A very full work week here in Antalya Turkey at Naval Yachts with no holidays this week but a BIG four day holiday weekend coming up next week. Weather continues to be sunny and summery with daytime temps in the 34-38C / 93-100F but humidity seems lower on what is now our third summer here and with a beautiful big pool right outside our front door we are enjoying the weather AND the progress on XPM78-01 Möbius. So let’s jump right into this week’s Show & Tell so you can see for yourself.
SuperSalon In-Floor Heating PEX Installed:
One of the last big jobs on the ToDo list for the SuperSalon which is to install all the loops of PEX tubing for the In-Floor heating system. The Master and Guest Cabins already have all their PEX lines installed to the SuperSalon was the last on the list and this week’s first Beast to be transformed into a Beauty.
Being central to the whole boat, the SuperSalon area gets the most about of daily traffic so we waited till now to take on this job as it requires removing all the marine plywood flooring in order to get at the rigid foam underneath and cut all the U-shaped channels for the 15mm PEX tubing to snap into. Not too much of a Beauty just yet, but watch ….. Knowing they would all need to be removed, Omur and Selim had just put in a few screws when they installed all the plywood flooring so it didn’t take Omur too long to remove all the plywood. Before he left to go serve his military time, Yigit and I created these layout drawings for the circuitous routing of the continuous 15mm / 5/8” PEX tubing. It takes a bit of planning to ensure the radiant heat is being distributed in the right amounts for each different part of the Helm, Galley, Lounge, Dinette and Entryway and maintain the 120mm/4.7” minimum bending radius. Omur transferred the layout to the foam and quickly cut all the U-shaped grooves in the foam with a small handheld router. Next step also goes quickly which is to press aluminium foil tape to line the inside of the grooves to help reflect the heat upwards into the plywood and eventually out the finished vinyl flooring. Like this. The area in the foreground is where our two reclining Eames lounge chairs will go so the PEX tubes are places a bit closer together for slightly more heat in this area on colder Antarctic nights.
Hmmmm, so Wayne, that would be compared to all the WARM Antarctic nights?? Here is the PEX layout in the Galley with the Red PEX tubes now press fitted into their foil lined grooves and ready for their plywood floors to be reinstalled. Looking to Port/Left side of the boat where the two large Refrigerators sit you can see where the PEX tubes enter and leave the SuperSalon. Where the PEX tubes pass under this cabinet they are additionally insulated with slip on EPDM sleeves and then the space of the drawer above further ensures that no heat travels upwards to the bottom of the eXtremely well insulated Vitrifrigo fridge box. Behind the Fridge cabinet the PEX tubes make a large radius bend down through the AL penetration in the floor at the top of this photo, where they go down into the Basement and connect to their circulation pump on the In-Floor heating manifold.
Next week the support brackets for these two PEX tubes will be added and the EPDM insulation tubes will slip over each tube from where they enter this area behind the Fridge Cabinet at the bottom of this photo. Hakan lent a hand to Omur and they soon had all the 12mm / 1/2” plywood screwed securely to the White epoxy covered foundations.
The darker square in the upper Right floor area is the solid foundation for mounting the Main Helm Chair pedestal.
Feels great to see the SuperSalon reach this new degree of completion.
Still very much like me “a diamond in the rough” but to my eyes at least the multi coloured “Beast” that you saw in the first photo above has definately been transformed from Beast to Beauty and there are more to show you later as well. Not to to give away too much, here is a sneak peek at a few planks of the 5mm thick click-lock that we are using for the finish flooring throughout XPM78-01 Möbius.
This vinyl plank flooring is made by the huge Turkish flooring company Ado and you can see a sample HERE.
This flooring is used in places such airports and other high traffic areas so it is eXtremely durable and 100% waterproof. We have also tested it for a Goldilocks just right about of wood grain like texture to make it very non-slip even with wet feet and it is specifically made for In-Floor heating.
Here in the Guest Head/Bathroom is the first plank of flooring to be cut and will give you a bit better sense of the nice contrast between the dark swirling grain of the Rosewood and the subtle Silver Gray “grain” of the Ado vinyl flooring.
Stay tuned for much more about this vinyl flooring as they starting installing it throughout Möbius.
The overall SuperSalon is getting more and more Super and more and more complete. A bit difficult to see through their blue tinted plastic covering the Black and White leather clad Ceiling panels are all back from the Upholstery Shop and have been snapped into their FastMount clips which really adds to the finished look in here.
Hilmi and Selim finish putting in the crimped on connectors for all the LED lights in the Ceiling Panels. Down the staircase in the Corridor Omur has started installing the drawers and doors in my long “clean room” workbench & office. Lots more Blum hardware of course which you have already heard me gushing about how well they work with their soft open/close and fully hidden features which I REALLY like. As you can see with the drawer sitting on top of my workbench, these drawers are quite shallow due to the steeply sloping hull sides behind the wall grid so the Blum drawer slides in the cardboard box are short but full extension models and you can see how these drawer slides mount completely out of sight on the bottoms of the drawers. Upstairs and just back from Sinan in the Upholstery Shop are these Window Mullion Covers so Omur has been busy getting them installed.
FastMount clips require a bit too much depth here so we are using strips of 3M Dual Lock tape which are very thin snap together strips that hold things together with no slippage.
This relatively new dual lock style fastener works similar to but MUCH better than the older “hook & loop” or Velcro. It has 4-10 times the gripping power and it has two other differences that are the big deal to me. The first is that that I never have much success getting the old cloth based hook & loop/Velcro to stay attached to the surface it is mounted on. Dual Lock is all plastic so its self-adhesive backing or the adhesive you apply keeps it there all the time.
Second bit difference for me is that Dual Lock uses tiny plastic “mushrooms” which interlock as per this illustration so there is no slippage or “wiggle” and unlike Velcro, both sides are the same so any piece can mate with any other piece. ACCESS to all systems, wiring, plumbing is a top priority for me and in several of these Window Pillars we are using the space inside the thick aluminium I-frames as a wire chase so I needed these leather Window Mullions to be solidly attached and yet still easy to remove. Dual Lock is the Goldilocks solution and I had Omur also use it to hold down the Rosewood Window Sills here as well. Pardon all the construction clutter but this shot will give you an idea of how the Black and White Mullions finish off the windows quite nicely. More finished work happening here in the Aft Starboard corner of the SuperSalon and the staircase down to the Corridor leading to the Guest Cabin and Workshop. Ömür’s grain matching handiwork prominently on display here where the three doors are now mounted into this wall. The top two doors are Fast Mounted so they snap In/Out on the rare occasions when I need access to the hoses exiting the Fuel Fill & Vent boxes behind them. Whereas the door on the bottom is hinged as this is Christine’s “Internet Alcove” where several of our internet related items will reside such as routers, hubs, switches, access points, etc. Similarly great to see examples of things starting to be finished are these Ro$ewood panels up at the Main Helm Station of the SuperSalon. Our 50” monitor mounts on the hinged panel on the Left here and the panel below the Main Helm itself is a snap In/Out panel to provide access to the hundreds of wires behind it.
And yet another Beauty emerges.
Galley Goodness!
More of Ömür’s grain matching goodness on display in the Galley as he starts mounting the fronts on all the drawers in the Galley Cabinetry. Good example here of the “diversity” theme we are pursuing throughout the boat and here evidenced by the diversity of drawer shapes and sizes. The only door in the Galley cabinets is this one on the Right which provides easy access to both the voluminous cupboard spaces inside as well as access to the systems, hoses and cables behind these cabinets. Not quite done but definately getting closer and closer and yet another Beauty in the making. Up next?
Installing these bits of SS jewelry aka positive Door & Drawer latches.
Taming the Electrical Beast:
Main Helm Panels
With an overall electrical system that includes 12V & 24V DC, 120V and 220V AC, more than 200 circuit breakers and uncountable miles of wires and cables of ever imaginable size, we certainly could have created a true Electrical Best onboard XPM78-01 Möbius. Happily though, we are transforming this Beast into a Beauty with great organization, installation, labeling and routing. Let’s go check out some recent examples of this electrical transmogrification.
Starting up here at the Main Helm in “Beast Mode” are some of the cables coming up from the Basement below through two aluminium penetrations in the floor behind the rectangular opening below the Helm Station. The Beast rears its ugly head again nearby with this pile of coils of wires destined to the switch panels in the angled wall to the Right of the Main Helm. For those unfamiliar with such dragons, it might appear that the situation is getting worse not better as this Medusa like tangle of Red & Black wires now appears out of the jungle as Hilmi and Selim strip away the outer insulation from these 24V switch wires. Rather than a whip and a chair, Selim’s taming tools of choice here are adhesive lined heat shrink and a heat gun which he uses to both seal and strengthen the mounting location of each cable where they will be zip tied to their holders as well as having their heat shrink labels firmly attached. Not fully domesticated yet, but the tamed beauty begins to shine through here as these wires await their turn to be connected to their respective switches on the Rosewood panel that snaps into place here. And more organization emerges down below as these cables are routed and zip tied to their cable trays below the Main Helm. Ahhhh, that’s better! Not quite finished of course but if you compare this shot to the ones at the beginning I think you too will see that the beast is indeed being tamed.
Corridor Electrical Panel
Back in the Aft Stairwell at the Corridor Electrical Panel these may all be DIN certified circuit breakers but as you can see they too are more Medusa like monsters laying in wait of an innocent little Sparkie to come along. Taming this Beast requires a slightly different set of weapons such as this hinged metal frame. Omur joins forces with Selim and Hilmi and mounts the hinged steel frame, inside the tall cabinet he has previously built and installed on the Right side as you descend the Aft Stairwell leading down the the Corridor, Guest Cabin and WT Door into the Workshop. Hilmi takes his crack at the taming and has these three DIN Rails with 36 of the 24V DC Circuit Breakers. With the cage, errrr I mean door, closed the front side shows a much tamer side. Reopening the door, things are definately being put under strict control as Hilmi starts connecting each of the Red & Black wires from the Circuit Breakers in the door to their respective Gray DIN Junction Blocks that you may recall seeing him wire a few weeks ago. Peeking up under the bottoms of these Circuit Breakers reveals a very well tamed collection of these 24V wires now all labelled and neatly tucked into their horizontal running Gray chases with their removable tops now snapped in place. Doing my part to assist with the taming of these Electrical Beasts I’ve created coloured and labeled lists of each circuit onboard Möbius and printed this one with the 24V CB’s ……. …….. for Hilmi to use and check off as he methodically tames and wires each circuit. Continuing to calm the Beast, Hilmi soon has the lower horizontal DIN Rail full of 12 Volt Circuit Breakers, mounted, wired, labelled and tucked into bed.
Down at the bottom he has now installed the three vertical DIN Rails. Two on the Right hold 36 of the 220 Volt CB’s and the one on the Left has 18 of the 120 Volt CB’s. Definately MUCH tamer panel now! A numbered place for every AC wire up here and ………. ……… every wire numbered and placed. Same well tamed set of 120V and 220V AC Circuit Breakers. Still a bit Beast-like down here. But it doesn’t take Hilmi too long to have these whipped into shape as well and the Beauty emerges here ……… ……. here …………………. .……. here …………………. …… and here.
Well done Hilmi, Selim and Omur, you have definately transformed the Electrical Beast into a thing of Beauty.
Workshop Distribution Box
Ahhh but aboard Möbius the job of the Electrical Beast Tamers is still not done and so they take on the next challenge back on the Starboard/Right side of the Aft Workshop with yet another Medusa like mess of big cables surrounding the Aft DC Distribution Box. As usual it looks worse before it looks better but your eyes can now probably see the method to the madness here as Selim and Hilmi wrestle these Red, Black and Yellow 120 mm2 snakes into their allotted spots, cut them to length and label each one. With the big guys all labelled and fed through their WT cable glands the beauty of well organized and clearly labelled cables begins to emerge from the previous chaos. Breaking out some additional taming tools such as this hydraulic terminal swaging tool that crimps the outer barrel of each zinc coated copper terminal log so tightly around the hundreds of tiny copper strands of each 120 mm2 cable that they all fuse together to form a single solid copper joint. And so the taming trend continues down below as they start attaching each cable to their allocated position on the Upper Positive and Lower Negative Bus Bars. These Bus Bars are definitely up for the job being made from two solid Copper flat bars measuring 10mm thick X 40mm wide which are bolted together and attached to the frame of the box with ceramic insulators. For the Positive circuits where the Bus Bar is the source of their electrical energy, these beefy T-Class fuses are used for OCP, Over Current Protection of these cables. Like this. Down to one last Red/Positive 120 mm2 snake to tame.
We leave the final power connections disconnected for safety for now but the former Beast in the Workshop has now been fully converted into this Beauty. So our two Electrical Beast Tamers can close the door on this Aft DC Distribution Box and take a well deserved break.
Transforming Beasts in the Engine Room Too!
Everyone on Team Möbius is a very skilled Beast Tamer and that certainly includes the dynamic duo of Uğur and Nihat who wrestle daily with different Aluminium beasts. This week they took on the installing the 127mm / 5” OD aluminium pipes that carry the exhaust gasses out of the Halyard Combi Silencer/Separator out the Starboard side of the Engine Room enclosure wall and out through the Stbd side of the hull. This quick and dirty rendering sliding through the ER helps show the Halyard Combi up in the top Port/Left corner of the ER and how the 127mm rubber exhaust hose will snake its way down through the Stbd/Right side of the ER and then underneath the bottom of the Yellow Day Tank and out the side of the hull. Here’s my best attempt to show how this will be routed inside the Engine Room.
Brown line will be the 127mm / 5” rubber exhaust hose. And here is how it looks when peering down from the Aft Deck. As you can see from these photos this Halyard Combi really is a big fiberglass Beast! The first part of the taming of this Beast was to build a good solid shelf to hold it solidly in the right place. And this Beast has been tamed!
The Combi separates the wet exhaust gas & water entering from the Gardner engine and the sea water runs directly out the large pipe in the bottom and into the large angled pipe you can see here on the Exiting Sea Chest. Exhaust gasses exit out the down angled pipe at the top of the Combi where the 127mm exhaust hose will carry it over to the wall of the Engine Room Enclosure on the opposite Right side.
To get that nasty exhaust gas beast out, Nihat and Uğur have welded this 127mm AL pipe through the ER wall just above the Intake Sea Chest. On the other side of the ER wall that 127mm pipe on the Left exits just below the bottom of the Day Tank above. Note too that they have already moved on to the next part of the taming which involves the matching 127mm AL pipe going out through the hull plates on the far Right here. And a better shot of the exiting Exhaust Pipe here. Which looks like this from the outside. Close up shot from the outside. For reference, I marked the position of the Waterline on the hull at three different loads. The upper WL will never likely happen as this is just for our computer based roll testing when every tank on the boat is fully filled. The “Avg Load” WL is when we start a passage and have all Fuel tanks Full and about 10% in the Water tanks. The bottom “Light Load” WL will be typical of End Passage when the reverse is true; Fuel tanks are down to about 10% for safety and Water tanks are Full to help make up for the loss of Fuel weight.
For those interested, here is where those same three Waterlines come to on the aft Transom. Back in the ER, Nihat cleaned up the Engine Bed extensions that Uğur welded in last week. These Engine Beds need to be perfectly flat and level so they are ready to receive the anti-vibration motor mounts or “engine feet” where Mr. Gee will soon be attached! And while he was at it Nihat also transformed these Aft brackets where the anti-vibration mounts for the Nogva CPP Gearbox will be bolted. On less Beast, one more Beauty aboard XPM78-01 Möbius!
Plumbing Beauties Too!
Cihan’s plumbing skills are in very high demand on several boats still but when he was able to he too tamed several other Medusa like Beasts on Möbius. First up was putting in this horizontal tray across the front wall of the ER and then transforming all these snakey hoses into a well organised assembly firmly attached to the ER WT Bulkhead. He routed some of these hoses over to the Port/Left side wall of the ER. so he can connect them to this Piccolo like exit manifold he had built last week.and attached to the Exiting Sea Chest in the forward Port/Left corner of the ER.
Large upward angled pipe on the Sea Chest is where the water from the Halyard Combi exits out of the boat. Clear hoses from some of the Aft Bilge pumps now all connected. Soon followed by connecting these larger White hoses coming from the two High Water extraction intakes on either side of the center running Keel Bar and the bottom Left hose is from the sink in the Outdoor Galley above.
Another Beast is tamed and transformed into another Beauty on the Good Ship Möbius. Thanks Cihan!
Oh No! The Roof Came Down!
Not all “Beasts” are down below as Uğur proved when he slayed one up in the SkyBridge. He did a stellar job of taming a real nasty beast that had emerged where the frames for the glass “eyebrow” windows surround the coaming walls of the SkyBridge.
This particular beast has been laying in wait for several months now but Uğur was able to masterfully use his MIG welding gun to transform this into a true Beauty. He then continued to blast out the remaining removable posts that set atop the glass window frames where the removable acrylic windows will slide In/Out as needed. And then the REAL fun began when the roof came down!
You may have seen this before but if not, here is a quick little animation showing how the SkyBridge roof folds down into what we call “Canal/Hunkered Down Mode” where the Air Draft, distance above the WL is drastically reduced for going through Canals or “hunkering down” when we have the boat out of the water in a Hurricane/Cyclone zone.
Uğur is getting ready to mount the 8 Solar Panels up on top of the SkyBridge Roof faming and also start fabricating the “mini Radar Arch” where most of our many antennae, GPS, FLIR camera, etc. will be mounted and so having the roof lowered down would make it much easier to tame all these Beasts.
We will soon have a proper mechanical system that will enable just Christine and I to lower and raise the SkyBridge roof but for now we did it the quick and dirty way with a temporary line we belayed from the Sampson Post at the Bow and a couple of extra bodies. This is one of the temporary hinge arm braces that we put in to provide the forward hinge point of the roof. The Aft hinge is integral to the Roof and Arch. Works very well and literally only takes a few minutes. When finished the roof will rest on the framing surrounding the SkyBridge and hold itself up but for safety now we just put some temporary wood braces down to the Aft Deck. Here is how it looked in real time:
This is what it looks like when viewed from the Boat with the roof down.
Sure looks a lot smaller!
Standing on the Aft Deck looking forward down the Port/Left side you can see how the Arch rests in the hunkered down position. Also a good shot of approximately what the Port Paravane A-Frame will look like when deployed.
Looking Aft from the front area of the SkyBridge you can see how the roof rests on the Window Frames underneath. The eight rectangular frames of the roof will soon be filled with eight 340W Solar Panels. We have designed this so we can still control the boat from up in the now open air part of the SkyBridge when that is the best spot to be. Nihat took advantage of the roof being down to take on a quite literal Beast of a job; drilling out the big holes where the cables travel Up/Down to the overhead Arch for Radar and all the many other electronics up there. All these cables will be fully protected by this Hinge assembly when the Arch is raised and locked in its normal fully up position.
Mr. GEE’s Gets His Own Coat of Many Colours
Having taken on so many new responsibilities for XPM78-01 Möbius I once again didn’t get much time this week to give Mr. Gee more of the TLC he needs but I went in yesterday, Saturday here, and got in a full day with no interruptions and made some good progress transforming some of Mr. Gee’s Beasts into Beauties.
You may recall from last week that I wasn’t happy with the colour of the special heat paint that I had used on Mr. Gee’s cast iron parts such as the big cylinder block and the heads.
I wasn’t able to find any pre-mixed paint that matched the Burgundy colour I wanted to I got some Red and Blue epoxy do DIY the Goldilocks colour I wanted. After much experimentation I settled on a 10 parts Red to 1 Part Blue.
And mixed them together thoroughly to create my own batch of epoxy engine paint that was just right.
This is what Mr. Gee now looks like sporting his custom paint job. The colours don’t come out quite right in these photos so it looks more like chocolate than red wine here I think due to the coloration of the overhead work lights.
However when viewed in natural light he looks like the proper British gentleman he is and I’m quite pleased with the end result. I shot this gaggle of various parts that I will soon be bolting onto Mr. Gee. I did the painting earlier in the week so now that it was fully hardened I spent yesterday staring to fit the larger parts such as the upper cast aluminium Intake Manifold and the lower cast iron Exhaust Manifold. Added on the 90 degree Exhaust Elbow and the newly fabricated SS flex pipe that is where the rest of the SS Halyard dry stack pipes will be attached to carry the hot exhaust gasses over to the Halyard Combi we’ve seen being installed above. One final look for this week, looking from the front down the Stbd/Right side of Mr. Gee which will help you see the nice contrast between his Burgundy cast iron parts and all his other cast aluminium parts.
One more Beauty that will soon be onboard XPM78-01 Möbius and moves us one step closer to Launch! Whew! Another full, busy and productive week here with Team Möbius. hope you enjoyed this latest Show & Tell and PLEASE be sure to tell ME what you think by putting your comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
We were down to another shortened week as Wednesday was “Democracy and National Unity day” here in Turkey and a shortened work crew as both of the other two boats sharing the shipyard with us that are about to be finished and launched still have the emphasis on the first word “about” so many Team Möbius members have been called away to work on them. Fortunately though, less work days and less workers did not mean there was anything less to show you this week.
First let me tell you that we will soon have an all new and very thorough video walkthrough of XPM78-01 Möbius! We have heard all your many requests for this and so on Wednesday while everyone else took the day off for the big holiday, Christine and I took advantage of the rare lack of noise with no one working in the shipyard and spent most of the day shooting lots of video which Christine has now begun to edit into a series of video segments walking through each area on the boat and where it is at as of July 15th, 2020. Our timing was perfect as we had several international visitors who wanted to spend a few hours getting an in-depth tour of Möbius on Tuesday so Team Möbius had spent several hours getting her all cleaned up and presentable so seemed like the perfect opportunity for a video shoot. So please stay tuned for that.
We finished by mid afternoon on a picture perfect summers day and decided on our bike ride home from the yard to make a lengthy detour along the beach bike trail to take a much needed break and enjoy the day. There is an excellent bike path all along the many miles of beach that stretches along the Mediterranean coast on our far west end of Antalya so we rode for over 10km to check it all out.
At this more eastern end of our ride in the photo above, some of the local kids are using this big rock to enjoy the big jump into the Med.
Turning to look back West to where we work and live at the far end of this photo, you can see that the people here in Antalya are doing quite well at keeping their distance while still enjoying the sea side. We stopped on our way back to enjoy a glass of wine and some food at that little outdoor spot you can see in the middle of this photo which really topped off our day.
For this week’s update I’m going to group things by location onboard Möbius rather than trade areas as I think that might make more sense to all of you though it isn’t too much of a change. Let me know in your comments if this or any other way of stringing together these weekly Show & Tell Progress Updates is your favorite and works best for you and I’ll do my best to comply.
First though, allow me a slight diversion to begin;
Designing and building a boat can sometimes feel like a version of the figure of speech “Death by a Thousand Cuts” or more accurately “Death by a Thousand Decisions” and it is not lost on me that this was originally a nasty form of torture known as Lingchi. However, I use this here merely as a figure of speech which is no where near as dire as the original torture of course though it may feel so from time to time. As any of you who have experience designing or building boats before or other large complex projects would know, there is a lot of truth contained within this description:
“…. a figure of speech that refers to a failure that occurs as a result of many small problems. Death by a thousand cuts could refer to the termination of a proposed deal as a result of several small issues rather than one major one. This term could also apply to a product or idea that is destroyed by too many minor changes.”
Our every day is indeed filled with a seemingly unending list of decisions both big and small that need to be made throughout the course of the day and they almost all weave through an intricate spiders web of intersecting and often conflicting series of other decisions required tom come up with the best compromise to fit us, our use case and our boat. In the end it IS and will be all worth it as this is also all part and parcel of designing and building a great Goldilocks “just right, just for us” boat so no complaints from either Captain Christine or myself, just sharing some reflections on the process with you and trying to “keep it real”.
On a bit more whimsical note, as I sat down just now to write up this week’s Progress Update on XPM78-01 Möbius which as you shall soon see included cutting some very large holes in our boat (again!) for transducers and exhaust, I was also reminded of two songs I remember singing with my children and now grandchildren; “There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea” and “There’s a Hole in My Bucket dear Liza” and hence this week’s title.
In addition to their reference to holes, both of these songs also contain very relevant references such as how the Hole in the Bottom of the Sea is a song which get’s harder and harder with each verse and in the case of the Hole in the Bucket how each fix that Liza comes up as poor Henry tries to fix the hole, they end up right back where they started, with a hole in their bucket.
Hmmmm, why does that sound so oddly familiar?!!!
OK, hope you enjoyed that my momentary childish diversion, now back to this week’s Show & Tell on the progress of Team Möbius here at Naval Yachts.
BELOW the WATERLINE:
I’ll begin with the work that Uğur and Nihat did this week to install the two depth transducers in the bottom of the hull.
Depth transducers are the electronic sounders that protrude through the bottom of the hull and send out sonar like signals to “ping” the bottom of the sea below to determine the depth. We have two of these on Möbius, both mounted on the Port/Left side of the hull, one Fore and one Aft. This one on the Left is a Furuno/Airmar 520-5PSD which connects to our Furuno BBDS1 Bottom Discriminating Black Box. The BBDS is of note because it not only provides the depth below, it also generates graphics for us such as this one. I could perhaps best describe this as “a depth sounder on steroids” because in addition to the very important depth of the bottom below us, the Bottom Discrimination component also provides us with the shape and makeup of the bottom itself.
This information is enormously valuable to us for anchoring for example as the makeup of the bottom from rock to sand to mud to grass makes a significant difference as to how our 125Kg/275Lb Rocna anchor will set, amount of scope or length for our 13mm chain and helps us find the Goldilocks spot to “drop the hook”.
Depth below us is so important that we have two transducers, one at the bow one aft and this one on the Left is our Furuno/Airmar UDST800 transducer and BB. While not on quite the same dosage of steroids as the Aft mounted BBDS1 above, the UDST800 provides us with a triplet of eXtremely accurate data: Depth, Speed & Temperature and does so with no moving parts using some Ultrasonic technology. The boat “speed through the water” component is of particular note in this relatively new UDST800 model as there are no moving parts and it updates the data outputs 10 times per second and automatically adjusts for different speed/temp/depth conditions.
Ultrasonic Speed is measured by sending out two beams one in front of the other and then measuring the time it takes for particles in the water to travel between the two beams.
If you’re interested in a bit more detail, HERE is a short video from Airmar on how the UDST800 works and mounts. In the past and on most boats still, this is what a Speed/Depth/Temp transducer looked like and that little paddle wheel on the Right measures speed by how fast the water rushing past spins it; simple and it works fine. Until it doesn’t. As you’d imagine or know if you’re a boat owner, these paddlewheels are very tiny and light so it doesn’t take much buildup of sea organisms, algae, etc. to slow them down and soon stop them. Hence, not very accurate and quite a PITA to keep working.
The UDST800 transducer is mounted in a very handy little plastic housing you can see here which is inserted through a rather large 50mm/2” diameter HOLE in the hull. Very simple and safe system though once you have the plastic outer housing properly sealed into the hull. We’ve had these kinds of mounting housing in previous boats and they have a very handy feature where you can pull the transducer out of the housing and quickly push a blank plug in its stead while you work on or replace the transducer itself.
We also like that the UDST800 is fully N2K compliant so all its data is easy to T into our N2K system and then have all this data flowing throughout the boat to any monitor, phone, tablet etc. that we wish
OK, sorry for that long diversion into how these transducers work but I know some of you find this all as interesting as we do and they make the Page Down button for to quickly skip over things right?
Last week Uğur had made up this solid aluminium fairing block for the Black BBDS1 transducer in my hands here and he soon had it all welded onto the hull with a double “bottom/top” for the smaller hole where the threaded stem of the 520-5PSD transducer goes through the hull into the Engine Room bilge below about the midpoint of Mr. Gee the Gardner 6LXBB engine.
We chose this spot on the hull as it a point near the aft end that is close to flat and parallel to the waterline and is afforded some protection by the nearby keel from debris and the bottom in a grounding. This week Uğur worked on installing the UDST800 up near the bow. Using a plasma cutter, which literally cuts through even this 15mm/ 5/8” thick AL plate like butter, he is able to cut the elongated hole shape that I’d laid out in the 3D model. Peering in through this hole you can see that I’ve chosen a location that is just above one of the longitudinal stringers which run the full length of the hull and just in front of the WT bulkhead plate. Here is the view from inside the Forepeak looking down through one of the access ports in the floor/tank top to point out the hole Uğur has just cut. I chose this location as it is inside of an otherwise unused “Void” in the matrix of integral tanks in the hull for an added bit of safety. This way, even if the transducer housing were to hit some rocks or coral or perhaps a submerged container at speed, the most that could happen would be the flooding of this one relatively small tank.
Scratching your head wondering how in the heck we are going to be able to mount that plastic housing when there is so much Deadrise (slope) on the hull at this point?
Well here is your answer.
Uğur has quickly fabricated this housing out of a short length of thick walled 127mm / 5” OD AL pipe and welded on a 15mm/ 5/8” thick bottom plate. Using a 50mm hole saw he quickly has the hole for the plastic mounting housing to fit through like this. With plenty of room for my hand to reach in and tighten up the plastic threaded nut that sandwiches the plastic housing between two rubber gaskets and some sealant. Uğur had previously trimmed up the hole in the hull so that this pipe fit just right when it is fully vertical. Using the laser level to ensure the bottom surface is parallel to the waterline the AL housing is soon fully welded into the outside of the hull. And the inside.
We will feed the N2K cable from the transducer up through a hole in the tank top using a WT wire gland to seal the cable penetration. It is quite busy up in this section of the Bow with the Bow Thruster tube and fairing as well as the exiting Sea Chest tube. One of those thousands of decisions that need to be made I think this is the best location that gives this transducer housing enough protective height above the thick Keel Bar on the very bottom and far enough below the turbulence from Bow Thruster Tube. Air bubbles are the “enemy” for depth transducers as they interfere with the sonar pulses being sent and received so we will also fair this AL pipe into the hull using lots of epoxy filler to create a smooth and gentle transition for the water entry and exit.
FOREPEAK:
Uğur and Nihat also knocked off one other small job up in the Forepeak by fabricating and bolting in these 10mm / 3/8” thick AL flat bars to support both sides of the angled and very heavy 24V motor on the Vetus Bow Thruster.
For those wondering, the Blue “Tork” is one of the 12 solenoid valves for controlling the high water evacuation system.
WORKSHOP:
Moving Aft into the Starboard/Right side of the Workshop work continues on multiple systems here.
The large Red/Black cables are being readied for the installation of the Aft DC Distribution Box.
The Fuel Manifolds have been unbolted and folded down on the Workbench to have their end plugs installed, little Blue and White Mr. MiniMe R2D2 Alfa Laval MOB303 fuel centrifuge is hiding in the background awaiting his fuel connections.
The Maretron Black Boxes up in the ceiling soffit corner are collecting all their copper wires from the various sensors for tank levels, temperature, etc..
Nihat and Uğur took advantage of having the fuel manifolds out of the way to cut, fit and bolt on the AlucoBond panels that protect the long runs of cable and hoses along the upper hull sides above the Workbench that expose them to harmful tools and debris in the Workshop. Being a sandwich of two thin AL outer sheets with a composite interior, the AlucoBond is easy to work with standard carbide wood tools so they soon have the whole Stbd/Right side upper wall all sheeted. The attaching SS screws have round SS Caps that thread onto them to make for a snag free surface and a very finished look.
The large AL frame is where the big DC Distribution will soon be mounted. The AlucoBond panels have cut-outs where the fuel hoses come in and out and all these edges will be capped by sturdy U shaped rubber molding to prevent chafing or wear over time.
Mr. GEE:
Being short staffed I’m busier than ever so I didn’t get as much time as I would have liked to work on Mr. Gee but some progress was made none the less. I got the new motor mounts which Uğur fabricated last week all painted and fitted. I’m holding up the original Gardner front engine mount to show the difference and you can see that I have also fitted the new anti-vibration foot or mount on the new mounting bracket. Same Old vs New shot for you on the opposite Left Front. The additional 15mm plate extending back from the mounting bracket on this side is where I will soon be mounting the Jabsco sea water impeller pump that keeps the cool sea water flowing through the various heat exchangers and the wet exhaust system. I spent most of the day yesterday, Saturday here, coming up with what is in my opinion the Goldilocks colour for Mr. Gee’s cast iron parts. I wasn’t happy with the colour of the original new paint I had for this, it was too dull and reminiscent of primer red to my eyes and just not up to Gardner standards or mine. So the hunt for the just right Goldilocks colour began many months ago and finally culminated in another of the thousands of decisions yesterday. I found this photo from a fellow Gardner restorer and immediately knew THIS was that just right look so and this is the burgundy red colour I am doing my best to replicate. After much searching I gave up on trying to find the rich Burgundy colour in a pre-mixed RAL code paint so I bought some RAL1037 Red and some RAL1011 Royal Blue and set up my own Dr. Jekyll & Hyde colour missing lab in my Workshop. Many hours and and test grids later, checking these colour ratio sample boards in all different light conditions and after several colour consulting calls via WhatsApp with Captain Christine , Mr. Gee decided that a mix of 10 parts 1037 Red to 1 part 1011 Royal Blue was the Goldilocks colour for him. With strains of Macbeth’s Witches chanting ‘Double double toil and trouble/Fire burn and cauldron bubble’ I mixed up this larger batch of 10:1 Red/Blue and testing more samples in sunlight and interior light and think I have it just right. I spent the rest of the day getting Mr. Gee all masked off and prepped and will start shooting his regal new colour scheme next week so stay tuned to see what you think.
MASTER CABIN:
Moving back aboard Möbius and up forward into the Master Cabin the interior is shaping up very nicely. All the removable ceiling panels are back from Sinan in the Upholstery Shop and have been snapped in place. Latest ones to go in are the ceiling panel and shelf above the Bureau of Drawers that runs down the mid Starboard side. The upper four drawers have all been fitted with their Blum undermounted soft close sliders and the four shallower bottom storage areas have been fitted with their pull down doors. Forward of the Bureau of Drawers the upper and lower cupboards are being completed with their Rosewood doors below the BHL Handhold and soon the Green/Gray leather covered upper doors will be mounted.
Bosch Washing machine has been set in place ready for its connections and door. Front and center of the Master Cabin the Vanity sink has been temporarily fitted and the drawers below below and cabinet above have their drawers and door installed. Immediately to the Left of the Vanity sink, this matching Vigo glass sink has also been fitted along with its stylish faucet. The stark White surfaces will soon be subdued as they are highlighted by colours from the sink, backsplash tiles, shower tower, mirrors and especially when the two large glass corner walls are set in place with their artistic marine scenes etched in them. Looking Aft the Master Bed Platform is nearing completion just needing one more drawer front and the stairs leading out and up to the SuperSalon are also nearing completion. The solid Rosewood nosing on each Stair Tread/Rider corner are now in place and were covered up before I could get a shot of them so we will have to wait for a few weeks to get the full effect once the finish vinyl flooring is in place and the protective layers are removed. But up at the top of these stairs looking at the Starboard hull I was able to snap this photo of the finished arm of the Settee on the Right, the recessed alcove in the center where the 43” monitor will mounted and the angled wall on the Left that is part of the Main Helm Station at the front of the SuperSalon.
MAIN HELM:
Yusuf was very pleased to be able to bring the switch panel he had designed onboard to be fitted into the angled wall on the Right side of the Helm Station. You can see the bottom of this switch panel in the phot above. And here is a closer view that makes the purpose of each switch easy to read.
SUPER SALON:
Sticking with stairs and the SuperSalon Omur has been busy working single handedly working on both. Here he is fitting the solid Rosewood Nosings on the stairs leading down from the WT Entryway Door on the Aft Deck into the SuperSalon. He soon has them all attached and clamped down. Closer view of how the nosing and Zig-Zag side molding all come together.
Yet more examples of those thousands of decisions needing to be made. Including this nice bit of Rosewood detail at the top stair and inside landing. Up above, Omur worked at getting all the FastMount clips threaded into the wood of the Black Ceiling Grid above and the 10mm plywood panels of each panel and snapping them in place as soon as Sinan brought them over from the Upholstery Shop.
Wires are all in place ready for the LED lights to be connected and snapped in place. And we now have the Ceiling in the SuperSalon fully covered with Black leather covered ones above the Main Helm area at the front ……. …. and White leather covered panels all the way Aft over the Galley and Stairwells. Last bit of interior details for the SuperSalon this week are these Window Mullion covers which I find here in the Upholstery Shop as Sinan covers all of them with Black and White leather. He soon as these all covered and wrapped in protective plastic before he takes them over to Omur aboard Möbius for him to add the snap in place fittings and set all these in place overtop each AL I-beam Window Post. And here is some of the end result with these four front Window Posts now all covered in their removable Black Window Mullion covers.
GALLEY:
No rest for poor Omur as he also worked with Hilmi and Cihan to install the Bosch vented induction cooktop in the Galley. Cihan and the boys in the Composite Shop whipped up this tricky duct to make the transition from the rectangular output vent on the Cooktop Vent to the round ducting hose. And Cihan soon had those two parts glued together to form this single venting elbow and transition duct which can now be attached to the back side of the cooktop and be connected to the flexible duct hose. Like this!
Bosch does an impressive job on the details of the installation of their products and this induction cooktop is a good example. There is a very slick set of spring loaded clamps on a rack that you install along the sides of the cut out for the cooktop and then these match up with clips on the underside of the cooktop and it snaps into place with a good strong push on the glass surface above.
The center vent is equally well made and detailed. This upper unit is cast aluminium which lifts out to reveal the two removable and dishwasher safe grease filters below.
The underside of the cooktop has very good access to the vent squirrel cage fan and electrical connections.
And here is what the Induction Cooktop looks like when fully installed. With the cooktop installed the matching Bosch Speed Oven make its maiden voyage onto Möbius and test fit into its new home below. More on its installation next week. Last example of one of those thousands of decisions arrived this week with these three crates of the SS positive drawer and door latches we decided upon.
Every door and drawer on a boat requires a very sturdy and mechanical positive latch to keep them closed under all conditions including when they have very heavy contents inside and we are in big seas and storms. Most boats seem to have standardized on the spring loaded round push to pop out/in style which I have developed a particularly strong dislike for. They work but they have a “cheap” feel feel and look to my eyes and the whole pushing in/popping out routine drives me nuts.
SOooooooooo, after MUCH research and some help by one of our followers here, we tracked down the manufacturer of these solid SS beauties and ordered them direct.
These have nicely rounded corners on the external levers that set atop the surface at a slight “just right” angle for your finger to lift and release the spring loaded latch from the SS latch plate inside the door/drawer. Nothing to catch your clothes or you on as you walk by.
Minor detail to most, big deal to me and I couldn’t be happier to see these arrive. Look forward to showing them to you as they are installed in the coming weeks.
MAIN HELM ELECTRICAL PANEL:
Hilmi was his usual busy self aboard Möbius most days this week and he is justifiably pleased to show me the Electrical Panel that just arrived. There are two of these Electrical Panels which are filled with all the double pole-single throw Circuit breakers for each AC and DC circuit on the boat. This is the smaller of the two and is located in that angled wall you’ve been seeing on the Right side of the Main Helm station. This is the larger panel which mounts on the right side as you are going down the Aft Stairwell leading to the Guest Cabin and Workshop. These are made locally at a small business inside the Free Zone that specialises in making these multi part electrical panels. Hilmi has lifted up the outer panel here to show the banks of DIN rail mounted Circuit Breakers which are mounted to the Black frames below. The next day, Hilmi has the Black frame of the smaller front panel mounted to the angled Main Helm wall. There is a piano hinge on the Left side so the Black rack can be easily swung out to access the wires and CB’s behind. I had previously drawn up the schematics and positions for each CB which Yusuf sent over to the Panel Building company next door and they could therefore assemble each bank of CB’s on their individual DIN rails and pre-wire each CB and attach the Gray rectangular conduit that you’ve seen Hilmi using when he was wiring the inside of each electrical cabinet. My hand will provides some sense of size and scale of these banks of Schneider Circuit Breakers. As with all circuits on XPM78-01 Möbius , each one is numbered and labelled so this information was also sent over to the Panel making shop so they could also attach these snap these numbered labels in place on each wire on each CB.
The green plastic fittings below each wire on each CB enable you to unlatch the double-pole double-throw CBs so each pole can be operated separately if desired. Each DIN rail can now be screwed to the pre-drilled positions on the hinged rack. And now the straight forward but time consuming task of connecting each Red & Black wire from the CB to the correct DIN connector block that Hilmi had previously installed and wired inside each Electrical Panel’s cabinetry. You can see some of those Gray DIN connector blocks in the back of the cabinet above Hilmi’s hands here and now the challenge is connecting the right CB to its awaiting connector block. The three vertical Gray wire chase ways really help keep things organised by housing all the individual Red & Black wires for each vertical stack and then letting Hilmi lead each set over the top to the hinged side of the rack where they will enter the cabinet and ….. ……… be lead down the side into the Gray chase ways Hilmi has previously attached to the back of the cabinet. Leaving a bit of extra length to allow for future moving of circuits, Hilmi works his way through the connection of each CB to its matching consumer. Red & Black wires on top coming from the columns of CB’s in the rack and the Blue/Red/Black wires exiting the bottom going to the consumers throughout the boat. It is a long and somewhat tedious process but Hilmi is accustomed to it and perseveres doing very high quality work throughout. Connections for the forward Electrical Panel nearing completion. Checking each numbered wire against the list and checking it twice. With the hinged panel filled with the three columns of CB’s I can now close the rack, ……. go grab the outer panel and ……….. ……… carefully set it in place to leave you with this shot of what the final Front CB Panel will look like.
Nice work Hilmi! Thanks. OK, it is late on a beautiful warm Sunday evening here in Antalya and I have not been out of this chair all day so I’m going to call it quits and go join my Captain Christine at the pool to cool off. Summer weather here has been fabulous, ranging daytime highs in the 32-36C range and cool enough most nights to sleep well with just a fan to keep the air moving. No complaints from me and I hope that wherever you are you and your family are staying safe, healthy and fit.
Thanks to those who make it to the end here, even if you fast forwarded to do so. It means a great deal to me and Christine to be able to share this whole experience and adventure with you and we really encourage you to add your comments, suggestions and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Naval Yachts is a beehive of activity this past week with a big push for launching two other boats in the shipyard. One particularly exciting one for Naval is the the first GreeNaval boat to be launched, their GN60 all aluminium 18m/60ft hybrid electric powerboat whose build began about three years ago just before Möbius. The second boat is a complete refit inside and out of an all steel 16m/54ft sailboat originally built in the 1980’s. Unfortunately this means that most of Team Möbius members have been called on to work on these two boats as they are both due to launch by the end of this month but hopefully they will return soon and progress can resume on our already long delayed launch.
However the remaining Team Möbius members are literally working overtime and weekends so progress on XPM78-01 Möbius is still being made so I have lots for this week’s Show & Tell progress update so let’s jump right into all that.
HOUSE BATTERIES:
Our Lead Sparkie aka Electrician Hilmi had Selim assisting him with pulling some more cables and wires such as these huge cables which connect the 24 FireFly Carbon Foam L15+ batteries to the Main DC Distribution Box seen here and where you may recall they left off last week. The overall House Battery system is shown here and consists of four individual “battery banks” formed by connecting six of the 4V @ 450Ah FireFly Carbon Foam batteries together in Series, Positive to Neg, which is abbreviated as 6S in electro-speak. And here is what 6S looks like in reality when six 4V @ 450Ah FireFly batteries are connected in Series.
* NOTE: If you look closely at this photo (click to enlarge) each of these FireFly L15+ batteries are actually TWO 2V cells inside of one case. This is a very smart way to do things because by simply changing how those black covered copper bars are connected, each cell can be either 2V @ 900Ah OR 4V @ 450Ah, your choice. We are choosing to configure each L15+ as you see here so I will always refer to each L15+ as a 4V @ 450Ah battery .
** TINY TECH TALK (feel free to skip over if not interested)
Series vs Parallel connections:
Each of these four 6S banks are subsequently connected in Parallel, Positive to Positive, Neg to Neg, abbreviated as 4P so the total House Battery is 6S4P:
6S = 4V x 6 = 24Volts @ 450Ah
6S4P = 4 x 450Ah = 1800Ah @ 24V
When connecting batteries in Series the VOLTS of each battery are added together while the amps stay the same so each 6S bank is
6 x 4V cells = 24V @ 450Ah.
As per the House Battery schematic above, the four 6S banks are then connected together in Parallel or 4P where the AMPS are now cumulative and the Volts stay the same so the total House Bank is abbreviated 6S4P and totals 4 x 450Ah = 1800Ah @ 24V. Volts x Amps = Watts so that equates to 43.2kW aka a LOT!
Protecting Wires vs Consumers:
Fuses and circuit breakers can be used for two very different purposes depending on WHERE in the circuit they are installed. if they are installed at the very beginning of the power SOURCE such as a battery or inverter, then they are protecting the WIRE from what is known as Overcurrent Protection. If the fuse is instead installed close to where the consumer or appliance is connected then they are protecting the Consumer/Appliance. It is possible to have one Fuse/Circuit breaker do both by installing it at the very beginning of the circuit aka power source but this means that the amps would need to be the SAME for both the total amps carried by the wire AND the total amps required by the consumer. Therefore this only works in the case where the whole circuit is serving just one individual consumer so that the amperage rating of the fuse matches both the limits for protecting the wire and protecting the consumer.
Putting all that theory into practice, let’s take a look at the case of fuses used for Overcurrent Protection of the batteries and their cables. In this photo you can see that Hilmi and Selim have installed these large T-class fuses directly to the Positive output of this 6S bank using a thick copper flat bar.
The batteries are the very beginning of the circuit so these fuses are being used for Overcurrent Protection of each Red 120mm2 / 5/0 AWG cable. If as is often done when wiring batteries, no fuse is used and the Red cable is connected direct to the Positive battery post then there would be NO protection of that cable as it makes it way from the battery to the Positive Bus Bar inside the Main DC Distribution Panel. With the potential of 24V @ 450Ah a short circuit on this positive battery cable would be VERY bad and a fire all but guaranteed. Hence we use Overcurrent Protection on all our wires and cables.
This adds a degree of expense and complexity but when Safety is involved all other factors take a back seat.
AFT DECK WINCH:
Back in the Workshop looking up at the ceiling right behind the end of the Engine Room Enclosure, we find another job that Hilmi and Selim completed this week by connecting the 24V power cables to the big Lewmar EVO65 winch up on the Aft Deck. This winch will get quite a workout as it is how we lift the Tender off and on the Aft Deck and we’ll cover that more in the coming weeks as the Davit Arch gets built.
As you can see, the motor and gearbox assembly tuck up nicely in this space which will be even more protected with the AlucoBond ceiling panels are put in place.
N2K NETWORK & MONITORING:
On the Starboard/Right side opposite the Winch Hilmi has mounted this Junction box to house some of the connections of the wiring in the Workshop for some of the 24V consumers such as the Maretron Black Boxes and Workshop lights.
Every wire labelled at both ends of course. Zooming out a bit to get the bigger picture you can see how this newest junction box sets nicely up in the boxed corners that wrap all the way around the perimeter of the Workshop and how well that beautify big overhead hatch brings in all the light and fresh air. The large rectangular AL bracket will soon have the DC Distribution Panel mounted to it and all those large Red/Black/Yellow/Green cables will go in their to connect up to the Positive and Neg bus bars, circuit breakers and fuses. Speaking of which, that DC Distribution Panel for the Workshop showed up this week so we now have all three of these Distribution Panels, two of which you’ve seen in previous weeks with one up in the Forepeak and the Main one down in the Basement. All the cable glands have been pre-installed for all those cables you saw in the photo above and keeps each cable both securely mounted with a waterproof connection. You will be seeing more of this panel as it gets mounted inside the Workshop and Hilmi starts connecting all the cables, wires, fuses and circuit breakers. Panning to the Left to this area above the Fuel Manifolds, these are some of the Maretron BB’s and one of the bluish multi-port N2K blocks on the far Right where the N2K backbone connects with the larger Blue cables such as the one visible on the far Right. The small white wires are coming from the various Maretron sensors for things like temperature, pressure, fuel flow, WIF Water in Fuel, etc..
TRANSDUCERS:
Making a nice transition from electrical to aluminium “hotworks”, I finished up the design for this fairing block for the Aft Depth and Bottom Discriminating sounder and Uğur transformed it to solid 30mm thick aluminium in literally minutes.
The Black plastic transducer I’m holding is a Furuno 520-5PSD Bottom Discriminating Sounder which connects to a dedicated Furuno BBDS1 Black Box and then sends the data and graphics like this out via Ethernet cable to our boat computers and the TimeZero navigation software. These sounders are most commonly used by commercial fishermen but having all this detailed information about the contours and materials below us is eXtremely valuable to us for checking out the best anchorage spots. While very powerful, these BD transducers are very sensitive so they need to be well protected where they are exposed on the bottom of our hull from debris and possible groundings. Strangely enough bubbles are the biggest “enemy” in terms of getting maximum performance from this and any depth transducer as they interrupt the pulsed sonar signals being sent and received by the transducer.
This boat-like shape helps accomplish all these tasks; protects the transducer and smooths out the water flowing over the bottom surface of the transducer.
Equally critical is having the bottom surface of the transducer being parallel with the waterline so that the sonar signals are pointing straight down so we tacked the front end to the place on the hull we had strategically chosen and then used the laser level to get the bottom surface eXactly parallel with the “ground”. Even though we had chosen a spot on the hull that was relatively flat there was still a good sized gap at the Aft end where the bottom plates start their sweeping curves up into the prop tunnel. However it only took Uğur minutes to quickly cut some small triangular shapes of 5mm AL plate to fill that gap and then start laying down the first passes of weld to make this all integral to the hull.
Uğur will lay down at least one more bead of weld and then we will grind the block to an even more hydrodynamic shape and finish it up with epoxy fairing putty when we are prepping the bottom for the epoxy primer preceding application of the silicone base InterSleek 1100SR Foul Release bottom paint we are going to use.
One additional detail we designed in for an extra bit of safety with anything that is a penetration of the hull is that I had Uğur weld in a matching boat shaped piece of 5mm thick plate to the top of this 30mm thick boat shaped block before he tacked the whole block to the hull where it touches on the far Left/Forward end. Click to enlarge this or any photo to see this 5mm plate and then the thicker 10mm hull plate above it.
Mr. Gee Mounting System
In last week’s Update I outlined the design I came up with for mounting the Gardner and the Nogva to the beds in the Engine room using large anti-vibration mounting “feet”. This week I finished up those design and construction drawings and Uğur got busy the brackets for Mr. Gee’s four “feet” and the two for his best buddy the Red Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox.
For the front Gardner mounts we need to extend or widen the inside of the Engine Beds a bit where the motor mount feet attach and for the Nogva feet we need to add an underhanging mounting bracket to the beds on both sides.
To help with your orientation in the real world, here is a shot standing up on the Aft Deck looking straight down into the Engine Room. The two long parallel Mounting Beds you see in the rendering above are what you see here running from top to bottom in this photo. Stern is at the top here so that is the Aft end of the Engine Room Enclosure at the top of this photo and out of sight at the bottom is the WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin on the other side. Two large transverse Frames # 18 & 19 rare what you see spanning across between the two beds. Inside the ER looking Aft I’ve been busy laying out the exact locations for the mounts. Getting the location of these engine and CPP mounts eXactly correct is eXtremely critical to the overall performance of the propulsion system so even though I’ve modeled every component very precisely in Fusion 360 3D modeler, I double, triple check all the numbers and geometry using independent hand sketches and pulling off real world measurements with tape measures, laser levels and machinist squares and then transferring this all to the aluminium with labels and lines on the masking tape I’ve put down along the beds.
The red flange halves up at the top are the zero reference or base plane that I have used for all my models and measurements as this 2 part flange is where the prop shaft connects to the output flange shaft of the Nogva CPP Gearbox. When it comes time to align these mating flanges we have to get them to be less than 0.002”/0.05mm. For reference a human hair is about 0.07mm in diameter so we don’t have much room for error when it comes time to align the Engine/Gearbox with the propeller flange.
Uğur has cut all the 25mm / 1” thick AL plates to size and prepped them for full penetration welds with the large 45 degree chamfers to form a deep V gulley for his MIG welding passes. I really enjoy working so closely with Uğur and with all the modeling, measuring and marking done and all the plates cut and prepped time now for Uğur to start tacking them in place.
For orientation, the Door into the ER in the upper Left corner and the angled walls of the ER point to the Stern which is on the far Left. The aft most mount for the Nogva Gearbox required this stringer be cut away where the mounting bracket plates will be and to provide enough room for the MIG gun to access. New stringer plate will be welded back in again after the mounts are all done. At the opposite front end, the supports for the bed extension required these slots be cut in the stringer under the 25mm thick Mounting Beds. With all the interfering stringers cut away and slotted, Uğur could start tacking in the mounting plates starting with this vertical brace for the Stbd/Right Nogva Gearbox undermount and get it perfectly lined up with the reference lines I’ve marked on the bed surfaces. He soon has both vertical braces tacked in place. and then tacks in the horizontal base mounting plate. My hand will give you a sense of size and scale. Mr. Gee weighs in as a svelte 1400kg/3100lbs and the Nogva CPP adds about another 250kg/550lbs so these mounts need to stand up to several decades of support for over 17-1800kg / 3750-4000lbs of vibrating propulsion goodness so I am over engineering these beyond even my usual eXtremes.
BTW, Mass is also a big help in reducing vibration and noise so there is that added benefit as well.
At the front end of the beds this Stbd/Right side bed extension is also now all tacked up and perfectly leveled ready for one last check with the laser level and straight edges before final welding begins. Soon all four mounts, none needed for the two in the middle, are all tacked up, checked and ready for welding. Front Bed eXtensions fully welded ready to be ground flat and flush. As are the rear two undermounts with the stringer plates now added back in. And here is a Birds-eye view looking down through the big ER Hatch on the Aft Deck. Meanwhile, one floor up in the “Fitting Room” in my Workshop, I’ve been busy getting Mr. Gee’s new mounting brackets which we finished building last week, all fitted and installed on Mr. Gee himself as we prep for the big day of lowering him into his new home in the ER onboard Möbius.
These are the Aft two mounts that sit in the middle of the ER Beds. The huge flywheel is also being prepped to mount to those six bolts on the end of the Crankshaft.
Seen from the front side and with the anti-vibration “feet” in place, this is what the finished Aft Mounts look like. Front Right mounting bracket and foot test fit and good for final torqueing. On the Front Left mounting bracket I have incorporated this extended base plate where I will soon be mounting the big Jabsco sea water impeller pump that provides all the cool seawater to flow through the heat exchangers for the engine coolant, engine oil and Nogva Gearbox oil before exiting out via the wet exhaust system and back into the seal. In the photo above, the PTO or Power Take Off drive can be seen on the far Left here and then viewed through the two holes in the vertical mount brackets. I’ll be making up a SS drive shaft that will attach to that PTO end and go through those two holes in the mount and then be attached to the shaft of the Jabsco pump. Should make for a very robust and reliable drive setup for this critical pump.
Mr. Gee’s FLYWHEEL;
Mr. Gee’s feet were not the only thing I’ve been massaging this week, I also finally made the time to finish prepping the purposely “obese” flywheel option that Michael at Gardner Marine Diesel kindly provided for us. This mass helps to further even out the legendary eXtreme smoothness of all low revving Gardner 6LXB engines and make Mr. Gee a real smooth operator to quote Sade Adu’s great song. Many months ago I had sent this flywheel out to the CNC Machine shop next door to have that recess with the 8 M-12 threaded holes machined and now I needed to remove these no longer needed bolts and bearings that are used for mounting a traditional Gardner gearbox. The outer circumference of the Flywheel also serves a critical function by having these precise marks that are used for setting the timing of the fuel injection pump. There are three sets of these precision marks and this one is for setting the injection timing of #1 cylinder. I have filled these stamped in marks with fluorescent Green paint to help make them easier to see through the timing window in the outer aluminium Flywheel bell housing. I sanded these areas down to leave the Green paint just filling up the letters and masked them off before spraying on the primer and topcoats. As always, all the time in painting comes from the prep work so after months of that it only took a few minutes to spray on the first coat of primer. Followed the next day by the final topcoat of aluminium paint.
A bit eXcessive for an item that will never see the light of day? Perhaps, but with our last boat having been all steel and Neil Young’s refrain of “Rust never sleeps” echoing in my head, I try to do anything I can to prevent rust happening ANYWHERE on my beloved new boat Möbius! Call me crazy if you like, you’d be in the majority, but I’m a very happy and rust free nutcase!
My anti-rust fetish had me take the time to sand blast the six anti-vibration feet so I could paint them while I had my spray gun out and the aluminium silicone paint mixed up, And shot them at the same time I was shooting the Flywheel so they are now all ready for installation. Final step was to insert this aluminium SAE14 Centamax 1600 drive plate into that recess I pointed out earlier and torque down the eight hardened M-12 bolts. When it is time to connect the Gardner to the Nogva Gearbox, this rubber flex drive which is bolted to the input shaft of the Nogva, will slide snugly into all those matching U shaped grooves in the AL drive plate that is now bolted to Mr. Gee’s Flywheel. This is one more very significant component helping to make Mr. Gee such an eXtremely smooooooooth operator.
This is Exhausting!
The last bit of TLC for Mr. Gee was getting these stainless steel flexible exhaust bellows machined and welded so we can start installing the Halyard exhaust system. These SS woven mesh connectors work really well by absorbing any vibration or movement between the Gardner engine and the dry stack SS pipes running up and over the Gardner on their way to the Halyard Combi Silencer/Separator.
The round SS flange faces up and this is where the first vertical dry stack Halyard pipe attaches. And the bottom square flange bolts to Mr. Gee’s exhaust manifold. You will be seeing much more of this once we start installing the Halyard exhaust system later this month.
Why Drop Your Drawers When You Can SLlllllliiiiiiiiide Them Instead?
We kept dancing to Sade’s Smooth Operator song throughout the week and that certainly included all the work that Omur and Selim were doing in the Main Cabin and the Galley.
Omur continued installing all the beautiful Rosewood drawers in the Master Bed Platform with their super smooth operating Blum drawer slides.
As you may notice, our Chippies aka Cabinetmakers, went a bit overboard last year when they started building the first drawers for XPM78-01 Möbius and made EVERY surface out of Ro$ewood so my pocketbook and I needed to reign them in a bit and use the very nicely contrasting Beech for the insides and undersides and unseeable surfaces of all the rest of the drawers and drawers they subsequently made.
But as you are seeing here in the Master Cabin, all the drawers in the King Bed Platform are Rosewood throughout. All the other drawers and doors in the Master Cabin and throughout the rest of the boat have this very lovely contrast of colour and grain between the dark swirling Rosewood and the honey coloured Beech. Thee upper four drawers in this Bureau of Drawers beside the Master Bed Platform show this well.
The upper four are slide out drawers whereas the bottom four where the hull curves in and makes them narrower have fold down doors. The outer faces will soon receive their Gray/Green leather covered fronts.
I covered these AbFab Blum bottom mounted drawer slides ad nauseum last week so I’ll leave you to go check that out if you’d like and just point out that this is a good shot at the underside of one of the Bureau drawers to show how these slides and their cushioned auto-close mounts work. and here is an interior shot of one of the sliders in one of the bed platform drawers. Looking rearward to the stairs leading up to the SuperSalon, these are the six drawers along the Starboard/Right side of the Master Bed Platform. And these are the five drawers on the forward facing end of the Bed Platform. Last 2 drawers in the Master Cabin are the two Omur in front of Omur located underneath the Vanity Sink at the very front end of this Cabin. Omur soon has both drawers all mounted as well s the door on the Medicine Cabinet above the sink. The Rosewood doors along that Starboard side open up into very large storage shelves with hanging lockers and the Washing Machine behind what will soon be mounted Green/Gray leather covered drawers above the BHL Handhold. Difficult to fit it all into one photo but this shot standing in front of the Vanity sink provides this perspective looking down those doors on the far Left and along the Bureau of Drawers and the Bed Platform on your way to the hanging locker on the Left just before you start up the stairs to the SuperSalon. Speaking of which this view looking straight down those stairs from the SuperSalon lets us see that Omur has also now installed all the solid Rosewood nosing on each of these stair treads. The solid Rosewood nosing and intake air grills for each of the stair treads came back from the Finishing Shop with their multiple coats of PU varnish all rubbed out to a beautiful matt sheen. Omur soon had these all fully installed and awaiting the installation of the final flooring which will be planks of click-lock high end vinyl.
MAIN HELM STATION:
Upstairs Omur and Selim continued to make good progress installing the Main Helm Station which we saw them begin the previous week. The hinged Dashboard is now back from the Upholstery Shop along with the mounting panel for the two 19” touch screens and the cut-outs for the switch panels are in the angled wall on the Right side of the Helm Chair. I was finally able to get a photo of Sinan our Mater Upholsterer standing beside the latest round of ceiling panels for Möbius as well as the three Black Leather covered Dashboard pieces. This is the basic layout that Captain Christine has come up with and is now in place. Kobelt Throttle/Pitch control levers bottom Right, Furuno Jog Lever to its Left and then the Gray cover is hiding the Furuno 711C AutoPilot Head.
Above the Jog Lever is the Maxwell Windlass Chain Up/Down switch with the round Kobelt Pitch Angle gauge to its Right and the ACR Pan/Tilt Searchlight control in the Upper Right corner. The empty hole beside is waiting to be filled by the Vetus Bow Thruster Joystick that has not yet arrived.
The hole on the far Left corner will have a smooth radius ring on it and will allow the Standard Horizon RAM4 VHF mic cord to coil up in the space below.
Vertically mounted on the Right wall is the Nogva Clutch & PTO control switches and the empty rectangular cut-outs will soon have the switch board mounted to control all the exterior flood/search lights and the High Water Bilge controls system. Up on top of the Right side angled wall, that Black Kobelt panel is the Kobelt control station to give control to either the Main or the Flybridge Helms OR give control to this Kobelt 7176 WalkAbout Controller which we are eXtremely eXcited to try out soon. This is a corded remote control which can plug into a receptacle here at the Main Helm or up in the SkyBridge Helm and the 10m/33ft cord then allows us to “walk about” almost from stem to stern with this remote. It is eXtremely multi-functional as the two levers on the sides control the Pitch of the prop and Throttle of the Gardner and then up on top we can control the rudder, the bow thruster and the CPP Clutch. With this in hand we can pretty much control the whole boat while standing anywhere on the boat from the very aft end of the Swim Platform to up on the Bow. In addition to giving you an overview of the whole front end of the SuperSalon and the Main Helm, all those wires hanging down from the ceiling indicate that Hilmi and Selim have been here putting in all the power cables for the LED lights overhead. Most of all though, Christine and I are already fantasizing about sitting in our super comfy Llebroc Helm Chair up here and gazing out through these 360 degrees of windows as we head out towards our next great destination.
Come on Team Möbius, we are counting on you to get us there ASAP!
SuperSalon gets Superer!
It is a hard area to photograph well but the “doghouse” overtop of the Entryway from the Aft Deck into the SuperSalon is shaping up very nicely thanks to Ömür’s hard work.
This shot is looking straight up while standing on the Entryway Stairs. Omur now has the very nicely done Rosewood Hatch liner installed and Sinan has finished the first of the intricate snap in White leather covered ceiling panels on the Right here. More to follow soon.
Here is a different perspective on that same area looking in through the Entryway door on the Aft Deck. The Black Corner Box running across the upper ceiling area will have a snap In/Out panel to give us access to the various electronic gadgets that will live inside.
The SkyBridge is on the other side of the far right side here and ……. …… if I now climb up to the SkyBridge you can see this same Hatch liner from up here and get better oriented. Walking a few steps forward in the SkyBridge and looking back at this same Hatch you can see where the SkyBridge Helm Chair will set in that space to the Left of the Hatch. We have oriented this Hatch lid like this to make it easy for us to pass things back and forth from the Galley and the SkyBridge and to make it easy for us to talk back and forth when we are in these two areas.
GALLEY:
Can you guess where these three little drawers are bound for? Well, I guess the heading of this section makes that easy to guess that they go HERE on the “peninsula” in the Galley that runs parallel with the walkway as you come down the stairs from the Entryway door.
One of the main themes Christine and I prioritized as we worked through the design of XPM78-01 Möbius is what we refer to as “Diversity” by which we mean having a lot of different options for different aspects and areas onboard. in the case of the Galley that means a lot of diversity of size and shapes of drawers and doors so have a look around and see how this design diversity is manifesting itself in the Galley.
BTW, the tall skinny area in the middle of this set of different sized drawers will also be a pull out “drawer” that has no sides and just a series of shelves to store things like spices and condiments and utensils that you can easily access from the side.
Drawer Diversity continues over here on this set of drawers on the Window side of the Galley countertops forward of the double sink. And yet more different sizes and shapes of drawers here on the other “peninsula” running along the back of the Dining Settee on the other side. A bit difficult to see through all the construction but you can see how all the Garages atop the Turquoise marble countertops are also different sizes and depths for yet more diversity of our storage. Our hope is that having all these different options will allow us to optimize all these storage areas and enable us to find the Goldilocks just right spot for everything we want to store in our Galley. Also eXciting for us to see the big double sink be permanently set into the marble countertop. And yes we heard all your questions and recommendations for a undermounted sink instead and we may well agree with you for the next boat, but we are very happy with this top mount and thing it will work well for us.
The large main faucet has a removable spray head with a very effective magnetic holder to keep it in place when not being used. The smaller faucet on the far Right is just for cold drinking water which comes from its own 150 Liter tank that is completely independent of all other water tanks for an extra bit of safety should it ever happen that all six of our integral water tanks should be somehow contaminated. Highly unlikely as they are all filled from our 150L / 40 USG per hour Delfin Watermaker, but just in case ………………
Whew! Even when shorthanded the rest of Team Möbius still makes great progress and we get closer and closer to Launch Date!
Oh, and one last bit or eXciting news, look what we just received!
Holy Pinocchio!
It is NOT a Fake News lie that XPM78-01 Möbius is now a “real boy” as she is fully and officially registered in Jersey and the British Ship Registry!
I realise that this might seem like “just a piece of paper” to many but to us this is such a big milestone that makes our dreamboat seem all the more real and tantalizingly close.
Thanks as always for joining us on this grand adventure and PLEASE add your questions, comments and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Till next week, same time, same Bat station this is your cub reporter Wayne and Christine’s Loving Owners Representative signing off.
It would seem appropriate to say that this week’s XPM78-01 Möbius Progress Update is brought to you by the letter I as in Independence. First, Christine and I want to send out our very best wishes to all our Canadian and American friends and family as they celebrate their respective July 1st Canada Day and July 4th Independence Day.
All the more so given these extraordinary and challenging times all countries are facing right now. Whatever your nationality, citizenship, residency or location right now we sincerely hope you are all finding ways to navigate this current storm and are staying strong, healthy and positive.
Thanks to Christine’s friend Victoria Allman for the fun Canadian fireworks flag image and to Tenor.com for the neat little GIF of the USA fireworks flag.
With each passing week, the progress that Team Möbius makes, while it never seems to go fast enough, does move us closer and closer to our very own Independence Day when Möbius splashes at last and we return at last to a life afloat and at sea which is THE best form of independence which Christine and I have ever known. Here at Naval Yachts, as June passed into July this past week, we saw a bit less progress than usual as several members of Team Möbius were pulled away to work on other boats in the shipyard. However progress was made in every area that did get worked on so we still have lots to show you and let’s get on with that now.
ELECTRICAL TEAM
Seems only appropriate to start of this week’s Progress Update with our very own “Sparkies” aka Electrical Team of Hilmi who is now has Selim working with him on wiring. Hilmi was one of the team who was called away to work on other boats this week but for the three days he was working on Möbius with the added bonus of having Selim’s able hands to assist, good progress was made.
. Down in the Basement here with the Main DC Distribution Panel which is continuing to fill up with cables large and small. The astute will notice eight large cables coming out of the sealed battery compartments in the foreground here through that large oval penetration which will eventually be fully filled with special sealant to make it completely waterproof
This week they have been working on the BIG cables at the very heart of our Battery Based boat; the House Battery Banks and the cables which connect the 24 FireFly L15+ 4V @ 450Ah to the bus bar and shunts in that Main DC Panel on the Left here. These Red/Positive and Black/Negative cables are eXtremely large at 120mm2 or “five aught” 5/0000 AWG size each which is about the size of a good sized thumb.
There are four individual 24 volt battery banks, each consisting of six 4 Volt @ 450Ah cells connected in Series, which is abbreviated as “6S”. Thus their voltages are all added together to create a 24V @ 450Ah battery bank and then these four banks are wired in Parallel so their Amp Hours are all combined to create an overall House Battery Bank of 24V @ 1800Ah or 43.2 kilo Watts.
Hence the big cables to carry all those amps with as little voltage loss as possible.
I’ve put together these two schematics for those interested in some of the details of the House Battery Bank setup and the overall Electrical System on the Left here. As per the reminder in this Victron Installation Guide for the three Victron BMV712 Smart Battery Monitors, it is very important that the lengths of each of the cables connecting the battery banks to the negative side shunt and the Positive Bus Bar be the same length. This is something I see missed on many boats and it creates problems over time as the voltage drop will be different if the cable lengths are different and this leads to battery imbalance which can shorten their lifespan. Last week, Selim & Hilmi connected all these battery cables to their respective terminals inside the Main DC Distribution Box as you can see here. 60mm x 20mm Positive Bus Bar running horizontally across the top and same size for the Negative Bus Bar on the bottom. High amperage T-Class fuses visible on the Positive Bus Bar, two Remote Battery Switches with their Yellow manual knobs visible in the background. Barely visible in the photo above on the bottom Right end of the Negative Bus Bar, they have also mocked up the layout for the three Shunts that provide all the data to the BMV712 Smart Battery Monitors that tracks volts, amps, battery temperature and uses this information to calculate SoC State of Charge, Amps In/Out, etc. The final installation will use properly sized copper bus bars for all the interconnections between the Shunts and the Negative Bus Bar.
With all the cables terminated on the Bus Bars, Hilmi & Selim have routed them down through that large oval penetration you can see in this and the photos above to take them inside the three WT battery compartments which are integral with the hull and sit on either side of the massive Keel Bar than runs like a spine from Bow to Stern.
This makes it easy for them to layout all six of these big cables to determine the length of the furthest connection/longest cable and then they can cut all of them to this same length. I laid out the tools of the trade here and those tiny little Red wire cutters make quick work of cutting these huge cables cleanly in one go. Then the Blue hydraulic swaging tool is used to crimp the copper lugs to the hundreds of strands of thin copper wires that make up each cable. With the lugs fully crimped on each one gets an additional layer of shrink wrapped insulation which is lined with adhesive that melts with the heat used to shrink each tube and creates a permanently sealed cable connection. There will be a T-Class fuse at each Positive Battery post so the Z shaped 30 x 5mm copper bars will attach to the battery post on one end and the fuse on the other and then the cable lug bolts to the other end of the fuse. Time ran out for this week so this is where the cables are now and next week I’ll show you what it looks like once all the cables and fuses are attached.
Once all the batteries are connected to the Main DC panel, a rather exciting milestone will be looming on the horizon; Möbius will have power! Moving back to the Aft end of the Workshop, they have also been working on the 24 volt power cables going to the two Accu-Steer HPU400 hydraulic steering pumps. These are very powerful continuous run pumps that can draw up to 60 amps so they require some very large power cables to bring a steady supply of those amps all the way from the DC Distribution box up by the Day Tank. Fairly straightforward job and Hilmi soon has it all buttoned up with the labels covered in clear heat-shrink which should help them last for decades. As those of you who have done any amount of electrical work on your home, car or boat can attest, it is SUCH a big help to have every wire fully and clearly labelled so this is a very important “little detail”.
PLUMBING:
Cihan our super industrious Plumber was also in high demand this week but he was able to get a lot done in the two days he was working on Möbius. Quite an exciting milestone as he was completing the installation of these two large Vetus Sea Water Strainers coming off of the big Intake Sea Chest in the front Starboard/Right corner of the Engine Room. The pipes coming out of the Sea Chest are all thick walled aluminium which have those two huge PVC Blue handled Ball Valves mounted with flanges in between them and their entry into the bottom of each Strainer. However, Cihan switched over to 316 Stainless for the outlets from the strainers which T into becoming the manifold. These SS Ball Valves in the foreground give you the reason for the switch to SS for the manifold so that the entire manifold is all 316 SS and there will be no problems with corrosion due to dissimilar metals. You can manage SS to AL joints with isolators and anti corrosion paste but using all SS makes for my favorite kind of maintenance: NONE! Cihan had our talented machinist Yunus machine the Stainless Steel flanges that bolt to the composite bodies of the Strainers and once he had them in position, Cihan could tack the SS pipes in place. Cihan works VERY quickly and I didn’t get back to the Engine Room in time to get a shot of all the SS nipples tacked to the body of the manifold but this is what they soon looked like when they were all fully welded in place and cleaned up.
These two large SS Ball Valves on the Left end of the manifold are for the Sea Water pump for the Gardner and our Fire Hose setup. These three smaller Ball Valves on the beginning end of the manifold supply sea water to the AirCon Chiller coolant pump, the Delfin Watermaker and the Aft Deck wash pump. Looking into the ER from the entrance door this is what the whole Intake Sea Chest, Strainers and Manifold system looks like.
Looking straight down into the Engine Room from up atop the Aft Deck this birds-eye view makes it easy to see the layout of the whole Engine Room.
If you are wondering what that big gaping space is in front of the Red bundled up Nogva CPP Servo box is, that is Mr. Gee’s soon-to-be new home!
Bottom of this photo is the forward WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin on the other side. Entry door into the ER just visible in the Upper Right corner and the Exit Sea Chest on the bottom Right. And for a bit more orientation this the view looking forward at that big Hatch in the Aft Deck looking down into the Engine Room. The ER Vent Box on the Left will double as one half of our Outdoor Galley and will have a SS sink set into its Turquoise marble countertop. There is a near identical Vent Box on the Right side of the Hatch hidden from view by the Hatch Lid and this one will have more marble counter with the electric grill/BBQ set into it.
Spiral staircase up to the SkyBridge visible in the upper Right corner and the WT Entryway Door into the SuperSalon is visible behind the Left/Port Vent Box with the Galley on your Right as you go down those stairs.
Almost starting to look like home!
GALLEY:
Speaking of Galley and looking like home, Captain Christine (and me too!) were excited to see this show up in the Galley this week. Christine is a researcher par excellence and she spent a LOT of time researching all the equipment for our Goldilocks Just Right, Just for Us Galley and settled on this awemazing “smart” induction cooktop by Bosch, complete with that built in extraction fan system in the middle. I will be able to show you more details as this gets installed but if you look closely inside that rectangular opening above my fingers (click to enlarge any photo) you can just make out a very large “squirrel cage” variable speed fan which pulls all the air and small children or pets, through the two large slots in the AL vent you see in the photo above. This connects to a large 150mm/6” round duct in the cabinetry behind the cooktop which channels the air up to this second extraction fan mounted inside the Lower Wing box just aft of the top corners of the Galley and SuperSalon and puts all the extracted air out onto the Aft Deck.
For even more air extraction power when needed, there are two of these large axial fans feed by the Rosewood grill you see here in the Soffit Ceiling panels at the Aft end corners of the SuperSalon which help keep the breezes flowing from front to rear of the SuperSalon. Below that extraction air grill Selim is finishing the Rosewood Nosings for the Entryway stairs. In addition to looking AbFab these Nosings provide the Goldilocks just right amount of a lip for your feet to sense and prevent any slipping. Additional Safety, one of our primary design principles for the XPM, comes from the indirect LED strip lighting that radiates from the underside of each nosing. Looking straight up above the Entryway Stairs, Omur has finished the slightly tricky installation of this Rosewood Hatch Liner. This Hatch sits to your Left when you are conning the boat from the Upper SkyBridge Helm station which is on the other side of the wall to the Right here.
The Black box is one of several alcoves for electronics. This one will house things like a network switch, an N2K multi-port block and other components which feed the Upper Helm Station. On the Galley side of these stairs there is a cavernous storage area which Selim is putting the finishing touches on here as he readies the Blum hinges for its door. Moving into the Galley itself, can you guess what these two Ro$ewood beauties are for? That was an easy one, they are two of the ten doors on the Galley countertop Garages. Omur is now fitting the recessed invisible hinges. I’ve used these type of hinges in many of my past cabinetmaking and jewellery boxes and they are the Goldilocks solution when you want an extremely rigid hinge that is completely hidden from view. Having done all the hard work of mortising the slots for these invisible hinges when he was first building these Garages, it only takes minutes for Omur to screw each hinge into their respective slots. Et Voila! Nothing but Rosewood, glass (soon) and marble, not a hinge to be seen.
MASTER CABIN:
Fortunately both Selim and Omur were working onboard Möbius the whole week so they made great progress on cabinetry throughout the boat so let’s go check out what they were working on in the Master Cabin.
Any guess why these boxes are eXciting for me to see arrive? Yup! Fresh off the plane from Austria, these are all the undermount drawer slides for all the many drawers we have on Möbius. Like the hinges you saw above these full extension drawer slides have zero sag even when drawers filled with heavy items are pulled all the way out. They also become invisible once they are installed as they mount on the underside of the drawers. These slides also have Blum’s “Servo Drive” which push them into your fingers with an initial push and then soft close when you push and let go. Being that our home is very “mobile” we will also have positive mechanically locking latches on every drawer and door but these Blum slides also use these nifty locks to keep all the drawers securely closed.
OK OK, so I’ll stop obsessing but trust me, you’ll be impressed too when you try out Blum hardware. More beautiful Blum goodness here in the Master Head/Bathroom “medicine cabinets”.
Now you see ‘em…………………….
…………………. now you don’t!
Are you sensing a theme here?
One last bit of hardware happiness for you with a feature that may be new to many of you. These Blum hinges also have a very handy soft close feature that is now adjustable. See that little black button just above my thumb? That allows you to set the little soft close spring on that lever to the Left of my thumb to be either Off or On. With two or more hinges on any door this gives you a full range of degrees of “anti-slam” soft closing by turning on any number of soft close hinges for that door.
OK, enough for today’s tour through Hodgins Hardware Heaven.
Omur and Selim were busy installing these latch catches on the bottoms of these drawers in the Master Cabin. Which will soon be installed in these four spaces in the Bureau of Drawers on the Stbd/Right side of the Master Cabin. With the sloping hull sides behind this Bureau the two lower rows get a bit narrow so these will have down opening doors rather than drawers. All these drawer and door fronts will be covered with Green leather panels to set them off nicely from the solid Rosewood edging. Forward of the Bureau of Drawers is this bank of tall cabinets. As throughout the rest of the boat, the Blue Horizon Line or BHL Handhold wraps around the room and all the vertical surfaces below this “horizon” are Rosewood and all above are Green/Gray leather.
The two Upper cupboards on the Right are Wardrobes for hanging clothes and the third one with the Vigo sink in it will soon have the Bosch Washer inside. The last upper cupboard is sized for a matching dryer if there should ever be the desire to have one but we have always preferred to use Mother Nature as our clothes dryer since we were children and continue to do so.
MAIN HELM:
Upstairs from the Master Cabin, Omur and Selim also made some more exciting progress as they worked on the cabinetry for the Main Helm so let’s go up there now.
Yesim’s quick render above helps to show the overall layout with the two 19” touch and daylight readable monitors in the middle, the angled “dwarf wall” on the right of where the Llebroc Helm Chair will be and the two triangular “handkerchief” storage areas on either side.
And here is what the real world version looked like at the start of this week. Selim gave me a hand to test fit this first mock up of the Zig-Zag dashboard we think will work really well. It has this narrow “kick-up” where the monitor mounting board will hinge. So that the base of these monitors will set down at an angle like this. I am going to KISS or Keep it Simple & Safe by panel mounting the two monitors into a Black leather covered mounting panel that will be hinged at the bottom edge so we can change the angle to eliminate any reflections as well as swing it down anytime we need to access any of the connections on the back. Of which there are plenty for these eXtremely high spec monitors that we can hardly wait to start using. As you can see here, all those cables will be fully hidden and kept out of any UV coming through the front windows and yet be low enough that they don’t block any of your line of sight when standing or sitting in the Helm Chair as their top edge is kept very low. We also tested this setup and angles for any reflections in the surrounding glass and were able to eliminate them by this placement. Omur had my little sketch of the Monitor mounting panel above turned into reality and all corners radiused, sanded and taken over to the Upholstery Shop. Where the Black leather was stretched over and glued in place. Ready to be trimmed and then have the monitors mounted inside. Back onboard, Omur had the Zig-Zag dashboard all glued up and test fitted with its SS piano hinge. Which makes it easy to unlatch and lift up to access wiring and the manual hydraulic steering pump underneath. For any longer term maintenance of more likely trying out new Helm configurations, the whole dashboard can be swung up completely out of the way and exposing the whole back side where the electronics and wiring will be. With the Monitor mounting panel in place on its hinges you can start to get a feel for the whole Helm.
Another example of all our work at modeling and designing this critical Helm space is this little angled wall on your Right as you sit in the Helm Chair. Plenty of space inside for cabling and electronic goodies.
