet but looking good already! The Ro$ewood doesn’t get all the attention as these Beech tops of the Dinette seats can attest. and size doesn’t matter either as all parts large and small, such as this bit of transition trim where the Fridge cabinet meet up against the window glass. Each piece spends quite a bit of time in various parts of the Finishing shop as they have to be carefully sanded down between each of the 5 coats to get all surfaces fully filled and flat for the final coat.
This is the top of the Fridge cabinet after its 3rd coat. Once they have all been fully finished and polished they are carefully bundled up in lots of bubble wrap as they await their final move to their new home inside Möbius.
NEW ARRIVALS:
This is the new arrival this week.
Can you guess what these are? How about if I bring in the special testing model on Team Möbius?
This is a very cool product that Buse and Yigit were able to find and we will use this for the flooring in the Forepeak, Workshop and Engine Room.
It is a special cast resin based composite that is used for things like walkways in harsh industrial plants such as chemical production. Also used on some high traffic walkways on bridges, marinas and parts. Easy to cut to shape and able to support thousands of kilos/pounds so very rigid. You will see much more of this as we start installing it and we are super eXcited about this great new solution for flooring in these critical work areas inside Möbius. These allow us to still see all the way below and each floor panel will be removable for access as needed. Whew! Another busy week here at Naval Yachts and as I said at the beginning you can see that the progress continues unabated as we head for that Thursday Launch Date!
Thanks for joining us again this week and please join the team by adding your questions and comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
While no where near as much as I wanted, I did manage to spend more time this past week giving Mr. Gee, our Gardner 6LXB diesel engine, more of the TLC he needs and deserves. After a LOT of disassembly and seemingly endless cleaning and reconditioning of parts it felt GREAT to finally begin putting all the pieces back together again and see some light at the end of this tunnel.
However Mr. Gee is not the only source of our Gee Whiz! reactions this past week as we also experiencing a similarly gratifying change aboard Möbius as more and more of the cabinetry which the Cabinetry Teams have been building the past few months, emerge from the Finishing Department with their lustrous polyurethane surfaces gleaming as they are moved aboard Möbius. All the while more new equipment arrived at Naval Yachts this week and keep feeding Cihan and Hilmi’s productive plumbing and electrical teams as they continue installing all the systems.
LOTS to show you so settle into a comfy chair with a large beverage and let’s jump right in with this week’s Show & Tell of all the progress accomplished by Team Möbius this past week of February 17-21, 2020.
Mr. Gee; 1975 Gardner 6LXB diesel engine
This is where we left off last week with the gleaming chrome molly crankshaft with all its freshly cleaned and polished surfaces covered in new oil, being lowered into the new bearing shells in the massive solid cast aluminium crankcase. The other half bearing shells are lined up in order along with their matching main bearing cap nuts.
**Note: Mr. Gee is upside down in these pictures and the cast aluminium oil pan will bolt to the flat surfaces you see here. These are the freshly scrubbed crankshaft main bearing caps that fit over those large vertical studs you see in the photo above and then the cast steel bolting blocks span the whole surface to help distribute the loads as the bearing cap studs are fully tightened. The machined flat flanges with the small hole and two bolts on either side are for the all important oil distribution pipework that pumps fresh oil into the tiny gap between the crankshaft main bearing surfaces and the bearing shell to ensure these surfaces never touch and spin freely on the microscopic film of oil. The center main bearing in the middle of this photo is the first one I installed as it also holds two thrust bearings to keep the crankshaft centered lengthwise in the crankcase and prevent it from moving back and forth as it rotates.
Caps # 3, 5 and 6 are waiting their turn to be carefully pressed down on their respective studs. I got to use my new Milwaukee Fuel 12V 3/8” ratchet which made quick work of running all the cap nuts down until they just touched the cast cap blocks. It is critical that these main bearing blocks be torqued down in the right sequence as per the Gardner manuals and to the correct torque as shown in the page below, the nuts are torqued down in seven different stages each one with a higher torque than the last until I got to their final tightness of 24,0Kgm / 2100 lb.in. This is quite tight and was more than I could pull on the end of my torque wrench so I had to use a length of aluminium pipe to extend the handle length. I also had to get two others to hole the crankcase in place to keep it from rotating as I torqued down each nut. But all went well and the crankshaft was home at last and ready for the final test; did it spin freely?
Yes! With one finger I was able to have the crank spinning freely and put on the first of what will likely be hundreds of thousands of rotations in Mr. Gee’s newest life. These are all eXtremely critical parts and must be installed to precise tolerances so there are checks all along the way to make sure the “new” engine conforms to the Gardner specifications. This page of my Gardner LXB Overhaul manual specifies the tolerance for the endwise clearance of the crankshaft to be between 0.006 – 0.009 in. To put this in perspective, a human hair is about 0.001 or “one one thousands of an inch”. Using my trusty old dial indicator clamped to the crankcase with its indicator end pressed against the flywheel flange on the end of the crankshaft I carefully tap the crankshaft all the way to one end and then back to the other to measure the total distance it moves.
As you can see on the dial indicator it was spot on at 0.007 inch so I made a note of this in my manual page above. The newly rebuilt Oil Pump went in next and was quickly torqued down tight with a bit of silicone gasket material to seal its cast iron machines faces to the AL surface of the crankcase. The vertical pipe sits down inside the sump of the oil pan (remember the engine is upside down here) and pumps the oil under about 45psi throughout the engine starting with the main bearings. Which is what these cast iron fittings and steel pipes accomplish by creating an external pipeline to carry the oil from bearing to bearing. The hole you can see in the connecting rod bearing surface at the bottom of this photo is where the pressurised oil is routed from the main bearing cap and then the oil flows out and drains into the sump as the engine spins. If you look inside the upper hole at the top of the fitting (click to enlarge any photo) I’m holding at right angle to the cap surface where it will be mounted, you can see I’ve inserted a new rubber O-ring which seals the steel distribution pipe when it is pushed in place. Another rubber O-ring fits into the groove on the bottom of the fitting to seal it against the cast cap block and keep this whole oil distribution pipeline fully sealed and pressurised. Crankshaft Oil distribution system all ready for another lifetime of trouble free service keeping Mr. G’s crank spinning freely as he uses all his torque and power to move Möbius around the world. After flipping Mr. Gee back right side up, I move on to the next part of the assembly.
And a chance to give a quick quiz for my mechanically minded followers;
??? What is this shaft I have started to insert into the crankcase?
The answer might surprise many of you because believe it or not this is the Camshaft.
Huh? I hear you say, where are all the cams? And here’s your answer.
On most engines the camshaft is a single part with each of the egg shaped lobes or cams machined into the camshaft. However on a Gardner each cylinder’s cams, one Intake and one Exhaust is a separate part which slides onto the actual camshaft and is held in place with that square headed setscrew you see here and the photos above and below.
These cam lobes cause the Intake and Exhaust valves to open and close at eXactly the right time and amount using a series of pushrods and valve lifters which we’ll see in the next few weeks. Each cam is carefully marked for this LXB engine model and as you see in the photo above I also engraved each cam when I was first disassembling Mr. Gee. It’s a straightforward process of holding each pair of cams in order inside the crankcase as I slide the camshaft towards the rear of the engine. First four cams are in place here and #5 and 6 are waiting their turn at the far end.
We will pick up here next week so stay tuned for more of Mr. Gee’s assembly.
ELECTRICAL
Hilmi, our head Sparkie, was unfortunately sick the last few days but he was able to get a few things done such as installing more of the Maretron bilge water sensors and also testing out these cool LED lights for the Basement and Forepeak. He also showed me some other versions and some that used fluorescent tubes but we liked the white light intensity of these 24V LED overhead fixtures as they provide great light for working so we’ll go with them for working spaces such as the Basement, Forepeak, Engine Room and Workshop.
PLUMBING:
This shining Stainless Steel beauty showed up this past week and Cihan got to work installing it in the Workshop. We chose this Isotemp Basic 75L model from Indel Webasto for several reasons including good experiences with one on our previous boat. This is a Calorifier rather than a “water heater” as it would otherwise be called because our primary water heater will be a Kabola KB45 Combi diesel fired water heater or “boiler” such as this example in another boat.
This eXtremely efficient diesel boiler heats up a special fluid which is run through a heat exchanger loop inside like …….. ……. this one you can see inside this nice cutaway model of an Isotemp Calorifier and all those ribbed fins quickly transfers the heat to our Domestic Hot Water stored inside the Calorifier.
In the center is a traditional electrical heating element that runs on 240 Volt AC but we will rarely use this because …….. …… our model has two of these heat exchangers inside; one that transfers heat from the diesel fired Kabola and a second one that will have hot coolant from the Gardner engine when it is running to take advantage of that additional heat source.
The heat exchangers connect to the four In/Out fittings labeled in Red, cold domestic water flows in through the bottom Blue fitting and then our DHW Domestic Hot Water comes out the white capped threaded fitting on the bronze mixing valve with the black adjuster knob. The mixing valves allows us to set the temperature we want to actually have at the taps and showers by mixing in some cold with the hot water.
This setup gives us a very reliable, very efficient and unlimited supply of hot water.
Cihan soon had this newest arrival bolted in place in the Workshop hanging underneath the Webasto BlueCool Chiller and Delfin Watermaker above. Cihan also finished mounting the two Deck Wash Pumps up in the Forepeak; one for Fresh and one for Salt water. In addition to providing pressurized water for washing down our forward decks the Salt Water pump provides an easy way to clean the anchor and chain as it comes aboard and then wash down the anchor deck once we’re done.
MASTER CABIN:
Omur, Selim and Şevki were busy applying their impressive skills to crafting all the Ro$ewood and Beach cabinetry in the Main Cabin again this week and Şevki is installing the newest feature, Christine’s bedside shelf. We are very happy with the way this “floating” shelf has worked out. Top of this shelf is at the same level as the top of our mattress so makes it easy to reach your phone or glasses and see a clock there, The aluminium L-brackets you saw last week were installed to keep this dropped ceiling over our bed solidly in place. A nice feature in the Master Cabin and then also provides voluminous storage underneath the Main Helm in the SuperSalon above as you’ll see a bit later. The stairwell leading up to the SuperSalon is coming along nicely and you can see how that angled wall at the Main Helm becomes part of this stairwell and keeps it very safely closed in on all sides. Şevki continued to finish installing the FastMount fittings on all the wall and ceiling panels in the Master Cabin which allow us to snap each panel in and out as needed to access what’s behind or to change the leather coverings in the years ahead. This FastMount system intrigued many of you you so a few more details on how this is installed. The White female fittings which you see on the Left here are installed first by threading them into holes drilled in the underlying marine plywood. Then these Red center markers are snapped into the White fittings …. …… and the outer panel is positioned just right and then you give a good “thump” with your hand where each Red center marker is located……. ……. which puts a perfect little dent for you to place the center of the drill to put in the matching hole for ………………. …………………. the Black Male FastMount fittings and your panel now snaps into eXactly the same spot you had carefully aligned when you thumped it in place. Quick, Easy, Strong, what’s not to like? OK, a bit pricey but WELL worth it compared to alternatives such as strips of hook & loop strips and these panels come off and go back on the same way for many years. A no-brainer decision for me.
MAIN BATHROOM & SHOWER:
We have a new team onboard now that is looking after all the “composite” work such as fiberglass, epoxy and plastics for interior areas we want to be fully sealed and waterproof such as inside our showers and heads/bathrooms. They have taped off the nearby furnishings in the Master Cabin to keep them fully protected and masked off the interior areas where the fiberglass transitions to the finished Rosewood and start applying the initial coat of resin. Earlier they had applied a coat of white epoxy to all the internal surfaces of the marine plywood panels that form the initial substrate of the walls and ceiling. This protects all the plywood surfaces facing the interior EPDM insulation and prevents moisture and smells from seeping into the plywood.
The two White panels here are about to be fastened …… ……. to the ceiling of the Shower and ….. ……. the Head. With the surfaces all prepped they glass in a layer of cloth ………. …… to provide the initial sealing of all these surfaces …… ……and their corners which will provide the ideal surface for applying the finished fiberglass flat panels. Once dry openings such as these two for the VacuFlush toilet’s fresh water inlet and Black Water outlet pipes ……. …….. will be cut away with a sharp knife. Using an age old technique of creating quick templates out of thin plywood strips Osma builds a set for each area of the walls and ceiling. Using a hot glue gun to hold the plywood strips together the eXact shape of each panel can be quickly captured and then these templates are taken over to the Composite Shop where the flat and prefinished fiberglass panels which they make in-house can be cut to size and then brought back to be glassed into the Shower and Head.
SuperSalon & MAIN HELM:
Moving upstairs to the SuperSalon, Omur and Selim have also been making great progress on the cabinetry for the Main Helm area and this early rendering will give you a sense of the layout of the Main Helm at the very front of the SuperSalon. And this overhead shot shows the overall layout of the whole SuperSalon with the Galley in the Upper Right corner and then working clockwise; stairs down from the Aft Deck and then around and down to the Corridor and Guest Cabin, twin Fridge cabinet, Eames lounge chairs, Helm Chair, stairs down to Master Cabin and then the L-shaped Dinette eating area.
Here, Omur is fitting the Rosewood panel that spans the front half wall of the Main Helm.
The rectangular opening is for an access door to all the wiring that …… …… is coming up through these penetrations into the Basement below. Similar penetration for wiring running up into the AC/DC electric distribution circuit breaker panel inside the angled half wall on the far Right of the Helm,
which you can see here.
50” SmarTV/monitor on the Left, Helm Dashboard in the center and AC/DC Distribution Panel inside the angled cabinet on the Right and another 43” monitor just out of sight on the far Right on the other side of the stairwell which can be seen easily from the Helm Chair which mounts in the center of the Helm area. Omur then turned his skills to building up the triangular desktop on the Port/Left side of the Helm. The triangular desktop will be hinged to provide access to ……. ….. this hugey storage area underneath.
There will be a false bottom where those two White epoxied strips are that will create a good sized storage space under the desktop for log books, maps, dividers, binoculars and such things we typically want at hand when at the Helm. You can now see just how voluminous the storage areas are under the Main Helm and see how this was created by the dropped ceiling above the Master Cabin bed you saw earlier. We will take advantage of these well protected yet easily accessible areas underneath the Helm dashboard and desktops on either side for electronic goodies such as network switches, hubs, routers, device chargers, etc..
GUEST CABIN/AFT OFFICE CORRIDOR
I am never quite sure what to best call this multi-function area made up of the Corridor between the Guest Cabin Shower & Head and the WT Workshop door with my Office along the Port/Left hull, …….. …… but whatever its name, Omer and Muhammed have been very busy installing the recently varnished cabinetry and the whole area is coming to life very well.
The tall cabinet on the bottom Right is for the main AC/DC Electrical Distribution panel with most of our DIN circuit breakers, meters and other electrical equipment. My office desk minus its Corian top running Aft and the door into the Workshop on the top Left. Here is a shot in the opposite direction taken standing in front of the WT Workshop door looking forward at the stairs leading up from the Corridor to the SuperSalon Components of my Office now being installed with handy storage cupboards above and drawers below. White grid is about to be mounted to create the support structure for the wall behind my desk. Like this. Completing the Port side wall up the sides of staircase is this final Rosewood covered wall panel with one more very large storage area underneath the side decks running up above. . Here is what this wall looked like by end of the week yesterday.
We are thinking of using this area for more of our electronic gear such as network hubs and switches, the computer for the SkyBridge Helm which is right above the staircase on the Right.
The interior wall of this storage cupboard is removable to provide me access to the equally large area behind the two Fridges in that large cabinet in the upper center. There was lots of action and progress on the opposite side of the Corridor as well this past week as Omer and Muhammed brought our now beautifully varnished “Swiss”, as in Swiss Army Knife practicality, double acting door up from the Finishing Shop and hung it on the outer wall of the Guest Head.
In this position this door will close off the entrance into the Guest Cabin once the Shower walls go up. Then when swung the other way it now closes off the Guest Head.
These double acting Swiss doors as I’ve taken to calling them, are fabulous taking up so much less space and eliminating multiple doors all competing for swing room, hitting each other and a myriad of other problems. Last item to complete this door frame is the header which Omer is setting in place here. Which produces this latest work of art from Omer and the Cabinetry Team. A Grey/Green leather panel will be mounted in the open rectangle. Zooming in on the outer edge of this Swiss Door for one example of the attention to detail and a quick quiz; can you see anything hiding in this picture?
Click to enlarge for a closer inspection. Find it?
If you looked REAL closely in the photo above, you might have been able to just make out the edges of these absolutely awemazing hidden hinges we are using on all our interior doors and some cupboards. These are mortised a long ways into the door and frame and are unbelievably strong. I can literally hang off the other corner of these doors and swing back and forth with nary a change in their smooth open/close action. And yet, when the door is closed these hinges just disappear! It is difficult to capture this other side of the stairwell but you can see how the Rosewood angles up the stairs at an angle with my infamous Blue Horizon Line and handrail making the transition to the Green/Gray leather upper wall panels.
Next week they should be installing the Shower that goes across from the Head so stay tuned for that.
NEW ARRIVALS:
LOTS of new equipment arrived this past week and I won’t go into too much detail on each of them here as I will cover them more when they are being installed but here is a quick overview of this week’s new arrivals:
ANCHOR CHAIN:
This pallet with 100 meters/328ft of 13mm/ 1/2” DIN766 / G43 chain showed up at the beginning of the week. We were able to get this chain from Zintas, a very large industrial chain manufacturing company in Istanbul and they made this run of 100 meters of DIN766/G40 chain for us and had it tested so it came with this class society rating certificate.
WLL Working Load Limit = 25,000Kg / 55,115 lbs
Breaking Force = 106kN / 23m829 lbf
Weight = 3.8Kg/m / 2.55 lb/ft
Total 100m chain weight = 380Kg/838 Lbs
As per the shipping label, this is 100m/328ft of chain which will attach to our 110kg/242lb Rocna anchor when that arrives in a few weeks. Even at with a long scope of 5:1 this length allows to have an eXtremely strong anchor in depths up to 20m/65ft and with such an oversized Rocna we can easily go to 3:1 scope for depths up to 33m/110ft. We also carry another 50m/165ft of 1/2” Dyneema line that we can use to extend the rode length for really deep anchorages. We also carry long lengths of Dyneema line for shore ties when in narrow anchorages such as fjords.
WATERTIGHT EXTERIOR DOORS!
This is one of the crates we have been waiting a LONG time to receive. If you know your marine suppliers you know what’s inside…… Yup! Our three Watertight exterior doors! Yigit (standing middle) has been working with us for months on getting these doors just right for Möbius and Omer and Muhammed lent a hand to unbox them and check them out. Bofor, a Turkish manufacturer in Istanbul makes all custom built doors and hatches for superyachts and industrial ships around the world and are regarded as one of the best.
This WT door is internal as it goes between the Workshop and the Corridor into the Guest Cabin area so we had Bofor finish it in white powder coat to provide a nice look and contrast with all the Rosewood and leather wall panels. Yigit is checking the seals around the full length glass window in this WT door where you enter the boat from the Aft Deck down into the SuperSalon. Six beefy “dogs” and specially built glass creates a WT door to eXceed the forces it might experience in the unlikely event of a full 360 degree roll over and will bring even more light and visibility into the SuperSalon. Captain Christine gave all three doors her official stamp of approval and we are absolutely delighted with the quality of these Bofor doors. These two exterior doors are finished in brushed raw aluminium same as the rest of the boat so they will blend right in with the patina and low maintenance which is one of our four top priorities.
FRIDGES:
Our two 130 liter/ 4.6 cu.ft. Vitrifrigo C130LX stainless steel side by side fridges arrived this week.
The two matching drawer style DRW7070 liter/ 2.5cu.ft. should be here in the next few weeks as they are brand new models just being released and will take a bit longer to arrive. As we have done with all our previous boats, we go with externally mounted air cooled Danfoss compressors which you can see in these photos from Vitrifrigo. Sea water or keel cooled models are prone to much more maintenance and failure and the difference in performance is relatively minor and will be even more so in Möbius as the four compressors will be mounted below the fridges and freezers in the Basement which has very stable temperatures and lots of ventilation to keep these compressors happy for many years.
STRAINERS & DORADE COWLS:
We also received our dual sea water strainers which mount on the two outlet pipes on the Intake Sea Chest in the Engine Room and filter out any debris, kelp, fish, etc. from getting through. We like these Vetus Type 1900 strainers because they require no tools to remove the clear lids to check and clean the strainers inside. With two strainers we always have a clean one ready for action if the one in use ever clogs. We also received two of the four Vetus Dorade Cowls we need for the Foredeck and the other two should be here soon. These silicone cowls are eXtremely durable and can be rotated in any direction. We like these Vetus cowls because they can be easily removed by turning the grey base ring and putting in a solid disc to replace the cowl and completely seal off the Dorade Vent boxes.
Most of the time we keep these Cowls pointing forward to capture the most amount of breezes blowing over the bow at anchor and keeping our Master Cabin well ventilated when it is raining and we can’t keep all the big glass hatches open. Dorade vents also keep the Master Cabin with a healthy supply of fresh air when we are underway as they are built to prevent any water from getting through in anything less than severe weather.
And then if we want to fully close off the Dorade Vents when we leave the boat for long periods of time or in eXtremely severe seas when we might have a lot of green water on the foredeck, I designed this simple screw Up/Down aluminium lids which we can completely close and seal all the vent pipes in the boat by reaching up inside and turning the know on the bottom.
This might all seem over the top “belt & suspenders” design and building to some of you but trust me, it only takes one good dousing of sea water on your bed and other parts of your cabin to teach you how important it is to keep all the water OUTSIDE the boat!
Ask me how I know????
BOW THRUSTER:
Last “bit of kit” that arrived from Vetus this week is our 2204DE Extended Run Time bow thruster. Bow thrusters are a bit like insurance, something you hope you never need to use but IF you do then you are really glad you have it.
In our experience with our previous boat which was a relatively large and heavy 35T all steel sailboat, I put in a big 48V ABT Bow Thruster which worked very well but we typically used it less than two or three times in a year and often when years never using it. But as I noted above, when you do need a way of controlling your bow in dodgy situations such as in strong cross winds while docking a powerful bow thruster is VERY much appreciated.
We considered going with a 220V model which has several advantages but decided to stick with 24V DC and go with this Extended Run Time model that can be run for up to 7 minutes without overheating and we rarely need more than short bursts of a few seconds to move the bow.
Thruster tunnel/prop size is 300mm / 12” and has 220Kgf/485lbf of thrust so on those rare occasions when we might need it, this should help us keep our bow where we want it.
SOLAR PANELS:
Another VERY welcome site this week was this pallet full of all our solar panels. It is a longer story for another post about what a challenge it became to get the size panels we needed when SunPower which we had originally specified could not provide us with any of their solar panels. After a LOT of time online researching, I finally found and was able to work direct with Lightech Solar in Tianchang China. Meet Arthur, a truly amazing manager and problem solver who worked with me for over a week exchanging drawings and specs. In the end Arthur offered do a short run of solar panels just for us and to my specifications and dimensions. Arthur and his colleagues at Lightech were able to produce our 18 panels in a matter of a few days and get them shipped out before they shut the factory down for Chinese New Year.
AND, Arthur was able to do all this for an incredibly low price that worked out to be 25 cents/Watt. He then also arrange to ship them to us here at Naval Yachts for an equally great rate so including the shipping it worked out to 30 cents/Watt. Awesome!
I ordered several extra panels to have onboard as spares and Christine and I will also look at ways we might be able to mount them at a later date to increase our total solar output.
This is the specs and MC4 connectors on the underside of the top 5 panels you see in the photo above. Each of these panels have 54 monocrystalline silicone cells and produce 295Watts. They measure 1560mm x 920mm which is a non standard size which SunPower X-Series panels use and was exactly the size we needed to fit on the hinged mounting rack that goes in front of the SkyBridge windows. Eight panels are slightly larger at 320W panels create the roof over the SkyBridge and then the other three go on the cantilevered roof over the Aft Deck BBQ & Outdoor Galley. The larger panels produce 320Watts from 60 monocrystalline cells.
Total Wp of all 14 panels we will originally install works out to 4.405kW which is a bit less than the 5kW I was aiming for but close enough and they fit within the dimensions we had originally designed for so we are VERY happy.
If we find locations to add the other three panels our total Wp would go up to 5.635 Watts and we have several options in mind for expanding our solar further that I will show you later.
Whew! As I said at the outset, another very productive week for Team Möbius and if you’ve made it this far, even if you skipped ahead, congratulations and thanks SO much for your perseverance and patience with me. It really means a lot to both Christine and myself that so many of you would take time to join us on this eXtreme passage through the past 2+ years.
Don’t forget to leave your questions and comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below and I hope we will see you here again next week.
The wind shifted from being out of the ccccccccccCold North to coming off the Med to the South so our temperatures here in Antalya when from low single digits and night time temps a few days down to 1C/34F to a high of 19C/66F on Thursday so a very welcome change even though the warmer winds did bring some rain with them. However, Team Möbius powers through with more progress this past week no matter what the temperatures dipped to inside the Naval Yachts shipyard so let’s jump right into this week’s XPM78-01 Progress Update.
ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS:
We will start off with our “Sparkie” Hilmi and his excellent electrical work. With electrical systems, wires and cables spread throughout the entire boat Hilmi really gets around but I managed to catch him here in the Basement early in the week as he was wiring up two of our 14 Johnson Viking 16 24V diaphragm Bilge Pumps. Here is what the finished setup on these two pumps looks like now.
Cihan has already done all the plumbing work and connected all of the bilge pumps to their respective Sea Chest outputs with the clear 25mm/1” hose so the low level bilge water system will soon be ready for testing.
The larger 38mm/1.5” white hose with the green stripe is for the independent high water capacity Bilge Pump system. He has left the grey protective wrap on these hoses to keep them clean and protected until the build is done.
To help with orientation, this is the front Port/Left corner of the Basement WT Bulkhead with the Master Cabin on the other side. Just visible on the Right is the large AL “heat sink” panel holding all 14 of the Victron SmartSolar 100/20 MPPT controllers which you have seen being installed previously. At the Aft end of the Basement on the WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin on the other side, Hilmi was busy this past week doing all the wiring for the three circulation pumps for the In-Floor Heating system that is in each of the three living areas; Master Cabin, SuperSalon and Guest Cabin/Office. Wiring now all done for the Circulation Pumps.
Cihan has two of the three zones Red PEX tubing run here where they will soon be connected to these beautiful SS Hot water manifold on top and the colder Return manifold on the bottom. Here is the photo I was missing for last week’s Update with a good shot of how the low level Maretron BHW100 solid state water sensors are being installed in the bottom of the “V” shaped Gutters where the Margin Plate bend down to meet the hull and run down the full length of each side hull. These V shaped Gutters are in lieu of us having more typical bilges because everything below the WL is tankage on our hull. A small aluminium. With no moving parts these Maretron sensors are SO much better and longer lasting than the typical float switches I find to be so failure prone. The internal sensor in the Yellow plastic rectangle switches “On” when water reaches the middle of that white Maretron label which is about 15mm / 5/8” of water in the bottom so we will know right away when any water should find its way here.
The 38mm White hose is the backup High Water Bilge pickup.
PLUMBING
I didn’t manage to catch the equally fast moving Cihan as he was working on Möbius’ plumbing a few days this week but di manage to catch him installing the PVC ball valves for the Domestic Hot/Cold water manifolds behind the back of the Couch in the Guest Cabin. We were very surprised and disappointed when more than half of the original German built ball valves that were shipped to Naval were leaking on the very first pressure test. Fortunately Christine was able to pick up a full new set when she was back in Florida for her 100 Ton Captain’s certification and brought them back with her on the plane so Cihan was able to replace them all this week. These access openings are a good example of how we are ensuring that even when we have system components behind cabinetry, there is still plenty of space to work on them in the future. We do our best to keep all such access happen where there is no cabinetry such as in the Basement, Workshop and Forepeak, but some cannot be avoided and we have designed in access ports such as this.
Just off to the Right or Aft of the Couch, Cihan was also busy this week putting in the plumbing connections for the Air Handler for AirCon and Heating in the Guest Cabin. This 12k BTU/3.5Kw-h Air Handler exchanges the heat energy in the fluid flowing through the Chilled for AirCon or Hot for Heating tubes with the air being blown through them which is then fed up through ducts to vents along the ceiling.
This is a peek inside the cabinet which Cihan is working on above, which holds this Guest Cabin Air Handler to show the Supply/Return cooling/heating fluid lines going to the Air Handler. The round disc on the Right is the large squirrel cage fan that pulls the air through the internal heat exchanger and then blows it up the soon to be installed duct up the side of this hull.
We will most commonly use these Air Handlers to cool off the rooms in the boat in hot tropical climates and then we’ll use the In-Floor heating in cold climates but there are times when a quick heat up of the air volume in a room is the most efficient way to quickly heat up a space so we have these dual purpose Webasto Air Handlers in both Cabins and two larger ones on each side of the SuperSalon.
GUEST CABIN:
Still in the Guest Cabin but switching to Omer and his Cabinetry team hiding all their handiwork after installing the now fully varnished cabinetry to protect it from the likes of Cihan and others as the systems all get installed. He used the super robust AL frames above to help push this Ro$ewood cabinet top behind the couch into position while the adhesive sets up. Over on Omer’s workbench in the Cabinetry shop he has been assembling the elegant Rosewood and White upper Bookshelf that wraps around the front and Starboard/Right corner of the Guest Cabin. I got lucky and timed my stop in the Guest Cabin just right to get this shot of the Bookshelf being installed.
Pullman Berth is on the upper Right and houses a full size single bed that folds down for an additional guest to sleep. More often though our Guests will sleep on the Queen bed that pulls out from the Couch at the bottom of this shot.
Then before you can blink twice, they have it all covered in protective cardboard!
Christine’s Office Desk is covered up on the far Right. You can be forgiven for not being quite as excited by this shot as I am but what you’re seeing is Omer on the Left and Muhammed assembling what will soon be MY workbench/desk which is located in the Corridor just outside the Guest Cabin. They soon have the lower cabinet of drawers mounted to the Port hull.
Two rectangular Rosewood panels covered up on the bottom ………………….. …. looked like this a few minutes earlier. These panels flank the opening for my knees when I am sitting on the fold out seat.
WT door into the Workshop is on the far Left Stairs up to the SuperSalon are on the far Right.
MASTER CABIN:
Şevki continued making great progress on the “Storm Bed” area on the Port/Left side of the Master Cabin bed and now has the center divider in place. The 12k BTU/3.5Kw-h Air Handler for the AirCon and air Heating in this Master Cabin will be installed in the rectangular space in the foreground and the aft space is more storage. Şevki has cut out these slots in the stair risers for the intake air supply louvers for the Air Handler. On the opposite side of the bed, Selim has the 10mm/ 3/8” marine plywood flooring all in place now. The Red PEX tubing runs immediately under this atop the 50mm / 2’ thick rigid foam insulation which will keep us toasty warm in cold locations and nice and cool in the tropics. Finished flooring will be some of the new high end vinyl planking that you will see in the coming weeks. At the foot of the bed, Omur and Muhammed are working at covering all the floors, ceiling and walls of the Master Head and Shower with more marine plywood that will then be fully covered and sealed with fiberglass. They have the plywood walls all in place and are now fitting the corner boxed frame to make the transition from wall to ceiling. The two openings in front of Muhammed are for access ports where the two mirrored Medicine Cabinets will be mounted overtop of the lower cabinet drawers with the sink mounted on top.
We are also using this inside of this corner to be the perfect chase or duct for the N2K cables that run from the Forepeak in the background across to the Basement.
Here Omur is fitting the attachment blocks for mounting the plywood ceiling panel. This is one of the intake air vents coming into the Head/Bathroom from a Dorade Box on the Deck above. Omur has wrapped it with the same super flexible wood strips used to laminate curved components. This creates a good thermal break and a spot for the ceiling panel to attach to. Aft Ceiling panel in place around the big 700mm / 28” square hatch that brings in light and fresh breezes to either side of the vertical glass half panel that divides the Shower area from the Head. Ceiling above the toilet area now in place with that air vent hole easily seen.
The two plumbing fittings poking through the end wall is for the hot water flowing in and out of the heated towel warmer and the fresh water inlet for the VacuFlush toilet can be seen at the bottom beside the rectangular cut out for its outlet pipe.
Shower seat on the bottom Left and access to one of the underfloor tank access plates. Vanity sink on the far Right. Şevki was also busy installing the snap in place FastMount system we are using to fasten all the removable wall and ceiling panels to their underlying grids. I had used FastMount clips on previous projects years ago and they were fabulous so we are using them again on XPM78-01 Möbius. Zooming in on the lower Right corner of that white grid in the middle of the photo above you can see this white plastic female half of the FastMount fitting which Şevki has threaded into the wooden grid. This FastMount system is a fantastic way of mounting panels with these snap in plastic fittings. You then snap one of these ingenious red center markers in each White female half and hold the outer plywood panel in place, give each corner a good tap with the palm of your hand and ……………. ……….. these steel center points put a little conical dent into the plywood that marks the exact center for you to drill the hole in the outer panel for the matching Black male FastMount fitting. These FastMount clips come in a variety of different “strengths” based on how much of a pull it requires to snap each FastMount fitting In/Out of its socket as well as many different types for different materials and panel mounting situations.
There is a nice set of special drills and clip installation tools that fit into a hand drill for you to cut the right sized holes and then thread the Male and Female fittings into the wood. Fast, simple, accurate and strong!
While not cheap, this FastMount system is very long lasting and makes removing and installing panels on walls and ceilings extremely easy and keeps the panels eXtremely securely fastened to the walls and ceilings.
Last Update from the Master Cabin this past week was the installation of this dropped ceiling box that goes overhead of the Master Cabin bed. As with most components this is multi-purposed providing both a visual break in the ceiling, a spot for overhead lights and then a voluminous storage area under the Main Helm Station that you will soon see immediately above in the SuperSalon.
It is visually matched by this boxed in corner soffit where the leather covered side wall panels transition into the ceiling. As we’ve done in the Bathroom/Shower this corner box also provides the Goldilocks place to run our N2K cables and Black Boxes as well as providing a place for the AirCon output vents.
To ensure that the dropped ceiling box is very solidly mounted, Omur had Nihat whip up three of these AL corner brackets. These will mount out of sight inside the dropped ceiling box and then be bolted to the thick AL frame member above.
SuperSalon
As with all our other craftsmen, Omur is simultaneously working on lots of different projects so let’s move up into the SuperSalon and catch up with what he’s been doing with the Main Helm Station up here. These two quick renderings will give you a good perspective on how the Main Helm and overall SuperSalon areas are laid out. And here is a rough render of the current layout of most of the key items that will be at the Main Helm, including the angled wall section on the Right side of the Helm Chair, not shown, which will sit on the centerline of the boat. We have designed this angled wall to be another multi-functional component.
It will be part of our Main Helm “dashboard” with a place to mount instruments and Helm based devices such as the engine throttle and CPP Pitch levers
the space inside this wall will have a door facing the Helm Chair which will be home to many of our AC and DC circuit breakers and some electrical data displays.
and it ticks the Safety box being a super secure enclosure of the stairwell down to the Master Cabin and a spot to push you hip onto when standing at the Helm in heavy seas.
For those who have been following the previous posts you will recall seeing Omur and Selim laminating this very odd shaped and angled component of the Main Helm with its matching Rosewood veneer. If you look closely at the rendering above (click to enlarge any photo), you will see a half wall that extends aft at an angle on the Right side of the Helm Chair and that is the part which Omur is assembling in these photos. Turned 90 degrees to work on here, this boxed end with the angled top surface will soon become the main electrical panel holding over half our AC and DC circuit breakers of which number over 150 in total for the whole boat. Back onboard Möbius here is the current state of the SuperSalon looking forward towards the Main Helm in the center. 50” monitor on the angled wall on the far Left and 43” on the far upper Right, Dinette on the lower Right and stairs down to the Master Cabin between the Right side of the Helm and the Dinette. This view of the inside of the Dropped Ceiling Box in the Master Cabin shows how much volume this provides for mounting electronics and steering gear inside which is one of the main features we designed into this multi-purposed box. Omur has now brought the roughed in angled Helm wall onboard and it mounts atop the white rectangular foundation where Şevki’s Left hand is resting. You might note that the oblong hole in the bottom of the wood cabinet matches up with the oblong aluminium penetration in the SuperSalon AL floor just in front of Şevki’s hand, The angled top surface will have a Black Leather covered surface to match the rest of the Main Helm surfaces and reduce window reflections on night watches. We will mount engine/CPP controls and other navigation equipment here as well as on the Main Helm dashboard. This angled wall cabinet will be mounted a bit more to the Right in this photo but this shot should make it easy to visualise and you can refer back to the rendering above.
Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB Main Engine
Mr. Gee finally started to get some much needed TLC from me these past few weeks and I have finally begun the big reassembly process now that all the individual components have been scrupulously cleaned with sand blasting, degreasing solvent and a LOT of elbow grease supplied by Christine and myself.
This is the recently built plastic tent that helps keep all the dirt and dust out and keep all the spray paint inside as I start to apply the final colour coats as I assemble the engine.
Cast aluminium crankcase on the far Right, Chrome/Moly Crankshaft in the foreground and Cast Iron Cylinder block on the Left.
For some historical perspective:
This is my “Love at first sight” photo the day I first met Mr. Gee in person at Gardner Marine Diesel in England after their fabulous CEO Michael Harrison pictured here had just plucked him out of a tugboat on the Thames after over 55 years of uninterrupted service. For a glimpse at what the “after” photos will look when I finish this renovation, this is what a fellow Gardner lover and restorer, Jamie Gabb’s 6LXB motor looks like, minus the polished AL valve covers. Shot of the aft end of Jamie’s 6LXB with the same oversized flywheel and SAE cogged flange for the rubber flex drive connection to our Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox. Here is what he looked like when we offloaded Mr. Gee at our friends home we were house/pet sitting in Albufeira Portugal for his first round of dismantling and cleaning. The first of several complete disassembly rounds begins. Unboxing the complete set of brand new OEM Gardner parts of which we have a duplicate of pretty much EVERY “bit and bob” as my British friends would say from new pistons, to every bearing, gasket, meter and nuts and bolts. Pretty much every part other than the primary cast or forged parts such as the cast AL crankcase, dry sleeved CI cylinder block, heads, etc.. After pressing in new cylinder liners, grinding head and block surfaces, new valves & springs and lots of pressure washing, I put Humpty Dumpty back together again along with his trusty sidekick the 2 Ton hydraulic lift and …. …. wrapped him all up in shrink wrap for his next land based journey being trucked over to Antalya Turkey where we now pick up the story.
It might be questionable if I have all my Ducks in a row but I present this photographic evidence that I do have all my main bearing shells in a row. along with all their matching Main Bearing caps lined up in wait of being assembled. With all these primary Gardner engine parts weighing in the hundreds of Kilos I’m using all 2 tons of my trusty hydraulic rolling lift such as in this case where I’m using it to gently lower the surgically clean crankshaft onto its bearing shells you saw in the photo above. And I’ve also been getting great use out of some of my Dyneema line as it is stronger than steel yet very soft and forgiving when going through highly machined surfaces such as the journals of the crank. I will have LOTS more coverage of this Mr. Gee’s full renovation and new lease on life for my fellow gearheads and for those less interested you can just skim over these parts of future Progress Update posts.
NEW ARRIVALS @ NAVAL YACHTS
Floorspace in Naval’s shipyard diminished dramatically the past two weeks with the arrival of several new renovation boat projects. On the far Left inside the plastic tent is “Twinity” a 22m/70’ all composite power catamaran which arrived as a bare hull and superstructure and Naval is now building out the interior and will deliver a fully finished boat. Beside Twinity is the newly arrived Bravo II which is a 70ft Princess power boat and then directly in front of Möbius where she used to be is the 26m/85’ steel Legacy which has returned for some additional work after extensive sea trials over the past 3 months.
And that’s the week that was February 10 to 14, 2020 here at Naval Yachts with the Good Ship Möbius. REALLY appreciate you taking your highly valuable time to join us on this latest leg of our journey to build our Goldilocks home and magic carpet as well as the first of what we hope will be many more XPM type boats that will join us as we continue our adventures cruising around this awemazing planet of ours.
Even though it takes me an embarrassingly long time to respond to them PLEASE do add your comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below and let me know how I might increase the value and enjoyment you get from following these blog posts.
It is a much longer story for another time but Christine and I ended up jump starting Valentines Day with an unexpected weekend getaway a few hours drive north of Antalya to the mountainous lake region.
The roads were great fun being small, windy and deserted after a light dusting with some fresh snow.
Temps kept dropping all the way down to –11C / 12F as we went more northward and into this large bowl like area with snow capped mountains surrounding us. A tad cool for swimming but we were drowning in the natural beauty of this area.
And we soon found this tiny little restaurant on the side of the lake a few blocks from our hotel and with the wood burning stove behind her and a flaming meal of lamb kish in front, I was able to keep my Beautiful Bride warm and smiling as I basked in the joy and never ending awemazement that I’m living and loving every day with this Beautiful woman who is also my Captain, my Best Friend and my wonderful wife. No clue what I might have done to deserve this great fortune but I don’t need to know anything more than I’m more grateful every day.
I know, I know! Enough with this distracting romantic frivolity, let’s get to the serious silliness you came for right??
Back at Naval Yachts Team Möbius was missing several key members on the Aluminum and Plumbing this week so there was less progress than usual but the Cabinetry team came through smelling like a rose, sorry, couldn’t resist, and there is still lots to show you so let’s dive right in.
MACHINING WORK:
Starting out with something a bit different this week, Yigit and I took the Rudder, the flywheel off Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB engine and the SAE14 aluminium flange for the flexible coupler to the Nogva 168HC CPP Servo Gearbox, over to the Tassot machine shop.
Well, Okan actually drove these over on the forklift as the Gardner flywheel alone ways over150kg/330lbs!
You may recall Tassot is who we got to do the CNC machining of the work of art that is our Rudder Tiller Arm. We love their work and working with them so we brought them these next two projects. The Rudder needs to have a hole cut in it for the prop shaft to slide through when, again not if, we need to remove the prop shaft such as when it it time to replace cutlass bearings. Normally you would have to remove the Rudder first to clear the way for the prop and shaft to slide all the way aft and out which is a significant task in itself. But if you put a hole in the Rudder blade such that when you rotate the Rudder full over to about its 45 degree position the 65mm/2.5” OD prop shaft can slide right through the Rudder then you don’t need to remove the Rudder at all. We had this feature on our previous boat and saved us a LOT of work over the years so we are doing the same thing with Möbius.
Sounds simple right? Just drill a hole through the blade of the Rudder. But in addition to this hole needing to be on an acute angle rather than perpendicular to the blade this hole also has to go through some of the internal framing and part of the Rudder Shaft so this “simple” task quickly becomes quite tricky.
The second bit of machining we need is to machine a slight recess to capture the outer diameter of that SAE14 aluminium flange you see setting atop the Gardner’s solid steel flywheel. This recess will be about 5mm deep and just large enough outer diameter to perfectly center the SAE flange in the center of the flywheel. Then they also need to drill and tap the eight M12 1.75 threaded holes for the 25mm long Grade 8 bolts that will secure the AL flange to the Flywheel.
Piece of cake for Tassot and after a bit of discussion I created this quick hand sketch with all the pertinent dimensions and instructions for them. I hope to drop by Tassot at some good times next week so I can get some photos to show you how they did both these machining jobs.
NETWORKS 7 MONITORING SYSTEM:
As I mentioned in last week’s Progress Update post, Captain Christine has taken on the task of designing and planning out our onboard data networks which includes our rather large NMEA2000 aka N2K network, our Furuno networks and our Victron networks. And all those being on top of and working together with our more traditional internet based networks. It is quite the challenge but both Christine & I have geeky genes so we actually find this to be quite fun. Much like the whole design and build process has been, this is very much a Labour of Love for us.
Here is an example of the wiring required for just one component which in this case is the “Brain Box” or “Black Box” for our Furuno Nav711C AutoPilot system. We have two of these for redundancy safety and each one has to be able to talk to two independent hydraulic steering systems which in turn can function either single handed or in tandem so things tend to go exponential as you start working through even “just” the wiring and networking schematics.
In case you didn’t see last week’s Update, here is the basic schematic for the Maretron monitoring network that Christine has designed and which Hilmi and his Electrical Team are now starting to install. Monitoring the status of all onboard systems to know their status and alert us with visual and audible alarms when something is outside the norm is a critical feature on even “regular” passage making boats and therefore all the more so on eXtreme eXpedition Passage Maker XPMs given the remote locations we prefer and the multi week long passages we are often on.
Therefore there is a very pragmatic and safety oriented side to or DIY approach because by doing all this design, planning and commissioning ourselves we get to have a very “intimate relationship” with all these networks and all the systems onboard which will prove critical when things go wrong, never if, and usually at O’dark thirty in the worst conditions and situation ever and we are hundreds or thousands of miles away from any form of assistance. I say when the unexpected occurs, not if, because our years of experience sailing the world have taught us that such problems and situations are always an inevitability. So our approach is to practice what we refer to as “Readiness for the Unexpected” and one of the ways we do that is by knowing everything we possibly can about everything onboard, having the right tools, repair equipment and supplies and spare parts of pretty much everything onboard.
And please let me be clear that DIY does NOT mean Do It BY Yourself so we do welcome and seek out all the help we can, we stay intimately involved in the installation process to be sure that we have the experiential learning by doing factor in our favour.
Another example of the critical nature and eXtensiveness of our monitoring system, this simple little sensor, a Maretron Bilge High Water BHW100 sensor, is one of our 20 bilge water sensors.
These sensors have no moving parts and simply senses the presence of water that reaches that bullseye cross which is about 7mm/ 1/4” up the face of the Yellow plastic sensor. This in turn triggers a visual and audio alarm on our Maretron N2K View screens to alert us to the unexpected presence of water in the margin plate “gutters” which act as bilges on a boat with all integral tanks from the waterline down. There is not as much visual evidence of Hilmi’s electrical work this past week and I also apologise for not getting better angle on this, but with the photos above you can visualise the way Hilmi is mounting these BHW100 sensors right at the very bottom of the V shaped margin plate gutters on Möbius. That is a small length of aluminium L-bar you are seeing in the photo above with the end of one leg attached to one side of the V shaped gutters and the other leg attached to the very bottom of the V. The BHW100 is then simply zip tied to the vertical side of the L-bar with its bottom edge resting on the bottom of the V. This will alert us if even 1/4” of water somehow finds its way into this gutter. Given the eXtreme construction of the hull if one of these bilge water alarms goes off it will most likely NOT be seawater that sets it off but fresh water from a hose that has started to leak or has broken, but still something we want to know about ASAP so we can know for sure where and what the problem is and decide on the best corrective measures.
Both of the Cabinetry Teams were hitting their strides this past week so there is LOTS to show you of their latest craftsmanship and we’ll start with Ömer and his team in the Guest Cabin.
GUEST CABIN:
As you may recall from last week’s Progress Update, Ömer’s Team had pretty much gutted the Guest Cabin after all the cabinetry was fully fitted and the PEX tubing for the in-floor heating was installed. Believe it or not, this Guest Cabin will soon closer resemble this rendering. Bookshelves and storage on the far Left with the WT Bulkhead of the Basement on the other side. Couch and Pull-out Queen bed in the middle, Pullman single berth above on the Right against the Starboard/Right side hull and Christine’s desk on the Right. Now they are starting to bring the cabinetry Back onboard from the Finishing Shop now that they are all varnished and polished and here they are putting in the drawer cabinet beside Christine’s Desk and the Rosewood wall panel behind her desk. The shelf unit beside the Couch and the core for Christine’s Desktop go in next.
That rectangular cut out in the Desktop is a hatch to give me access to the Webasto Air Handler that will be mounted inside. You can see the plumbing for the chilled or hot water flowing through the Air Handler in the upper Left corner of the rectangular opening.
Yigit, Hilmi and I met to decide on the best placement of the Air Handler’s control box. And the Air Handler is now waiting for Cihan’s return to get hooked up. The fully finished Rosewood Desktop could now be set in place and glued to its core using thick strongbacks wedged down tight with vertical posts pushing against the overhead AL frames while the glue set. The base of the Couch goes in next with its interlocking slats that allow this base to be pulled out to twice its size to become the Queen Bed could now be fully assembled. If you look closely or click to enlarge (works on any photo) you can see how these Birch slats have interlocking tongue & groove connections on their sides with every other slat connected to either the stationary Couch Base or the pull out section which is on the Right in this photo. This is the far Right side of the pull out section with the toe-kick underneath. The horizontal recess is for the Blue Horizon Line insert, hence the rougher look. Once the Bed was in place Omer and Muhammed could put the Headboard shelf in place. Like this.
If you peer through the bubble wrap you can get a better view of how the bed platform works with the pull out partly extended here. All the finished parts are quickly covered up as soon as they have been fastened in place to protect their lustrous varnish surfaces while the rest of the furniture is mounted.
Next up is the grid that supports the back of the Couch and the Pullman Berth bed that will be mounted above. Omer built the back of the Couch to include these two storage compartments in them and then also double as my access ports to the plumbing and wiring behind. The whole unit slides into the white epoxy grid you see in the photo above…. … and looks like this. Closer view of these lovely storage compartments behind the upholstered Couch Back. The back side of these openings will have a snap in place finished plywood panel that I can remove to gain access to the plumbing and wiring behind. The front side will have a similar lift out panel to provide full support for the cushion back and give you access to the items stored inside.
MASTER CABIN CABIN:
Picking up where we left off last week, the Master Cabin is a very busy place as we catch Şevki here working on the complex King Bed cabinetry while Omur and Selim are busy working on the Head and Shower which are just out of side on the far Right here. The grain matching of all the Rosewood is eXquisite as usual and these panels frame the space on Christine’s side of the bed and the Port/Left hull. We designed this bedside space with a raised floor that is being framed in here that serves double duty by providing easy independent access for Christine getting in/out of bed and making the bed but can also double as a “Storm Bed” on occasion. When we are in particularly rough seas and stormy conditions it is especially important that whoever is off watch has a very secure bed to sleep in and this spot will provide an ideal Storm Bunk with the two sides to hold you safely in place without having to hold on or be thrown back and forth. We will carry a narrow 56cm/22” wide memory foam mattress to convert this space into a Storm Bed on the few occasions we need it that along with the 30cm/12” of added and padded height provided by the memory foam mattress on the Left side and being close to the Pitch Center of the boat, this will be a very secure and comfy bunk where you can sleep peacefully while Mother Nature rages outside. Access up and down from this raised floor/Storm Bunk is easy with these two spiraling steps. The two lift out panels in the floor provide ready access to the large volume of storage underneath as well as easy access to the Air Handler that will keep this Master Cabin at the just right Goldilocks temperature in any climate from the equator to the poles. Making the transition over to Shower/Head area, Şevki is adding the outer Rosewood panel that provides the U channel for the bottom of the etched glass shower wall which will slide in here. And now over to Omur who is pepping the floor of the Shower for the fiberglass that will soon cover all the floors, walls and ceilings of the whole Shower/Head enclosure. This will provide a fully sealed non-stop surface throughout that is easy to clean and completely waterproof. But I’m getting ahead of myself here so let’s rewind back to Monday where we find Omur and Selim putting the 10mm/ 3/8” marine plywood wall panels in place on the epoxy white grid along the Port/Left hull. Full access for me to all the plumbing and wiring runs behind the walls.
Note the tall white blocks on the floor to raise it up high enough to provide plenty of angled slope for those two Black drain pipes for the lift out Teak floor panels in the Shower and Head. Here you can see the raised floor now in place.
Those circles around each drain pipe are where Omur has dished out the plywood to ensure that the water runs along the glassed in floors and heads straight for the drain. Fresh out of the Finishing Department, the white lacquered cabinet for the sink now slides into its new home.
VacuFlush head/toilet goes at the far end and you can see the two hot water pipe connections on the wall above for Christine’s much anticipated towel warmer. While at the other end, this surprisingly complex shaped corner wall panel is now fitted to provide the mounting surface for …. …. this SS Shower Tower unit might recall seeing for the first time last week.
Between this fabulous shower with multiple massage jets, the seat the heated towel rack and the Bidet, I think I know where to look anytime I can’t seem to find my Captain.
Hmmmm, maybe I need to add in a remote VHF handset here so I can hail her here when I can’t find her? Any guesses what this will be once Omur finishes fabricating it over in his Cabinetry Workshop? Gold star if you guessed that it is another of Captain Christine’s highly anticipated features of “her” shower, a seat! Meanwhile I’m excited to have the ready access provided by the hatch on the front side for working on the plumbing and wiring behind. She might be a fully licensed commercial 100 Ton Captain but she’s still my shy Bride. I tried to get her to pose shaving her legs on her new shower seat but best I could get was this faux shower scene. However I have a VERY vivid imagination so I was smiling too! That pretty much covers’ this week’s progress in the Master Cabin so lets head out and up those steps to the Super Salon. On our way though, let’s take a detour over to the Cabinetry Shop for one more quiz this week that is related to the SuperSalon.
Can you guess what Selim is carefully positioning in the heated veneer press here? A clue and a second part of the quiz; any guess what this tool is for? That’s a glue spreader for applying the hot melt glue used to laminate the Rosewood veneer to the Poplar Marine plywood substrate. Jumping back aboard Möbius and looking at the Main Helm station let’s me show you where that mystery part they are working on above will go. Omur & Selim were making up the angled wall panel with its long side running athwartships / side to side along those two white vertical supports and then continuing at an angle along the half height wall on the Right above the stairwell. I’ll be able to show you the real thing and make much more sense next week as this goes in place.
OK, one more quiz for this week. Where do you think this Rosewood beauty goes? Multipart quiz for this part; why does it have these angled notches? on both sides of that big rectangular opening? Oh, I see. So you are learning your way around the XPM78-01 quite well if you guessed that this is the wall panel along the outer Stbd/Ride side of the stairs between the Master Cabin and the SuperSalon. Which looks like this when Omur is finished fitting it just right.
And you just gotta love this craftsman’s attention to detail with these grain pattern matches. Or at lease I do! And those angled notches? Those are more examples of Ömür’s attention to detail as these provide the just right access for your fingers to slip behind the edges of the 43” monitor so you can move it to the just right position on its six way adjustable mounting system. To finish it off this is the back panel with the recess for that monitor mounting system to set flush into. This whole back panel will be hinged along its Left side so you can open the whole thing up to access that significant volume behind which you can see two photos up above. This is our view every day as we climb up those stairs to the SuperSalon. While this Ro$ewood might be off the charts expensive our decision to go with it seems to be a better investment decision every day.
And the stairs aren’t done yet and none of this has been varnished yet so hang on to your jaws folks, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
NEW ARRIVALS:
As has become the norm of late, we’ll finish up with this last section on New Arrivals and the final quiz for this week;
What is this?? Full marks to those of you who might have been able to guess that it is the hydraulic steering pump for the Castoldi jet drive in the Tender.
This final box full of parts showed up this week with all the steering components for the Tender. More of a “New Departure” rather then new arrival was all the shuffling of boats inside Naval Yachts this past week. They needed better access to several of the projects so five different boats needed to be moved out and then moved back into new positions. With the big power Cat above “Twinity” outside the GreeNaval GN60 Hybrid on the left here was next up for the boat mover and then the steel monohull sailboat “Caledonia” was next. And then they were all moved back inside, new floor mounts were set in place as the hydraulic rams on the boat mover lowered them back down and everyone but Möbius was in their new home. We stayed put and will do until we head for the Free Zone Harbour a few blocks away and it is Launch Day!
And that my Faithful Followers, is the week that was February 3-9, 2020. Hope your week was fun and rewarding in its own way and I’ll see you back here next week I hope.
I will do my best to reward all of your patience with my lack of a Weekly Update post last week by putting both weeks together into this post. Not only was the time doubled, everything was eXponentially eXpanded by the several factors as my Beautiful Bride and newly minted 100 Ton Captain Christine flew back to Antalya and back into my arms and we also manage to squeeze in a weekend getaway to attend the huge Dusseldorf “Boot” boat show so the past two weeks have been even more densely packed with fun and adventure than they usually are with us. So grab a favorite beverage and a comfy seat in front of your favorite screen and hang on while I take you on a fly through the past two very productive and adventure packed weeks.
With more than twice as many days of progress with the build to cover in this one post I’m sure it will end up being longer than the already too long Weekly Progress Updates I typically post so please feel free to skim and speed read. To help I will put in more obvious Blue Breaks to delineate each different section of the boat I’m covering.
Hope this helps and PLEASE let me know with your comments how well this worked and any other ways I can improve the readability and value of these Weekly Updates????
For those of you who are too young to remember or were outside the sphere of such marketing, I borrowed this week’s title from a very long running slogan for Wrigley’s DoubleMint chewing gum. We certainly did double our pleasure and double our fun these past two weeks even though no chewing gum was involved!
My 67th Birthday was on Thursday the 23rd and Naval Yachts surprised me with a B’day cake complete with sparklers which was a great gift for me. This is most of the people from the head office with Buse taking the photo and the rest of the Team all went out of their way to wish me a Happy Birthday as I met them onboard and around the yard. This is a good example of the kind of very special relationship that we have developed over these past 2+ years of this adventure. Thanks Team Möbius!!
B’day Getaway Weekend to “boot Düsseldorf” Indoor Boat Show
As you may recall from previous posts, Christine was back in Florida for some Gramma time with our grandson Liam as well as finishing her certification exams for her 100 Ton Captain’s license, which she passed, no surprise, with flying colours and much to the chagrin of all the other commercial captains who were all male and much younger. With that accomplished and four bags packed full of boat equipment she was schlepping back to Naval Yachts my Captain also managed to schedule her return flight on Thursday night the 23rd, just in time for her to be THE best birthday present EVER for me. Unfortunately, she ran afoul of the Customs officials when she landed in Antalya and they saw all the electronics she had in her checked bags and boxes so it took several hours for us to get out of the airport and then we were up until the wee hours putting together the mounds of paperwork they were wanting. We managed to get about three hours of sleep before we were up and on our way back to the airport to deliver all that paperwork and with the aid of our ever helpful Möbius Project Manager Yigit, they seemed to have everything they needed but it would require a bonded truck to take all the items directly to Naval Yachts in the Antalya Free Zone so we had to leave everything there for the weekend and we dashed off to catch our plane to Dusseldorf as Christine had organised a B’day weekend getaway for us there just in time to join over 250,000 fellow boaters and catch the last two days of the world’s largest indoor boat show.
As per Wikipedia “The Düsseldorf International Boat Show (German: International Bootsausstellung Düsseldorf), more commonly known as boot Düsseldorf or just boot[1] (German pronunciation: [boːt]) is one of the world’s premier boat shows. With some 1,600 exhibitors from over 50 co.untries, boot Düsseldorf is considered a benchmark for the international boat and water sports industry. Unparalleled at other major boat shows, large vessels up to 180 grt[2] can be looked on in their entirety, as the exhibition is a complete indoor event. Boot Düsseldorf is held annually at MesseDüsseldorf, Germany, for the duration of a week in the end of January.”
Christine had set us up with a lovely little AirBnB apartment a few kilometers from the show and right beside the main tram line and we had a blast not only revelling in all the new boats and equipment on display in 18 different buildings spread out over several acres of the “Messe Düsseldorf” grounds but also meeting up with some fellow boat building friends several of whom we had not met in person with before.
It was more Double your Pleasure, Double your Fun for me to be back in Deutschland again. Growing up as a Military Brat while my dad was a chef in the Canadian Armed Forces, we lived near Dortmund on two occasions when I was young, once from 1957-59 and then again from 1965-68.
Then during my teaching days I taught Canadian and international High School kids on the Canadian Air Force base in Baden Baden in the very SW corner of Deutschland from 1980-84 so having lived in Germany for over ten years it always feels very familiar to me and a joy to return to.
The weather also cooperated being the typical overcast grey this time of year all day Saturday which was just right for an all indoor boat show and then Sunday started out the same as we walked more kilometers of “boot” and then the sun burned off all the clouds and gave us the perfect weather to walk the old town and along the river. It is still January mind you so temps were around 5-7C/41-15F but it was glorious in the sun and we had the perfect “excuse” to enjoy a few mugs of one of my favorites; Glühwein which warmed our tummies as we basked in the sun along the banks of the always busy Rhine river.
German food in particular is one of my favorite treats every time we get back to Deutschland and both Christine and I indulged our foodie habits VERY well every chance we had, which was many! WAY too much to try and show you all the new equipment and ideas we found at the show but shows are great for displays such as this cut-away model of our IsoTemp Calorifier/Water Heater that we will soon be installing in Möbius. In the cutaway model you can see how the 220V heating element in the center which we are not likely to use too often because we have two of those corrugated SS heat exchangers in ours. One of these will connect to our Kabola KB45 Combi diesel fired boiler, and example of which we saw here on the very well made Elling E6 motor yacht we toured.
The other heat exchanger loop will connect to our Gardner main engine which will give us “free” hot water anytime we are underway with Mr. Gee running.
We treated ourselves to staying for one more night on Sunday and then took the direct flight back to Antalya and were back in the shipyard just after lunch.
OK, enough already of all this fun personal stuff Wayne! Get to what we really come to these Weekly Update posts for; the progress at Naval Yachts by Team Möbius for the past two weeks! With a reminder to always be careful what you wish for, buckle up and settle in, here we go…………………….
Starting with our dynamic duo Aluminium Team, Uğur and Nihat, can you guess what Uğur has started working on here?
If it helps those are pieces of 25mm/1” thick aluminium plate he is putting those 45 degree chamfered edges on with the router.
Will hit help you guess to know that two of these plates are tacked together and sent over to the Machine Shop to have a large 100mm/4” through hole cut in their upper rounded ends? Then they went back to the shop floor ……….. …….. to have the two halves fully welded together. Being so thick, this takes quite a few passes with the MIG welder to fully fill those V-grooves and make these all one solid block. More clues, there are three of these and once fully welded the edges are machined flat such as you can see in the top one here and then all edges of this now 50mm/2” thick tab will be fully rounded over as will the edges of the hole so it becomes a very smooth sided “donut” kind of shape.
These mystery pieces won’t get finished until next week so I’ll be a wee bit mean and leave you thinking about what these might be till then when I can show the finished parts being installed on the hull.
Back onboard, Uğur, Nihat and Okan have been busy finishing the fabrication and mounting of the shelf for the two Accu-Steer HPU400 hydraulic steering pumps which puts them right overtop of the Rudder Post you can see hiding underneath and thus nice and close to the big hydraulic cylinders they will drive on either side. The shelf is bolted in place with SS nuts and bolts so it can be removed for better access to the big Tiller Arm head underneath should that ever be needed. Also bolted in place to be removable, is this additional shelf where I’m thinking I will attach one of my big toolchests and also give me a good open work surface for mechanical repairs. and perhaps one of my big metal vices will find its new home here in my fabulous new Workshop. For those of you interested in such details, this is the compound we are coating most of the SS nuts and bolts with before assembly. In addition to the anti-seizing function this paste works in very high temperatures and also insulates the dissimilar metal contact between the aluminium and the Stainless Steel.
Our friends over at Damen Shipyards which is the largest shipbuilder here as well as the world having built over 6500 ships since 1969 in their 36 shipyards around the world, put us onto this and it is their go-to standard for these kinds of use cases. One of the many advantages of building in the Antalya Free Zone is that we are surrounded by such first hand and world class expertise. Moving on to the next riddle, any guesses as to what the Aluminium team are fabricating here? Yup! Those are stairs alright. There are two parts, the three step one you see above and this single step here. Together they form the four steps that lead down from the Aft Swim Platform into the Workshop. These are also bolted in place so they can be removed if needed to access items under the Rudder Shelf where Okan’s foot is resting here. That single upper step serves double duty as it forms a protective cover overtop of the Starboard/Right hydraulic Kobelt steering cylinder and its hydraulic hoses.
