Christine and I can’t wait for our SIC membership in the Self Isolation Club to expire this Sunday night (March 30) so I can get back to Naval Yachts on Monday morning.
Our sincere thanks to all of you who have been inquiring about or status and situation and for those who didn’t know, we had gone over to London to celebrated Christine’s B’day two weeks ago and so when we returned to Antalya, we joined this not so exclusive SIC for the next 14 days. We continue to be eXtremely grateful to be together and for being in what so far seems to be one of the better locations in the world and we continue to be in great health and spirits. While they have started to rise, the case and death numbers from Covid 19 in Turkey remain relatively low which we hope will continue. We are additionally fortunate in that Turkey and where we are in Antalya also has a very modern and extensive medical system staffed by world class health care professionals which hopefully bodes well for Turkey to be able to deal with the onslaught better than many other countries.
I am also delighted to report that everyone at Naval Yachts and on Team Möbius is also doing very well and continuing to make great progress as we all focus on these final stages of the build. Through it all Yigit and Hakan continue to find time to take pictures and get those to me and enable me to share them here with you so let’s get right to them.
MASTER CABIN
We’ll start this week’s tour up in the Master Cabin so you can see our very own Stairway to Heaven, aka the SuperSalon, now that the team has fit the Rosewood stair risers and first layer of the treads.
Here’s the view from the top of these stairs with the arm of the Settee in the lower Right corner and the roughed in Header over the doorway and under the windowsill on the Right. Back down inside the Master Cabin on top of the bed, Şevki is getting ready to fit this overhead AirCon and heating plenum. Which he now has propped up in place here.
The ducting for this plenum runs up behind the white wall grid from the Air Handler which is hidden away in the cabinet below the prop stick. Here’s a peek behind the wall at a section of the ducting. With all the wall panels being snapped in place with FastMount clips it is easy to access this and all other areas behind walls and ceilings which makes future maintenance and repair SO much easier. With their lids removed to show inside the cabinets on the Port side of the Master Bed you can now see the Air Handler all setup inside the aft cabinet.
The cabinet on the bottom is for storage. It is a 12k BTU Webasto BlueCool air handler that can have either Chilled or Hot water sent to its heat exchanger and serve as either an Air Conditioner in the tropics or hot air system in cooler climates. We will use the In-Floor heating mostly though for colder situations but great to have this option whenever a quick warm up is needed. Looking up above the bed area, the rough ceiling panels have been snapped into their FastMount clips. Looking through what will the the etched glass corner walls of the Master Shower in the foreground here, this will give you a better overview of the bed on the Left, stairs up to the storage cupboard and Air Handler in the bottom Right and then some of the Leather covered wall panels snapped in place with the slotted ceiling vent box up in the corner.
MASTER HEAD & SHOWER
As you can see, Faruk and Osma have also been making good progress and doing beautiful work as they finish putting in the fully sealed interior of all the walls, floor and ceiling of the Master Head & Shower.
Shower is on the bottom here with its handy built in seat on the Left. The sink will sit atop the bottom end of the countertop on the Left here that runs the full length of the wall back alongside the Head/toilet which sets atop that black ring flange on the raised platform in the rear.
The fittings in the far wall are for the Hot water in/out of the towel warming rack which Christine has always dreamed of. The fully glassed framing for the Medicine Cabinet awaits its turn to be installed on the wall in front of the two rectangular access ports you see in the photos above and will have two mirrored doors with shelves inside for the usual toiletry supplies.
MAIN HELM
The Main Helm received a lot of attention from Omur and Selim this past week so let’s go up that Stairway to Heaven from the Master Cabin and check out the progress up in the SuperSalon.
We are looking forward at the Port/Left corner of the SuperSalon where the Main Helm stretches from side to side at the front.
The pair of 70L Drawer Freezers can be seen in the bottom Left corner with the big 50” screen recessed into the angled corner and then the Main Helm going across. This triangular area on the Port side of the Main Helm will have a Black leather covered hinged top providing access to this deep and voluminous area underneath which is created by the dropped ceiling box above the Bed in the Master Cabin below. There is a matching triangular spot on the opposite side that is a bit less deep with the doorway into the Master Cabin below it but still has lots of volume for storing paper charts, electronic devices, etc.. There will be a sloped dashboard in the center Main Helm area seen here with two 19” daylight readable touch screens just below the window.
Stairway down to the Master Cabin is safely protected by the angled wall on the Right of the Helm and the end of the Settee on the far Right. Our Blue Horizon Line BHL continues to be installed throughout the interior. Such as here on the front Port corner that Omur is working on.
Even newer this week though is that Omur has started to install the window sills that run around the entire perimeter of the 360 degree negatively raked glass windows of the SuperSalon.
All the window sills surrounding the Main Helm will be covered with Black Leather to reduce reflections at night as will all the vertical window mullions and the ceiling panels.
We do a lot of night passages and maximizing night vision has been a top design criteria from the beginning. These are the window sills being fitted on the opposite Starboard side of the Main Helm and behind the Settee. More BHL going across the Main Helm.
But WAIT!!!
What is this new bit of kit we see for the first time? Well, an eXtremely great Main Helm needs and eXtremely great Helm Chair right?
The chair has been moved to its furthest forward position on the slider and that piece of 10mm / 3/8” thick bit of plywood used to keep the edge of the footrest from touching the Helm wall. You may remember seeing these fabulous Llebroc Helm Chairs when Captain Christine was unboxing them when they first arrived about a month ago. She was also checking out the colour match between the chair’s ultra leather and the test strip of the Blue Horizon Line.
This week the team brought the chairs aboard to layout the exact location for mounting their bases. With the chair in the right fore/aft position it was then carefully centered so Uğur, with his head just visible at the bottom here, along with Yigit, carefully marked the position of the bolt hole pattern in chair’s adjustable pedestal base. Next up they will fabricate the mounting block to attach it very solidly through the floor. This is the Helm Chair that will be in the upper SkyBridge Helm hence the slightly different Blue colour.
Armrests fold up and seat back reclines. The black squeeze bulb connects to the air bladder lumbar support which my back REALLY enjoys!
This shot shows one of the many top features motivating us to chose these Llebroc chairs with their incredibly thick and sturdy all aluminium construction which we had them powder coat in White which makes them easy to keep clean and looking this great for their many years of use. The pedestals have 18” of vertical air lift adjustment and the bases can be swiveled 360 degrees and can slide about 200mm / 8” foreword and aft to give you just the right position.
You will be seeing more of both these Helm Chairs as they get installed in the coming weeks. Leaving the SuperSalon with this overall perspective from back in the Galley area you can see how this is all shaping up very nicely.
Mr. Maxwell I Presume???
One of the other New Arrivals you may recall seeing last month is our shiny new and eXtremely powerful Maxwell VWC 4000 Windlass.
We typically average several hundred nights on anchor each year so this is one of the more critical bits of kit onboard Möbius for getting our 110kg/242lb Rocna anchor along with its 100m/330ft of 13mm DIN766 G40 chain down and back up.
Our lives and that of the boat quite literally depend upon every component of our anchoring system performing at the top of their game EVERY time so a lot of attention has gone into selecting and now mounting it all.
The Maxwell anchor on our previous steel sailboat was quite a bit smaller but it performed like a champ for over 25 years and I only did one rebuild with new brushes and bearings. So we again chose Maxwell and upped the size and capacity several fold.
The VWC stands for Vertical Windlass with Capstan which is the grooved SS wheel on top which enables us to also use the Windlass for bringing large dock lines and ropes aboard. Before mounting, the Gypsy which Mesut on the Left has in hand, needs to be installed with the friction clutches. The Gypsy needs to be ordered separately to be an exact match with the specific size and type of anchor chain on each boat so I had previously double checked that our 13mm / 1/2” DIN766 G4 chain matched up with the Gypsy Maxwell had sent and it fit like a glove. Next task was to position the Windlass in just the right spot on on the Anchor Deck. The AL deck plate all along the anchor chain’s path from the Anchor roller assembly to aft end of the Anchor Deck was cut from 15mm / 5/8” thick AL as part of the original cut files and along with some additional stringers below to provide an eXtremely strong base to mount the Windlass to and to deal with the tremendous forces it can sometimes take on. Seen from the opposite direction looking forward this is where the Windlass will mount. Prior to all this Yigit updated the 3D model of the bow area and the Windlass so he could precisely locate the mounting base in the just right spot.
The Goldilocks just right position of the Windlass involves getting it just right above deck for the chain and anchor and also below deck where the chain drops into the Black round chain bin you see outlined in this drawing. The Green lines outline is that 15mm plate I mentioned above and the Red lines are the below deck stringers. Black circle is the Chain Bin and the Yellow in the center is the Maxwell Windlass base. The chain pipe there the anchor chain goes through the deck is at the Left narrow end of the Yellow base which Yigit has positioned to be directly overtop of the center of the Chain Bin.
While they were working up on the Bow Anchor Deck, Uğur and Nihat also worked on mounting the Lewmar EST65 EVO winch. Last week you they had built this eXtremely strong platform for this winch out of the same 15mm thick plate and now they have drilled the holes in the plate where the mounting studs go through to the motor assembly below.
Stay tuned for next week’s Progress Update when both of the Windlass and the Winch are being installed.
AFT DECK VENT BOXES:
Uğur and Nihat continued their work putting in the doors and Mist Eliminators on the two Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck.
The upper Left frame is the Mist Eliminator or Moisture Eliminator as they are sometimes referred, for the Supply Air going into the Engine Room duct below.
Slotted door in the bottom Right is for the air extraction fan that is inside for areas such as the Guest Shower below.
The top of this Vent Box will sealed off with a welded on 5mm plate and then covered wtih some of our aquamarine marble for the finished countertop in what will serve as our Outdoor Galley. We are using Mist Eliminators to remove most of the salt water droplets in the air and also control the ingress of any sea water that might possibly make it up to this height in severely big seas. This set of carefully calculated vanes causes liquid drops or streams to be removed and drained out the bottom leaving the air to flow through. This is what the Mist Eliminator mechanism looks like on the inside of the Vent Box with the rectangular AL duct running all the way down to almost floor level in the Engine Room. This helps to create natural passive ventilation of the ER by bringing the cold outside air down to the bottom and then extracting the warmer air out the ceiling on the opposite side. They also installed the Mist Eliminator on this spot in front of the SkyBridge where all the fresh air is funneled under the hinged frame of the three front solar panels you’ve seen being installed a few weeks ago. The Vent Box on the other Stbd side of the Aft Deck is where the air is extracted from the ER, Workshop and Guest Cabin. This compartment is for the Engine Room air extraction. The thin AL frame on the Left has large axial fan inside and the larger galvanized box on the Right holds the Fire Damper. These automatically controlled Fire Dampers perform the critical safety function of closing off their louvered vanes to help starve an Engine Room fire of oxygen by preventing air from being able to flow into the ER.
This is part of a larger automated fire extinguishing system for the ER that you will see being installed in the coming weeks.
While I wasn’t able to get any pictures of their work, Hilmi and Cihan continued to make good progress with the Electrical and Plumbing work they do and I will be able to bring you up to speed on all their work when I am aboard Möbius next week.
Please keep yourself and your family safe, healthy and happy as we all ride out this latest “storm” in the world and trust that “This too shall pass” and we can get to our new normal as soon as possible.
See you here again nest week and as always we sincerely appreciate and value all your comments, questions and suggestions so please keep putting those in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Last Sunday, the 15th, upon our return from London for Christine’s B’day weekend we very willingly joined many of you I suspect as members of the Self Isolation Club or SIC as I’ve been calling it. As my cousin Donna who is also a member of SIC in their home over in Doha pointed out, this is not a very exclusive club anymore unfortunately. Christine and I are very grateful to be together through all this and to be in our wonderful apartment here in Antalya which so far seems to be one of the better spots to be in the world. Antalya has an extremely large and modern medical infrastructure in part because this is a “medical tourism” destination and in part because Turkey has a very good medical infrastructure staffed by world class health professionals.
While not being able to be at Naval Yachts and working on Möbius is a challenge, it is a very minor one compared to our challenges with being so far from our family, children and grandchildren who do not appear to be in as good a location in Florida, California and British Columbia. Christine and I are both feeling very good, are fit and in good health and most appreciative of our situation. We sincerely hope that all of you reading this are finding your ways to be safe, happy and healthy as we all weather this latest storm in our lives and remind ourselves, as we do when in severe storms on passages that “This too shall pass”.
Here in Turkey closures of schools, restaurants and the like happened early this week and those who can are being encouraged to work from home. However the rest of the work force continued to go to work this past week and we will have to wait and see what next week brings. With thanks again to Yigit, Uğur and Hakan for sending me all their photos each day this week, I am also fortunate to be able to bring you this week’s Progress Update and as usual Team Möbius has been very productive so let’s go for a virtual tour of their hard work.
Mr. Gee Gardner 6LXB
Mr. Gee, which is what we call our Gardner 6LXB diesel engine, usually appears near the end of previous Weekly Progress Updates so let’s check in on him first this week. Actually these photos are from the week previous when I had time to give all the large cast aluminium parts their first finish coats of high them aluminium paint.
The ribbed oil pan is in the bottom right, crankcase in the center and the two flywheel housings hanging in the background. I had been thinking of just leaving the aluminium parts bare after sandblasting them thoroughly but I like a very clean engine and the cast aluminium can be a bit porous so I decided to cover all the aluminium with more aluminum in the form of powdered aluminium based paint. This is a silicone based paint that is specially formulated to withstand temps up to 300 C/ 572 F. I’m very pleased with the results and next week when I can hopefully go back to Naval I will give these all one more coat of aluminium paint and then finish it off with a clear coat to seal it all fully. This is the Port/Left side of the crankcase casting that is the “service side” of the Gardner as the factory photo below shows …………… ………. how this is the side that has most of the engines parts that you access when servicing such as the fuel injection pump which is mounted with those two circular clamps you see above, fuel and oil filters, alternator, etc.
Click to enlarge if you’d like to read the basic technical specs on the Gardner 6LXB. These two castings enclose the huge heavy flywheel and that flat surface on the Left one facing this photos is where it bolts to the aft end of the crankcase. The housing on the Right has a SAE bolt pattern flange which matches the one on the Nogva CPP Controllable Pitch Propeller gearbox.
More on Mr. Gee as soon as my SIC membership expires and I can get back to work. Even though he is one of the most efficient diesel engines ever to be mass produced, Mr. Gee needs a good steady supply of clean diesel fuel so we are building an extensive set of fuel filtering systems that include a pair of 2 stage Fleetguard filters, water separators, a fuel transfer and polishing system and a full Alfa Laval centrifuge that can convert even the dirtiest fuel into crystal clear diesel. This requires a series of manifolds and ball valves such as this pair in the Basement for transferring fuel from any one tank to any other. Now we need about four more manifolds for the fuel transfer system, fuel polishing and Day Tank. So the Machine Shop has been busy making these out of blocks of solid 75mm/3” square aluminium which they drill out and tap with NPT pipe threads for the SS ball valves. You’ll see more of these as Cihan starts installing them in the Workshop.
PLUMBING:
.In the meantime though, Cihan is busy plumbing in all the fuel and water lines in the Workshop and Engine Room. This is looking forward at the Day Tank on the Stbd/Right side of the Workshop with the ER wall on the Left. You can see the water and fuel lines in the vertical trays on the Right and running across the ceiling and down to the ball valves atop the Day Tank. The area between the Day Tank and the Stbd hull is starting to be well populated as the various “highways” of support trays for fuel, water and electrical cables intersect. The horizontal trays here are carrying electrical cables through the penetrations in the WT Bulkhead you can see at the far end.
Vertical hoses are fuel and water hoses. When all the hoses or cables are in, these penetrations are sealed to be fully watertight with a White special certified caulking compound you can see in this penetration under the workbench you see in the photo above. Down below the Day Tank we can see more of Cihan’s handiwork with these water hoses which make the turn into the penetration through the ER Enclosure wall on the Left. The clear hoses are bringing sea water from the intake Sea Chest in the ER back to the Watermaker low pressure Feed Pump and the Circulation Pump for the Webasto BlueCool Chiller. Those water hoses run aft into these ball valves which direct sea water supply and return lines from the Watermaker Low Pressure Feed Pump and the AirCon Chiller Circulation Pump. With the ball valves installed Cihan mounts that SW Circulation Pump to the mount he has previously welded in place. As with all pumps and motors, this is mounted with these vulcanized vibration absorbing mounts. Cihan also has both Deck Wash pumps mounted and plumbed. This is the pump for the Sea Water Deck Wash with its clear filter covered with the white latex glove. The Fresh Water Deck Wash pump is on the far Left of this shot.
EXHAUST SYSTEM:
Yigit has been extremely busy managing all this work as well as designing and modeling all our systems and this past week we worked with the engineers at Halyard to finalise the design of our wet exhaust system and have them build and ship that to us ASAP. We have refined it a bit more but the earlier rendering below is close to the final design that Halyard is now starting to build.
Gardner engine is shown in the blue silhouette with the Red Nogva CPP gearbox in the bottom Right. Exhaust gases exit vertically out of the Gardner and then run across the horizontal pipe to the blue mixing elbow where seawater is injected to cool and quiet as they collect in the large Silencer/separator on the Left.
Water is then separated and exits out the bottom into the Sea Chest while the cooled gases flow through the rubber S-shaped exhaust hose running down and out through the ER wall and over to the exhaust pipe exiting the hull above the WL
I will show more once we start installing the exhaust system.
ELECTRICAL:
I don’t have too many pictures of Hilmi’s progress this week but we have been frequently connected via WhatsApp and he’s been continuing to install more and more of the Maretron BB’s Black Boxes and N2K cables.
For example, he and Cihan installed this new AL panel to mount the multiple Maretron BB’s in the Basement and is now busy wiring them up with their N2K cables and wiring from sensors for Bilge High Water and fuel tank levels. One of the many networks on the boat is the one for all the Victron equipment which is the base of our AC and DC electrical systems. Victron is another one of those tried and true solutions for us so we went all Victron for things like inverters, chargers, isolation transformer, MPPT solar panel controllers, DC-DC converters, etc..
This is our Victron OctoGX, which we may swap out for the just released CerboGX and these both serve as a central communications device to bring all the inputs and outputs together and enable us to closely monitor all aspects of our electrical system.
If you’re interested in more details, click HERE to see the new video from Victron that does a nice job of explaining the many functions of these devices.
On the XPM’s or any long range passage maker boat, this level of monitoring is critical as we literally live off of our electrical system and the consequences of losing any part of it can have eXtremely severe consequences for us. So these comm centers put pool all the data from all the devices and allow us to know right away when anything changes.
In addition to the high dependency on the electrical system components, they also tend to be high initial cost items which we expect to work continuously for at least ten years so just as with human health, keeping our electrical system and all its many components all in top shape and catching any changes and problems early is key to long life spans for these devices.
Hilmi has also been installing other electric components such as these 12V and 24V DC distribution blocks. We have these spread throughout the boat wherever we might want to power 12V and 24V devices. In addition to the 8 port model above, these also come in round 2 port models where fewer such DC connections are needed so we use a mix of both.
We tend to hide this inside cupboards and drawers or below countertops or desk tops to make cable management easier and keep them out of the way. These blocks are very well made and require a single 12 of 24V DC power input which is then distributed to each of the Anderson Powerpole plug in sockets which are individually fused with an standard ATC blade fuse. The block can handle up to 40 Amps which is more than enough for the various chargers, LED lights, fans, radios, and other DC powered devices. Also super handy to have near my workbenches in the Workshop and my Boat’s Office.
ALUMINIUM TEAM:
Uğur, standing, Nihat, kneeling, and Okan had a very busy week with their typically varied set of jobs such as continuing to install the many doors in the two Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck.
This is the Stbd/Right side Vent Box which looks after all the Extraction air venting and ducting. Door on the far Left and Right access storage areas. Upper Middle frame is for the Extraction air from the Engine Room and Lower Middle frame is for the Extraction Air from the workshop, both with large axial fans built in. Both tops will soon have their AL plates welded on and a bit later these will be covered with some of the Aquamarine Marble countertop surfaces. Taller countertop on the Left will be left as is and the electric BBQ Grille mounts into the lower counter surface on the Right.
The opposite Port Vent Box will be a single level marble countertop with a built in sink. Should make for a great Outdoor Galley. They also whipped up this bracket for the Manual Hydraulic Steering Pump that will be installed inside the Main Helm. This will secure the Kobelt 7012 Helm Pump which is connected via hydraulic hoses to the Kobelt 7080 steering cylinders. We will keep a traditional steering wheel stored nearby that can slide onto the 7012’s keyed shaft and enable us to steer the boat manually. However this wheel will rarely be in place as this is only a last resort backup steering in case either of other two independent 24V steering systems, AutoPilots and cylinders should ever fail completely.
The small gray hole in the center of this rough rendering of the Main Helm Area is where this steering wheel will be inserted if ever needed.
SOLAR PANELS!
However what stole the show excitement wise this week is this!
The first three of our 14 solar panels are now being fitted. These three 295W panels will be mounted to the frame you’ve seen being built in past weeks. The frame is hinged on its aft end just in front of the center window of the SkyBridge giving it two modes:
1. Locked down in about the position you see here when we are on passage.
2. Tilted up to be horizontal when at anchorage for both maximum solar gain AND to act as a giant wind funnel directing the breezes over the Bow to the big vertical vent Green Mist Eliminator grill you can see in this rough render. The three panels are fastened into the hinged AL frame. Once in place each panel butts up tight against each other to form a single continuous solar surface. Front two panels in place. and then there were three!
In addition to these three 295W hinged panels, there are 8 more 320W fixed panels atop the SkyBridge Roof and then three more 320W panels on the Aft Roof which cantilevers overtop the Outdoor Galley on the Aft Deck.
The combined output of all 14 panels gives us a theoretical total of 4405Wp. We won’t know the actual output until we get out and can do some real world testing but being very conservative if we have the upper 8 panels working at 85% capacity and the three front and back working at 30% capacity a 5 hour solar day would generate about 13.6 kWh and a 7 hour solar day would generate about 19.1kWh Each of our 14 solar panels have their own dedicated Victron 100/20 SmartSolar MPPT controller to maximize their output and give us the most control over losses from any shading of any one panel from nearby structures such as the SkyBridge Roof, Arch, Radar, etc. If multiple solar panels are connected in series to a single MPPT controller then the shading of any one panel reduces the output of all the others as well.
Here’s the “powerful” view from the SkyBridge. Meanwhile down below all our “chippies” on the Cabinetmaking Teams have had another very productive week so let’s go check that out.
MASTER CABIN:
Şevki and Selim continue to build out the Master Cabin. All the Green/Gray leather wall panels on the Port/Left side are now snapped in place. All the ceiling panels are removable with FastMount clips holding them in place. The ceiling grid has now been installed and they are installing the White FastMount female sockets you can see in the foreground and then two of the rough cut ceiling panels have been snapped in place behind. View from the entrance into the Master Cabin looking forward to see that the rest of the rough cut ceiling panels have now been fitted and snapped in place. Hmmmmm, what do you think we are witnessing here?
Aha! The Bosch Washing Machine has arrived and is now setting on the Master Bed frame awaiting installation in its cabinet on the front Stbd/Right side. It took quite some time but Buse persevered and was able to source a British version of this Bosch Washing machine Christine had picked out so that the engraved text is in English rather than Turkish. (click to enlarge)
We are now quite used to the Turkish terms that are on the washing machine in our apartment for over 2 years now but still nice to have this all in English for our aging brains and others who might be using this.
Thanks Buse!!
Oh, and yes, of course the washer has to have WiFi for my Gorgeous Geekette!
We received this exciting photo on Friday as they put in the Rosewood stair risers for the first time. This is the spiraling stairwell leading up from the Master Cabin to the SuperSalon which we will go look at next. Before we leave the Master Cabin though let’s go look at what Faruk and Osma have been up to in the Master Head & Shower.
They picked up where the left off last week with filling all the joints between the fiberglass panels that form all the surfaces of the floor, ceiling and walls. As you may recall from last week, they tape off each joint with two different layers of tape so they can put on two layers of grout to create a nicely radiused corner.
This past week they put in the 2nd layer with the final radiused corner and once dry they carefully wet sanded and polished the gel coat filled resin compound they use for the grout which creates a polished and seamless interior. With the joints all filled and sanded they could now install the lower sink cabinet and the base for the VacuFlush toilet you see on the Right with the patch of blue painters tape to protect the surface as they cut the hole for the toilet base.
SUPER SALON:
Continuing up the stairs from the Master Cabin, Omur and Selim are now installing the rest of the Main Helm cabinetry with this section overtop of the Master Cabin door. There will be a Black leather covered triangular lid atop the space to the right of Ömür’s hand which will lift up to access the surprisingly large storage space underneath. That allows Selim to start fitting the side panel which makes the corner transition from the panel above the door and caries on below the windowsill on the far Stbd/Right side of the stairway. Stepping back towards the centerline of the boat, let’s turn clockwise for a series of shots to see the layout of all the areas that make up the Super Salon.
Looking directly towards the Port/Left side of the SuperSalon shows the Main Helm on the far Left, Master Cabin stairs to the right of that, then the Dinette Settee and the front half of the Galley Cabinets on the Right. Turning to look at the Aft Port/Left corner of the SuperSalon shows the whole wrap around set of connected Galley cupboards. Which you can see much better if I zoom in on the Galley at bit more. Continuing to turn clockwise you can see the stairs leading up to the Aft Deck in the background on the Right. The taller cabinet on the far Right side where the two 130L Vitrifrigo SS upright fridges will soon be installed and to the Right of that is the shorter more recessed cabinets where the twin Vitrifrigo 70L drawer Freezers will soon be parked. Rotating a bit more reveals the opening for the 50” SmarTV/monitor cabinet. One more twist to the Right lets us see the Main Helm cabinetry. And one final twist to complete the full 360 photo tour we are back to the stairwell down to the Master Cabin with the Settee on the Right. Here’s a different perspective of the SuperSalon looking straight ahead at the Main Helm while standing at the base of the stairs down from the Aft Deck.
The large open hatch in the center provides access into the huge Basement area which is under the entire area of the SuperSalon floor. Off to the far Right of the photo above here is a sneak peek at the first of the Galley Garages which sit atop the marble countertops and I look forward to showing you the rest of these Garages as they are installed next week. And of course, the Blue Horizon Line or BHL you first saw being installed last week, continues to go in all around the circumference of the SuperSalon. More BHL running along the upper edge of the Settee. BHL on the Port side along the upper edges of the Fridge and Freezer cabinets. and starting to make its way around the Main Helm. Whew! Even though our 14 day self isolation prevented me from being there at all this week, I’m exhausted just taking you on this photo tour! A big thanks again to Yigit, Yesim, Uğur, Hilmi and Hakan for keeping me so well connected to the build via WhatsApp text, video and photos all week and for providing me with all these photos so I can share it all with you.
With luck my membership in the Self Isolation Club hopefully expires next Sunday the 29th so I only have one more week until I can join Team Möbius at Naval Yachts. But in any case I will be back with here next weekend to bring you the latest Weekly Progress Update of XPM78-01 Möbius.
We sincerely hope that all of you joining us here are finding your own ways to be safe, healthy and happy and that perhaps we can assist a wee bit with your entertainment during these crazy times.
Sorry to keep you waiting so long for last week’s Progress Update as it is already time for me to be posting this week’s! I did manage to get one post up last weekend all about Captain Christine’s 2020 B’day Adventure so if you have not read that you might like to and it will help explain why I’m late getting this week’s update written and posted.
However just because we were away doesn’t mean that anyone else on Team Möbius at Naval Yachts were any less productive and perhaps even more so with no pesky owners to get in the way. And thanks to Yigit, Hakan and Uğur all taking pictures throughout my absence I have LOTS for this week’s Möbius Show & Tell, so let’s dive right in.
ALUMINIUM TEAM:
For no good reason I will go through the different teams in alphabetical order this week so let’s start wtih the Aluminium Works team of Uğur, Nihat and Okan,
Any guesses as to what Nihat is working on so happily? Will it help to know that this is all 15mm/5/8” thick AL plate? How about if I give you a sneak peek at one of last week’s New Arrivals?
For those who might not recognize it, this is a Lewmar EST65 EVO ELS 24V self tailing electric winch.
And it needs a very solid home up on the bow deck, hence the 15mm plate This is where it will go, right alongside the big Forepeak Hatch with a rectangular cut-out in the underlying Anchor Deck plate for access to the motor.
Crescent shaped gussets on the Left …….. ……….. will be welded inside to tie the sides of this housing into the underlying frames like this. The 15mm top plate will be flush with the upper deck surface and tied into both decks and the Forepeak Hatch so this will provide the eXtremely strong and rigid base for the huge forces this winch needs to withstand. Pretty quick job for Uğur to run the first pass of welds. Climbing down into the Forepeak and looking up through that rectangular cut-out you can see how this winch housing has been welded on the inside with the additional gussets welded in as well.
This winch will be quite the workhorse for us with multiple uses such as helping to raise and lower the SkyBridge folding roof, pulling in shore lines when docking in high winds, emergency retrieval of the anchor if the Windlass fails and general use to handle large loads on lines at the Bow.
With the Bow Winch housing all built they moved Aft and started fabricating all the doors and mist eliminator frames in the two Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck which you can see in this rendering.
These vent boxes provide the waterproof ducting for all the air going in/out of the Engine Room and Workshop and have been carefully designed such that they cannot downflood with seawater during a 360 degree roll over.
This is the Port/Left side Vent Box which is for all the intake air.
Stbd/Right side Vent box is for all extraction air.
The tops of these Vent Boxes will have marble countertops on them with a sink you can see here and a BBQ on the other side to create our outdoor Galley. Nihat soon has the frame for this doorway tacked into the lower Port intake opening. You can see the intake pipe on the inside lower Right corner in this and the photo above.
This provides air for the Corridor and the Guest Shower so doesn’t need to be very large and we can use some of this area for storage if needed. Fitting the vented door. Over on the Stbd/Right side Vent Box, Nihat gets busy fabricating the frames for the doors and Extraction Air vents.
The electric BBQ Grill will be mounted on that lower surface on the Right side and a marble countertop on the Left.
More to follow next week as they finish off these Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck.
ELECTRICAL & NETWORKING:
Christine has added “Network Engineer & Designer” to her long list of titles and this is the current version of her overall network diagram.
It may look a bit confusing but the colours make it easy to see the different network types and having this overview is very helpful to see all the interconnections.
As per the legend at the bottom Blue is for the NMEA 2000 or N2K network, Red is the Ethernet network and Black is for “other” such as communications networks such as VHF radios, AIS and other proprietary wiring for things like cellular and WiFi networks.
This week Hilmi was focussed on installing all the Maretron “Black Boxes” and the multi-port blocks for the N2K backbone.
The N2K network is mostly used by our extensive Maretron monitoring system and as you can see in this diagram Christine has created with the very powerful Maretron N2K Builder app. It is relatively straightforward conceptually with a continuous large blue “Backbone” cable that runs the length of the boat with all the Maretron devices and Black Boxes or BB, connected to it via T’s and Drop Cables.
Here in the Master Cabin for example, you can see how Hilmi has started to bring the Blue Backbone cable across the ceiling to bring it over from the Stbd to Port side. Saying that we have an “eXtensive Maretron monitoring system” might be a wee bit of an understatement as this is just some of the Maretron N2K cables alone.
Here is what he is working on in the photo above which is in the cabinetry which is marked as “Master Cabin Stbd” in the Maretron diagram above if you want to follow along.
The upper Maretron BB is a Switch Indicator Module or SIM100 which will soon have six Bilge High Water sensors attached to it and the lower BB is a Fluid Pressure Monitor or FPM100 which will soon have six tank level sensors connected to it.
The bottom block is a Multi-Port which is basically a series of T’s all put together in this one block. Mounting the BB Black Boxes and Multi-Ports is very quick and easy but it takes a bit longer to do all the cabling, especially when you take the care and attention which Hilmi does to run every wire “just right”, support them throughout their length and label each one.
The Red/Black wires going into each BB have the tank or bilge water sensors on the other end and bring their individual outputs to the BB which is then connected via a Grey Drop Cable into the Multi-Port which in turn is plugged into the Blue Backbone cable to carry all this data back and forth through the system. With that done, Hilmi moves over to the Port side of the Master Bed labeled “Master Stateroom Port” on the Maretron diagram above and installs two more Maretron BB’s. These are the same type BB’s as on the previous Stbd cupboard; one SIM100 for Bilge High Water sensors and one FPM100 for more tank level sensors and they start out like this ….. ……. and then Hilmi works his magic and they are soon all wired up and look like this. This is the home of our Aft Electrical Distribution Center which is starting to call Hilmi’s name as well so you will soon see him working his magic on these “plain” old AC and DC electrical wires and all their respective DIN rail circuit breakers so stay tuned for more from our Sparkies.
GUEST CABIN & SHIPS/WAYNE’s OFFICE:
Continuing our alphabetic run through, let’s to check out what Omer and Muhammed have been up to in the Guest Cabin area.
Omer has turned his attention to the Guest Shower and is busy prepping the foundation for the ceiling panel. Nice big hatch to bring in lots of light and fresh air when you are showering.
And remember that vent pipe you saw inside the Port Vent Box that Nihat was working on in the photos above? Well here you see the other end of it where it will connect to the ceiling with a diffuser. Ceiling installed and the back wall will be next.
Once these have all been covered with 10mm marine plywood the Fiberglass Team will come in and glass all the walls, ceiling and floor into a seamless and fully sealed space the same as you’ve been seeing them do in the Master Cabin Head & Shower. As you’ve seen elsewhere, where there are access ports to the integral fuel and water tanks below the floors, there will be a removable floor panel to provide access to these ports on the rare occasions when you need to get into a tank area for things like annual inspections. Opposite the Shower is the Guest Head and Omer and Muhammed are now installing the Ro$ewood cabinetry that has just come back from the Finishing Shop gleaming with their fresh coats of hand rubbed PU varnish.
The sink sets atop the counter area on the far Right with the hole for the drain pipe visible here. But that is quickly covered up with cardboard covers and blue tape to keep those surfaces clean and protected with the build goes on around them.
Cihan will soon be in here installing all the plumbing for hot and cold water, drains and toilet. Outside of the Guest Shower & Head is “my” or the Ships Office and Corridor leading Aft to the Workshop on the Let here. Omer and Muhammed are now installing the desk and drawers that span this whole 2.5m/8’ long length. Turning to look forward towards the stairs leading up to the SuperSalon and that Electrical Distribution Panel we saw earlier, you can see more drawers and “cubbies” on the Right side of the desk.
MASTER CABIN:
Moving forward into the Master Cabin we find Selim (Left) and Şevki busy working on the cabinetry in there. This is looking Aft at the stairs coming down from the SuperSalon with the Bureau of Drawers on the Left, King bed in the middle (covered with tools) and the floor area on the far Right side of this photo. They too have been installing the cabinetry that is now flowing out of the Finishing Room as you can see with that beautiful long Rosewood panel along this Port side of the bed.
Wall panels are also now out of the Upholstery Shop and have been snapped in place with their FastMount clips. This is what the back side of each panel looks like. The Black male FastMounts press into the White female sockets you can see in the far wall grid. This is a bit expensive but pays for itself many times over by providing very long lasting solidly mounted panels which don’t move or creak and yet clip out in seconds to provide access to systems behind. The AirCon and Heating Air Handler will soon be installed in this bedside cabinet and the forward one will be more storage. Spiraling stairs leading up to the bed provide spots for the intake air vents for the Air Handler. We are particularly delighted with the way this “floating” bedside table has worked out and gives Christine (this is her side of the bed) the perfect spot to set her phone, Kindle, books etc.
Note too the juxtaposition of those Blonde patches of the Rosewood grain! And yes, still worth every one of the many thousands of pennies this costs. Up overhead the ceiling grid is being installed quickly and it too will soon have lots of FastMount clips for the removable White leather ceiling panels to snap into. Backsides of all the Stbd/Right hull side cabinets are having their frames installed for the similarly removable panels on the back of each cabinet. Stepping back into the Shower area to get this overall shot of just the forward section of cabinets and wardrobes that now have their back panels in place.
Bureau of Drawers on the Right, Vanity sink on the Left.
COMPOSITE/FIBERGLASS TEAM:
Faruk and Osma continued their eXcellent work in the Master Shower and Head.
They now have the one piece floor pan installed and the Shower seat has also been glassed in place. Drain holes, bottom for the Shower and Top for the Head area are ready to be routed out for their respective SS drain plates. As you’ve been seeing in previous weeks, they lay up all the individual pieces over in their Composite Shop using templates they have made up in the Shower & Head and then bring them back to be glassed in place.
Here Osma is setting upper panel that goes above the glass wall in place after he lathered the back of it with some thickened resin. When all the panels have been glassed in place all the corners and seams are taped off so they can be filled with thickened resin and gel coat colouring. After the first round of filler has been carefully applied as it has here, the innermost brown tape is peeled off. This leaves a wider area for the second and final round of filler to be applied with a nice radius. Up above, Faruk trims the ceiling panel to be perfectly flush with the inside surfaces of the big 700mm/28” hatch which will flood both the Shower and the Head with lots of fresh air and light.
Because the two corner walls of the Shower are glass, it will also bring all that beautiful natural light into the rest of the Master Cabin and really make Sherry’s artistic patterns etched into the glass even more stunning. More Maretron sensors everywhere you look. This cable is for the proximity sensor in each door and hatch to remind us if any hatch or door has not been fully closed before we head to sea. Same idea as the lights on the dash of most cars that alert you if a door is not fully closed.
Hole in the background is for one of the LED ceiling lights. Down on the floor, the one tank access port has been framed for its removable panel and the Head floor drain on the Left has been recessed for ………… ……… its flush fitting SS drain grate. The sink countertop and cabinet will soon be glassed into the lower area here with matching and mirrored Medicine cabinets above. But you can see that there will be plenty of easy access to all the systems behind such as these water manifold ball valves.
PLUMBING:
The ever jovial Cihan has been his usual productive self of course so let’s go see some of his latest handiwork.
This is the Aft Stbd/Right side of the SuperSalon where the Galley cabinetry is about to be installed, but just before it arrives from the Finishing Shop Cihan has done a masterful job of squeezing in this 100mm/4” PVC ducting. On the far Left side it goes through a waterproof penetration in the floor to extract air out of the Basement and then ….. ……… on the far Right upper end is a T, closed off with blue tape here, where the exhaust from the induction cooktop vent enters.
Looking closely on the far Right (click to enlarge any photo) you can see how this pipe continues straight aft and up into the Stbd Wing Box where a large axial extraction fan pulls all the air to the outside. Directly forward from the PVC ducting Cihan has been working on the Stbd side Webasto Air Handler to change the output air duct from rectangular to round. And then quickly has it fully installed on the insulate floor prior to the Dinette Settee being installed. Directly across the SuperSalon just in front of the twin Freezer Drawer cabinet he has similarly mounted the Port side Air Handler. As with all equipment, we use boded rubber flexible anti-vibration mounts which you can see an example of on the far Right mount here. These help insure that none of the vibration or noise is transmitted to the hull or the room. I’m a bit maniacal about having an eXtremely quiet boat interior so we are going to great expense and lengths to ensure that the XPM’s are going to be acoustic sanctuaries. Can’t wait to do some testing with a sound meter while underway! Remember those shots in the Guest Head up above? Well here you can see that Cihan has been busy there too installing the SS threaded PPR elbows for hot and cold water PEX tubing up top and the drain pipe from the sink down to the Grey Water tank or Sea Chest below. Continuing Aft to the forward end of the Stbd side of the Workshop where the diesel Day Tank resides, we find more of Cihan’s many skills on display. He is eXtremely adept at building and installing all the many mounting plates and WT penetrations where he needs to run pipes and hoses. In this case he has made up that oval tube you see in the center of this shot that provides the penetration in the ER wall on the Left for some water hoses he needs to run. Peeking way in the back corner under the Day Tank you can see one of these penetrations already welded in place and filled with water hoses coming out of the Engine Room and the second penetration tube ready to be installed below for more. A bit more aft along that same ER wall there is one more penetration now welded in place. This one will soon have the six big cables from the two huge 6kW Electrodyne alternators coming through on their way the their external rectifiers what are mounted up on the Stbd hull side wall. I’ll go into more of those details when we start installing those cables and alternators.
SUPER SALON:
Finishing up our alphabetical cabin tour for this week with the always Super Salon, let’s go check out what Omur has been up to there.
The flow of cabinets coming out of the Finishing Shop continues into the SuperSalon as we see here with these freshly varnished Galley cabinets that are now being secured to their foundations. Opposite angle of the Galley standing up in the doorway coming in from the Aft Deck.
Induction cooktop goes atop that unfinished plywood to on the Right here with the Speed Oven below. A deep SS double sink will be installed in the marble countertops in the upper Right corner and the rest as you can see is all drawers.
There is one more length of cabinet to go in the bottom corner of this photo. A great shot of how beautiful the contrast is between the rich dark hues of the Rosewood and the bright inner Beech surfaces of all cabinets and drawers. Dinette Settee going in next.
You can see that Air Handler we saw Cihan installing earlier inside the large opening so that I can easily access that cavernous space below the outer side decks. This wider angle gives a fuller view of the whole aft area of the SuperSalon and our Master Cabinetmaker Omur. Settee on the far Left, Galley in the upper Left corner, stairs up to the Aft Deck in the background and the double Fridge cabinet on the Right. The angled mini wall on the Stbd/Right side of the Main Helm is being mounted here and some of the cables coming up from the Basement into this Forward Electrical Panel are brought up for the final time. Yesim, our brilliant interior designer is pointing out the location of the light switches that are so conveniently positioned as you go up or down the stairs to the Master Cabin. Similarly , the three digital thermostats are being mounted in this short wall at the top of the stairs where the Settee ends. The two Black screens control the two Webasto AirCon/Heater Air Handlers and the White one controls the In-Floor heating in the SuperSalon. Finally, perhaps saving the most exciting new progress for last, most of you can probably guess what Yesim is showing us here?
Correct! This is our infamous “Blue Line” as the team here tends to call it and what Christine and I refer to as our Blue Horizon Line. For those of you who have not read about this previously, this is a design theme and feature we came up with that is based on our most typical situation of being anchored off some little island or on long passages where our world is surrounded by 360 degrees of a blue horizon line where the blues of the sea transition into the blues of the sky.
We decided to bring this outdoor feature indoors and have designed the interior spaces and materials such that everything below the Blue Horizon Line matches up with materials, textures and colours that are below the horizon such as wood, stone and the aqua marine blues and greens of the seas. Everything above the Blue Horizon Line similarly match up wtih the colours and textures of the sky with softer materials and shades of white and grey. Our interior Blue Horizon Line, let’s shorten that to BHL for now, is made up a an aqua marine swirl we created with Yesim and had printed on thin strips of clear acrylic. It’s absolutely amazing the range of materials you can print things on these days and it is neither very difficult or expensive.
As you’ve been seeing as the cabinetry has been built, we incorporated this BHL as the back surface of the smooth flowing continuous hand rails that flow around all the furniture and walls at about waist height. With the cabinetry now coming out of the Finishing Shop Omur and team are now starting to glue these strips of BHL onto the back of all these recessed handholds. This is the BHL as it flows around the Galley cabinets and just wait for a few weeks until they start installing the aquamarine marble countertops to see how this ends up bringing the outside in. Here is a look at a more fully finished BHL around the top of the cabinet for the two Freezer drawers. Zooming in a bit to show how this all comes together both visually and functionally as a continuous handhold for everyone no matter their height.
Lots more of this to show you in the coming weeks as more cabinets, walls and BHL are installed.
NEW ARRIVALS:
This week had a LOT of new arrivals as what we hope will be the last big shipment of equipment from the US has arrived here at Naval Yachts. Too many items to show you all of them but here are a few highlights to give you an idea.
As you can see the majority of our equipment comes from Defender Industries and I want to first give an eXtremely big shoutout to Wendy Pandolfe <wpandolfe@defender.com> who has been absolutely awemazing to work with throughout the past year or more as we put together multiple sets of orders for hundreds of items from screws and fittings to our whole Furuno navigation system and pretty much everything in between. Wendy is a fabulous problem solver with that great “can do” and “get ‘er done” attitude that is all too rare and is SO much appreciated.
*** Just to be clear we have NO form of sponsorship or other relationship with Defender and simply and seriously recommend that you consider Defender for your next marine outfitting supplies and equipment. I have put Wendy’s Email above and if you contact her just say Wayne & Christine sent you and I’m sure you will soon share our enthusiasm and appreciation.
Why would I be happy that my Beautiful Bride and Captain is kissing anything but ME??
That’s easy when the recipient of her affection is the #1 bit of kit on our boat that lets us Sleep Well At Night or SWAN as we call it.
Meet our 110 Kilo ‘/ 242 Lb Rocna anchor. We spend hundreds of nights at anchor every year on every kind of bottom, through every kind of sea condition and weather and our lives very literally depend upon our anchor and chain to hold us in place. One of THE worst feelings for anyone at anchor is to feel your boat dragging anchor which of course would most likely occur at O’Dark Thirty in the worst conditions and with a lee shore rapidly approaching you. So we go to perhaps the most eXtreme lengths in over engineering and designing our complete anchoring system from anchor through chain and windlass.
Anchor selection borders on a religious argument amongst cruisers and the good news is that there have never been more great choices available. Christine and I certainly spent a LOT of time discussing and researching which anchor to chose for Möbius and in the end decided to do as we have with many other critical components and gone with what has worked eXtremely well for us on our previous boats and experiences.
Both of us have had oversized Rocna anchors on our previous boats and boats we have delivered for others and in the thousands of sets we have done over more than ten years, we have never had our Rocna drag once.
As with all my comments on this blog please be clear that I am NOT saying that this is the “best” anchor for you, simply that this is the anchor we are willing to bet our lives on and the Goldilocks choice that is just right, just for us. Almost as important as having the anchor solidly holding us to the bottom is being able to bring it and up to 100m/330ft of anchor chain all back aboard quickly and safely. With several hundred kilos of anchor and chain to bring aboard this takes some equally robust equipment and again we have gone with what we know to work best for us and this Maxwell VWC 4000 windlass was also in this last shipment from Defender. One of the most critical aspects of the windlass is that the “gypsy” matches the chain size and fits the chain like a glove. Gypsy is the name for this wheel driven by the big 24V motor on the windlass that pulls the chain aboard. Hence each Gypsy needs to be ordered to exactly match the specific chain link size you have. In our case this is 13mm G40 DIN766 chain and as you can see the Maxwell Gypsy does indeed fit like a glove. Whew!
With literally hundreds of individual items in this shipment alone, the next task was to go through every box and check them against the order invoices to make sure that everything had arrived, none of them were damaged and that they were all the correct models. Hilmi and Yigit kindly pitched in to help unpack everything and Christine and I spent the rest of the day going through the lists and sorting everything into boxes and containers by family and type. Here for example is one of three boxes of electrical system components that Hilmi will soon be installing throughout the boat. The majority of these are for our primary 24 Volt DC system which is what the whole boat is based upon. All our other electrical systems for 12V DC and 120V and 230V AC are built on top of our 24V 1350Ah House Battery Bank. This is one of three boxes full of the components for our Maretron monitoring and N2K system you saw being installed above. This box just has some of the N2K cables and the other boxes were filled with sensors and all the Black Box combiners. Sorting through the many, many meters of Dyneema and rigging. As with the anchor decision, we have used Dyneema line on our previous boats with great success so we have gone with all Dyneema for pretty much every line on the boat from Lifelines to Tender Lift tackle lines and Paravane rigging.
I will be showing you much more of the details of our use of Dyneema as we install these systems as well as all the other gear that arrived in this week’s shipment. And that’s the week that was March 9-15, 2020.
As you may have read in my previous post all about it, Christine and I landed back in Antalya late Sunday night returning from our long weekend trip to London for her birthday to find a very different world than the one at the start of this week. Upon landing we became willing members of the not so exclusive Self Isolation Club and our membership lasts through March 30th so we are not able to be back at Naval Yachts until then. However thanks to all the efforts of the rest of Team Möbius and all the photos Yigit, Yesim, Uğur and Hakan so kindly send me every day, I will be back shortly with next week’s XPM78-01 Progress Update so stay tuned!
Captain Christine, AKA my Beautiful Bride, completed her latest circumnavigation of the sun this past Sunday March 15th and as is our policy, we give experiences for gifts rather than “things” so we flew over to London for a few days as one of her experiential gifts was to fulfill a live long wish to see a play at one of London’s iconic theatres, the Apollo Victoria.
Wish granted.
Wish fulfilled!
Happy Birthday Baby! As usual in London, there are way too many great choices but I decided that Wicked at the Apollo Victoria would be the just right choice for my musical loving Captain and as her smile after the experience seems to indicate that I guessed correct. It was a great play and we both enjoyed it and the whole experience thoroughly. We flew over to London Gatwick on Thursday night so we had the whole day Friday before going to see Wicked at the Apollo and the Spring weather was fabulous so we took advantage and drove the whole SE coastline from Brighton to Whitstable just north of Canterbury. It was cool and windy but very sunny so perfect for a good Birthday drive. The ocean is like a magnet for both of us and it is constantly calling our names so we drove up around the SE corner to the little harbour town of Whitstable where I’d been once before and I treated my Birthday Girl to some of THE best Fish and Chips at Wee Willie Winkles. Why drive all the way around the SE corner to the Canterbury area you ask?
Because that is were Mr. Gee, our Gardner 6LXB engine is from and we can’t be THAT close and not go for a visit to Gardner Marine now can we? Plus Christine had not been yet and of course there were a few “bits and bobs” I needed to pick up for Mr. Gee’s “born again” process.
In this photo I am talking with James who is an walking encyclopedia, as is everyone at Gardner Marine of both the history and the technical details of all things Gardner and he graciously let me pick his brain for several hours as we walked around the expanding Gardner Marine facilities. This is a picture from my first visit to Gardner Marine several years ago to meet Mr. Gee for the first time just after he had been taken out of a tugboat on the River Thames after almost 50 years of non-stop service. Michael Harrison who is the CEO of Gardner Marine spent the better part of that day with me to answer all my questions and take me through the finer points of the 6LXB engines. While we didn’t know it at the time it was a harbinger that was not able to meet with us this visit because he had just returned from a trip looking after some other Gardner engine installations in Spain and France so he was taking the precaution to self isolate himself at home until he could be tested. As we know now, we were all about to be in a similar situation.
Back to the present, James is taking me through just one of three of the side by side two story buildings which hold the treasure trove of “a few” Gardner engines of all ages and sizes as well as all their rebuilding equipment and eXtreme eXtensive spare parts inventory of Gardner Marine. They are about to expand into the fourth building next door as business continues to grow. Can you tell that I’m in one of my “Happy Places”???
My fellow gearheads will appreciate that places like this are akin to the Louvre for the works of art and engineering that Gardner Engines embody. Back to the Birthday Girl, we dashed back to London just in time to check into our lovely little AirBnB there and catch an Uber over to the Apollo Victoria to see Wicked.
Wow, Wee Willie Winkle Fish & Chips, Gardner Marine and Wicked at the Apollo all in the same day!?! Now you know why we call these “experiential adventures” and why we a life so densely packed with them. Next day we continued the adventure by taking advantage of being in London where one of our “god children” and most special people Kate now lives as she attends the London campus of Florida Sate University. While not sunny, the temps were Spring like and the lighting was outstanding for photos of beautiful women as you can see here. We spent the entire day, 22,000 steps Christine’s watch says, strolling throughout “Kate’s downtown London”. It might have been Christine’s birthday but I seemed to get much of the gifts such as chances for more hugs with the phenomenal and powerful women I am so fortunate to get to share this life with. London’s skyline may not be as high as some but it is a marvel to see such a mix of the new architecture ………. ….. and the old. But wait! There’s More!
While we had to fly back to Antalya a day earlier than originally planned we were able to meet up with some very dear friends, Robin and Jayne and go see the new acreage they and their children have just acquired out in the rural countryside not far from Gatwick airport.
This was on Sunday which was Christine’s actual Birthday and Robin’s is next week so we treated the both Birthday Babies to a fabulous Pub Lunch at a nearby 15th century pub. What could be more fittingly delicious and British than roast Beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy with such good friends?
The perfect end to Christine’s 2020 B’day experiential adventure. Or so we thought ……………………….
Turns out that the adventure continued into the next day as our flights from both Gatwick to Istanbul and connecting flight to Antalya were both delayed and we didn’t get home until well after 3am on Monday. But it was GREAT as always come home to the welcoming party of Ruby and Barney. Particularly so in the the context of the current and rapidly evolving situation we all find ourselves in right now.
To Turkey’s credit everyone flying in from out of the country had to fill out new forms with all our personal info, flight and seat numbers and places visited so they can be aware of each person’s travel history. We were also all advised to “self isolate” ourselves at home and do as much “social distancing” as possible for the next 14 days. Naval Yachts to their credit as well has asked that we and any others who have recently traveled outside of Turkey self isolate themselves for the next 14 days.
Christine and I had decided to voluntarily join the new “self isolation Club” in any case so we will be staying home and won’t be going back to the shipyard for the next 14 days. While challenging and disappointing in the eXtreme, this was an easy decision to make as it is simply the smart and right thing to do right now. As my cousin who is also in a similar situation at her home in Qatar reminded me we are now members of a not very exclusive new Club!
As with the storms we encounter out sailing the world, Christine and I know that “this too shall pass” and we continue to count ourselves as most appreciative members of the “most fortunate people in the world Club”. We are both healthy and happy, we have each other and our friends and family and we see this as being the start of but our latest eXtraordinary adventures in this awemazing life we are so privileged to live.
I hope that all of you reading this are finding your own ways to be happy and healthy by doing whatever is best for you to get through this latest “storm”. As for me, I am grateful for this opportunity to be isolated with my best friend, partner, Captain, Bride and beautiful young lady. Could I be any more fortunate or appreciative? Me thinks NOT!!!
As this photo attests the weather here in Antalya the past few weeks has been spectacular and very Spring like. Last Sunday Christine and I took a break to go for a nice Sunday drive along what is apparently called the “Gulf of Antalya” which is a crescent shaped coastline that runs approximately East/West with the majority of the city of Antalya stretched in thin strip along this coastline for over 30km.
We were not the only ones out enjoying this sunny Sunday and one of the parks we walked through had lots of colourful kites for sale with grinning children at the ends of balls of string and their kites flying high above us.
I’m writing this a week later on another equally as brilliant of a sunny Sunday and hopefully I can get this posted in time to go out and enjoy it more.
The warmer and sunnier weather seems to have a Spring in the step of everyone else on Team Möbius as well and as a result there is lots of progress to show you so let’s get started.
ALUMINIUM TEAM
Uğur, Nihat and Okan had a very productive week applying their significant skills with aluminium to several projects and one of the most gratifying to see was the completion of the four Dorade Vent boxes on the Forepeak. The simple concept of Dorade Box Vents have been used on boats for a very long time as they provide a way to bring fresh air inside the boat in rainy weather or high seas while keeping all the water OUT side where it belongs.
The work this week was to mount the new Vetus Cowls on the AL Dorade Boxes, finish installing the shut off lids in the Standpipes and then weld the Dorade Boxes to the ForeDeck. You may recall previous posts showing the construction of the Dorade Boxes and here Nihat is creating the slots or “Scuppers” along the bottom edge that ensures any water that enters the Dorade Box flows out onto the deck and overboard. Uğur then takes over to mount the White/Red silicone Cowls to the tops of each Dorade Vent. The Cowls act as big air scoops to grab all the breezes blowing over the bow and direct them down into the Dorade Box and then down the Standpipe into the interior below.
Nice simple mounting system with these silicone Vetus cowls which use the Grey plastic threaded ring in the foreground which is bolted and sealed to the top of the Dorade Vent Box to provide the attachment for Grey threaded collar you see at the base of the Cowl.
A slight loosening of the collar allows the Cowl to be rotated to any angle you want or turned 180 degrees to face aft if there are larger waves bringing water onto the decks. Before welding the Dorade Boxes to the Foredeck, they needed to finish installing these threaded Standpipe Storm Lids. This drawing I created shows how these work by having a center threaded rod with a knob on the bottom you can turn by hand to lift or lower the round lid to open or completely seal off the Standpipe. The Standpipes and the internal radial support were welded in place several months ago and so this week they worked on building these Lid assemblies. For a bit of added sealing, there is a groove cut half way through the thick Black rubber gasket. We applied our KISS approach and just used double SS nuts with Loctite to attach the AL Lids and Knobs to the threaded SS rods rather than welding them just in case they ever needed to be removed. This is the end result with the Lid fully raised to let in the maximum amount of fresh air. Or fully closed and sealed off. The vast majority of the time we will leave these Lids fully open and only close them when heading into eXtremely severe seas when there might be the possibility of waves breaking over the bow and overwhelming the Dorade Boxes draining capacity. The Vetus Cowls have the option to be fully removed and replaced with solid discs that would seal them off but this would still leave the Standpipes open so we took the “belts & suspenders” approach and added these adjustable lids to enable us to fully seal off these vents.
Looking up inside one of the Standpipes from inside the Master Cabin you can see it is easy to reach up and turn the knob. This ability to close these Standpipes while you are INSIDE the boat was a big safety factor in our decision to go to the time and expense of adding this additional shut off capability. As with so many aspects of building the boat, all the time goes into the preparation leading up to the final installation so after several months of working on the various parts of these Dorade Boxes, Nihat and Uğur can at last weld them to the deck. A quick hit with the brass wire wheel cleans up the welds and work surfaces and the Dorade Boxes are all done. We’ll leave the Cowls off until we Launch to keep them out of the way as work continues on the ForeDeck and Bow areas. We used the same system of fully sealable lids on all the vent pipes coming into the interior in other places such as this plate which bolts to the ceiling above the Main Helm area. There is a large box or air plenum behind the Red slots in the Pilot House Roof overhang you see here This plate, standing on its end here, then bolts to the ceiling to form the bottom surface with these five vent pipes to direct fresh air into the Main Helm area. Work on Vent Boxes continued with Uğur and Nihat welding up these side covers which bolt in place on the inside vertical surfaces of …… ……. the two Extraction Air Wing Boxes on either side of the very Aft end of the Pilot House on the Aft Deck. You can see one off to the Right of the spiral staircase and the other on the far Left. The Vertical Milling machine made quick work of cutting all the slots and holes in these eXtraction vent cover plates and then ….. Uğur welded these boxes to the inside. A large axial fan will bolt to the top surface you see on top here and when turned on this fan pulls air out of the extraction pipes inside the Wing Box which run into the Corridor, and Guest Head/Bathroom below. Switching from venting to wiring, Uğur and Nihat also installed the penetrations through the Engine Room Enclosure walls for electrical cables to run through. The two in the upper Right in the photo above and center here, are for the AC wiring for lights and switches inside the ER. Once the wiring is all run these will be filled with special watertight caulking to keep the ER and the Workshop fully separated and WT. Diagonally opposite on the ER they welded in this similar penetration down on the aft Stbd/Right corner of the ER where all the high amp DC cables from the two 250A @ 28V alternators and carry up to 14kW over to the DC distribution box that will be mounted up above the Workbench on the Stbd/Right side of the hull walls. Finishing up with AL work for this week; Okan put the finishing touches to the hinged rack that will soon hold three of our 300Wp solar panels on the front roof area of the Pilot House. More on that once we start mounting the solar panels. Uğur welded the plates for the Paravane rigging winches to the bottom of the hinged Arch.
ELECTRICAL WORK:
Most of Hilmi’s work this week was not very visible as he raced ahead of the interior installation teams to put in the wiring for things like the 120V, 220V, 12V and 24V receptacles spread throughout the boat.
But this quick peek into the Aft Electrical Distribution box off the Corridor by the Guest Cabin will give you an idea of what he has been up to. Hilmi has also been spending more and more time in the Workshop as he wires up the various system components which are mounted there.
This is the control box for the Watermaker Which is off to the Right here and some of the other AC & DC wires and cables leading to the area on the Left where the Workshop Distribution panel will mount.
PLUMBING:
Speaking of the Watermaker, Cihan was busy this past week doing more of the plumbing for it such as the foil covered high pressure lines you see here running from the Watermaker up to the four membranes on the ceiling. On the far Right side of the WM, near the WT door from the Swim Platform, Cihan has now got most of the plumbing in place for the Webasto BlueCool AirCon unit which has been moved out of the way for now.
To Red accumulator tank and the Supply/Return lines for the sea water cooling lines are in place and ready to be connected to the Chiller unit. Always a good sign for me to see that little red hose in the background as that’s where Cihan will attach an air line to pressurize and test the plumbing for leaks. And more good signs as we see the soapy solution being applied to the joints to see if there are any leaks. The system is left pressured overnight to see if it all holds, which it did. The IsoTherm Calorifier or Hot Water tank has most of its plumbing in place; Safety Valve bottom Right, Mixing Valve for In-Floor Heating lower Left, Mixing Valve for DHW upper Left. Two more lines bringing hot water to/from the Gardner and the Kabola diesel boiler still to be added to the White capped off fittings. Both pumps for the Domestic Water pressure fully plumbed and covered in protective bubble wrap.
MASTER HEAD & SHOWER:
Transitioning from Plumbing to Heads & Showers, the Composite Team has been busy glassing in the Master Head on the far Right and Shower on the Left. They use flat sheets they make in house for the large flat areas on the walls and then build molds for things like this corner box section that makes the transition from the walls to the ceiling. Rectangular cut outs on the Right are where the large 2 mirrored door Medicine Cabinet will be mounted and provide access to systems behind the wall.
Areas such as this Shower Seat are first laid up in molds in the Composite Shop and then brought onboard to be glued in place with resin. Faruk on the Left and Osama are extremely skilled at this and everything fits just right. Once they have the pieces affixed they start taping up the joints in preparation for filling them in.
Now they are busy building the molds for the large floor and ceiling pans and you should see those next week.
MASTER CABIN:
This wider shot helps to show how things are shaping up in the Master Cabin with the Shower in the center area and the Head behind it. Wardrobes and bureau of drawers lining the Stbd/Right hull and the wall beside our bed on the far Left here.
Şevki and Selim are now staring to put the Port/Left hull wall back together And prepping the ceiling with mounting blocks for …. the ceiling grids. Weight reduction cut outs marked ….. and cut out…… …… and attached. More excitement as some of the removable wall panels emerge from the Upholstery Shop!
SUPER SALON:
The SuperSalon has been rather vacant of late with most of the cabinetry over in the Finishing Shop to be varnished. This is looking aft towards where the Galley will be in the Aft Left corner, stairs up to the WT door in/out of the SuperSalon from the Aft Deck, double Fridges go in the cabinet on the far Right and open hatch into the Basement in the bottom Right corner. But the tide is turning and finished cabinets are starting to flow onboard with their lustrous varnished surfaces all aglow. Double opposing door Fridges in the background and double drawer style Freezers in the Foreground. We, well OK me, is a bit maniacal about eXtremely well insulated Fridge and Freezer boxes so even though our Vitrifrigo units come with the latest and greatest insulation from the factory we are adding at least 50mm/2” more rigid foam insulation around all sides and the backs of all four units and 100mm/4” on the bottoms.
Omur has the Freezer cabinet upside down to put in the insulation in the bottom area before he mounts this to the floor in the background which has another 50mm/2” of insulation. Up front the Main Helm has been getting its own insulation, this time for acoustics. Header for the door into the Master Cabin is now fitted. As are details such as this transition piece where the upper rear corner of the Fridge cabinet meets up with the big thick SuperSalon glass windows.
Black conduit carries solar panel cables down from atop the SkyBridge roof to the Basement. Over in the Cabinetry Shop, Omur is also routing out the openings for the hidden hinges such as the one you can see on the far Right here. Laid down on its side for Omur to work on, this is the Galley Garage that sits atop the marble countertop. These are small versions of the hidden hinges we are using on the full size interior doors you saw last week and these smaller ones ensure the Galley Countertop Garage doors all open smooth as silk at a touch of your finger on the solid mechanical latches.
GUEST CABIN & SHIPS OFFICE:
Lots of work on ceilings this week and Okan is bringing the freshly epoxy coated ceiling grids for the Guest Cabin and Ship’s Office aboard.
Once the ceiling grids are in place in the Guest Cabin he won’t be able to do this so Okan is taking advantage of the last chance to pass the large ceiling grid panels down through what will soon be the Galley countertops. Sure enough, a couple of hours later the ceiling grid is in place in the Guest Cabin below and no more access from up above here. Omer, Muhammed and Okan soon have the ceiling grids all securely fastened and leveled in the Guest Cabin. Omer is meticulous and detailed so he is going around and sealing any small areas between the ceiling grid and the mounts to the AL frames above and making sure they are fully insulated so there is no thermal transfer. Next up, Omer turns his attention to installing the Ro$ewood door frame to the Guest Shower. The floor in the Showers are raised to provide enough room for well sloped drains and the In-Floor heating PEX tubing so ….. …….. the bottom door sill is higher than the other doors. Once all the parts of the door frame fit, they are glued in place. Hakan is conferring with Omer on some details with the Shower drains and you can see what a masterful job Omer has done with all the matching grain patterns which flow across all parts of the door frame. The door itself will be plate glass for added light and openness in the Shower and when walking in/out of the Guest Cabin on the far Left.
FINISHING SHOP:
Let’s go upstairs to the Finishing Shop for a peek at what our Polyurethane wizards are up to;
We can’t let the Rosewood steal the show every week and these Beech shelves are more than up to that task.
Looks like a wizard of a different kind in the middle here? What do you see? The Beech you can see on the inside of this Galley cupboard alongside the stairs up to the Aft Deck, has to my happy eyes, a beautiful contrast with the darker tones of the Rosewood and then also matches up nicely with the Blonde islands that naturally emerge within the Rosewood in many areas. More of that creative contrast on display within this section of the Galley Countertop Garages. Even though this back panel that the 50” SmarTV mounts to, setting on its side here, will rarely be seen by most it will bring great joy to my heart every time I see it and just knowing it is there. This will soon be the top surface of the double Freezer cabinet but right now it is huddling in the back of the Finishing Shop with its brothers and sisters waiting to be carefully wrapped in bubble wrap while they await their final trip onto Möbius.
Mr. GEE our Gardner 6LXB Single Engine
I was able to get away from all my other boat building duties a bit more this week and all day yesterday (Sat) and got some time to move Mr. Gee further along.
This is a special cylinder honing tool I have had great success with in the past and I’m using it here to put the final just right 45 degree cross hatch pattern on all the cylinder walls.
If you look closely you can just make out the thin line where the new dry cylinder liner has been pressed into the cylinder black casting. After pressing them in place they are precisely machine bored to original factory diameter which enables the block to be returned to same as new condition. This cross hatching s a critical detail that ensures that not all the oil is scraped off by the piston rings on each stroke so that there is just the right amount of lubrication to reduce the friction and wear. The process goes relatively quickly and I soon have all six cylinders in good as new condition. Next I turned my attention to the major cast aluminium components such as the massive crankcase in the foreground, the cast ribbed oil pan in the far Right background and several smaller cast covers on the Left.
All these parts had all been sandblasted several months ago and I gave them a light coat of primer so I now gave all surfaces a thorough wet sanding to get them ready for final coat of primer. I taped off all the openings and hung up the two big AL castings that form the flywheel housing on the aft end of the Gardner.
I am using a special ultra high temperature primer that is good for up to 600 degree C/1112 F which is WAY hotter than needed but works well to stick to the aluminium which is notoriously difficult. A few hours later ……. once the fan had cleaned out the air …… …… you wouldn’t know that these castings have been in service for almost 50 years and they were all ready for their final colour coating to bring them to better than new condition.
Stay tuned, much more of Mr. Gee’s renovation to come in the following weeks.
NEW ARRIVALS:
Ending as we have been doing with the New Arrivals here at Naval Yachts things were much slower than the past few weeks but no less exciting for me as this load of thick wall 150mm / 6” OD AL pipe arrived.
Any guesses what this will soon become? Will it help you to show you that this is eXtremely robust pipe?
I’ll have much more details to show you in the coming weeks but this is for building the Davit system for bringing our Tender on/off the Aft Deck once Yigit has it fully developed in Rhino. Until then these quick renderings, thanks to Yigit, will have to tide you over.
And that’s what’s all of us on Team Möbius have been up to this first week of March 2020 over here at Naval Yachts in Antalya.
We REALLY appreciate you coming along with us on this adventure and please add any and all comments, suggestions and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
We’ll start this week’s tour up in the Master Cabin so you can see our very own Stairway to Heaven, aka the SuperSalon, now that the team has fit the Rosewood stair risers and first layer of the treads.
Here’s the view from the top of these stairs with the arm of the Settee in the lower Right corner and the roughed in Header over the doorway and under the windowsill on the Right.
Back down inside the Master Cabin on top of the bed, Şevki is getting ready to fit this overhead AirCon and heating plenum.
Which he now has propped up in place here.
Here’s a peek behind the wall at a section of the ducting. With all the wall panels being snapped in place with FastMount clips it is easy to access this and all other areas behind walls and ceilings which makes future maintenance and repair SO much easier.
With their lids removed to show inside the cabinets on the Port side of the Master Bed you can now see the Air Handler all setup inside the aft cabinet. 
It is a 12k BTU Webasto BlueCool air handler that can have either Chilled or Hot water sent to its heat exchanger and serve as either an Air Conditioner in the tropics or hot air system in cooler climates. We will use the In-Floor heating mostly though for colder situations but great to have this option whenever a quick warm up is needed.
Looking up above the bed area, the rough ceiling panels have been snapped into their FastMount clips.
Looking through what will the the etched glass corner walls of the Master Shower in the foreground here, this will give you a better overview of the bed on the Left, stairs up to the storage cupboard and Air Handler in the bottom Right and then some of the Leather covered wall panels snapped in place with the slotted ceiling vent box up in the corner.
As you can see, Faruk and Osma have also been making good progress and doing beautiful work as they finish putting in the fully sealed interior of all the walls, floor and ceiling of the Master Head & Shower.
The sink will sit atop the bottom end of the countertop on the Left here that runs the full length of the wall back alongside the Head/toilet which sets atop that black ring flange on the raised platform in the rear.
The fully glassed framing for the Medicine Cabinet awaits its turn to be installed on the wall in front of the two rectangular access ports you see in the photos above and will have two mirrored doors with shelves inside for the usual toiletry supplies.
We are looking forward at the Port/Left corner of the SuperSalon where the Main Helm stretches from side to side at the front. 
This triangular area on the Port side of the Main Helm will have a Black leather covered hinged top providing access to this deep and voluminous area underneath which is created by the dropped ceiling box above the Bed in the Master Cabin below.
There is a matching triangular spot on the opposite side that is a bit less deep with the doorway into the Master Cabin below it but still has lots of volume for storing paper charts, electronic devices, etc..
There will be a sloped dashboard in the center Main Helm area seen here with two 19” daylight readable touch screens just below the window.
Our Blue Horizon Line BHL continues to be installed throughout the interior.
Such as here on the front Port corner that Omur is working on.
These are the window sills being fitted on the opposite Starboard side of the Main Helm and behind the Settee.
More BHL going across the Main Helm.
Well, an eXtremely great Main Helm needs and eXtremely great Helm Chair right?
You may remember seeing these fabulous Llebroc Helm Chairs when Captain Christine was unboxing them when they first arrived about a month ago. She was also checking out the colour match between the chair’s ultra leather and the test strip of the Blue Horizon Line.
With the chair in the right fore/aft position it was then carefully centered so Uğur, with his head just visible at the bottom here, along with Yigit, carefully marked the position of the bolt hole pattern in chair’s adjustable pedestal base. 
This is the Helm Chair that will be in the upper SkyBridge Helm hence the slightly different Blue colour. 
The pedestals have 18” of vertical air lift adjustment and the bases can be swiveled 360 degrees and can slide about 200mm / 8” foreword and aft to give you just the right position.
Leaving the SuperSalon with this overall perspective from back in the Galley area you can see how this is all shaping up very nicely.
One of the other New Arrivals you may recall seeing last month is our shiny new and eXtremely powerful Maxwell VWC 4000 Windlass.
Before mounting, the Gypsy which Mesut on the Left has in hand, needs to be installed with the friction clutches. 
The Gypsy needs to be ordered separately to be an exact match with the specific size and type of anchor chain on each boat so I had previously double checked that our 13mm / 1/2” DIN766 G4 chain matched up with the Gypsy Maxwell had sent and it fit like a glove.
Next task was to position the Windlass in just the right spot on on the Anchor Deck. The AL deck plate all along the anchor chain’s path from the Anchor roller assembly to aft end of the Anchor Deck was cut from 15mm / 5/8” thick AL as part of the original cut files and along with some additional stringers below to provide an eXtremely strong base to mount the Windlass to and to deal with the tremendous forces it can sometimes take on.
Seen from the opposite direction looking forward this is where the Windlass will mount. 
Prior to all this Yigit updated the 3D model of the bow area and the Windlass so he could precisely locate the mounting base in the just right spot. 
While they were working up on the Bow Anchor Deck, Uğur and Nihat also worked on mounting the Lewmar EST65 EVO winch. Last week you they had built this eXtremely strong platform for this winch out of the same 15mm thick plate and now they have drilled the holes in the plate where the mounting studs go through to the motor assembly below.
The upper Left frame is the Mist Eliminator or Moisture Eliminator as they are sometimes referred, for the Supply Air going into the Engine Room duct below.
We are using Mist Eliminators to remove most of the salt water droplets in the air and also control the ingress of any sea water that might possibly make it up to this height in severely big seas. This set of carefully calculated vanes causes liquid drops or streams to be removed and drained out the bottom leaving the air to flow through.
This is what the Mist Eliminator mechanism looks like on the inside of the Vent Box with the rectangular AL duct running all the way down to almost floor level in the Engine Room. This helps to create natural passive ventilation of the ER by bringing the cold outside air down to the bottom and then extracting the warmer air out the ceiling on the opposite side.
They also installed the Mist Eliminator on this spot in front of the SkyBridge where all the fresh air is funneled under the hinged frame of the three front solar panels you’ve seen being installed a few weeks ago.
The Vent Box on the other Stbd side of the Aft Deck is where the air is extracted from the ER, Workshop and Guest Cabin. This compartment is for the Engine Room air extraction. The thin AL frame on the Left has large axial fan inside and the larger galvanized box on the Right holds the Fire Damper.
These automatically controlled Fire Dampers perform the critical safety function of closing off their louvered vanes to help starve an Engine Room fire of oxygen by preventing air from being able to flow into the ER.
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