Most of Team Möbius was MIA again this past week but once again the combination of those who were working along with the outside contractors working this week, a LOT of very eXciting progress was made this past week of Dec. 21-25, 2020.
And somehow or another Christine and I also managed to include a wonderful Christmas celebration to end our week and carry on through to tonight, Sunday, when as soon as I finish writing up this blog post we will sit down to enjoy Christine’s turkey soup which is one of the many great outcomes of all the work she put in to create a fantastic gourmet Xmas turkey dinner with all the fixin’s’, dressing and gravy! Guess what? Turns out that I’m not the only turkey in Turkey! Who knew??
As in some previous weeks, there were a lot of “small jobs” that we were able to check off the punch list this week and taken together they add up to a very big deal. That saying “Don’t sweat the small stuff; and it’s ALL small stuff” could not be truer than in a big boat building project like this. So I may jump around a bit but there is one eXtremely BIG job that got done this week and is an equally big part of the title of this week’s Progress Update.
But this blog post is between me and dinner so let me jump right in with what will likely be a very rapid fire Show & Tell which I hope you will still enjoy.
EXTERIOR PREP WORK:
We only had Uğur on the job for Monday and Tuesday this week but he still managed to be his usual productive self and looked after several important jobs such as this one.
The shot is taken from down in the Engine Room looking up through the big open hatch overhead to catch Uğur finishing up the AlucoBond paneling that surrounds this hatch.
Up on the Aft Deck now, you can see how he had attached the AlucoBond outer liner to the Hatch itself last week, and also installed those beautiful Bofor dogs and latches that keep this hatch solidly in place and fully watertight.
This week he is finishing up the work on the AlucoBond walls and ceilings in the ER by using Sikaflex to adhere and seal the AlucoBond paneling that is bent up around the inside circumference of the opening such that the whole ER is fully sealed now. Uğur was in an “AlucoBond state of mind” this week I guess so he also finished off the AlucoBond panels that form the ceiling above the Outdoor Galley on the Aft deck. Hilmi has the LED lights all wired and snapped in place so Uğur was able to put in a small bead of Sikaflex around all the outside edges and around the support poles to seal the whole ceiling.
eXciting for us to see as well was when this was the first area to have all that protective film with the Red & Black AlucoBond printing on it and reveal these very reflective satin White plated aluminium surfaces.
Another one of those “small things” but what a difference to see these finished surfaces at last! More small but important jobs done this week was when Ali finished covering all the newly applied TreadMaster non skid surfaces with some protective cardboard. This is the Port/Left side of the Swim Platform and the stairs leading up to the Aft Deck.
There is still a LOT of work to do to finish Möbius so these areas will be seeing a lot of foot traffic, tools and materials so the cardboard will help keep them clean and new till Launch Date.
The dogged door on the Right is the HazMat locker for any flammable or odiferous items we want to store onboard and keep completely isolated from the interior of the boat. Winch handle is how you open the Bofor dog latches. Opposite side of the Swim Platform with the WT door, currently removed, into the Workshop and Engine Room. Ali also has all the Aft Deck all covered with cardboard sheets and fully taped down. Same story up on the Front Deck and Anchor Deck TreadMaster. All the solar panels are also covered with protective cardboard sheets. In the case of the solar panels this is both to keep the glass surfaces clean as well as the safety aspect of keeping all sunlight off of these panels so that they are not generating any power that could cause problems to equipment and workers.
FINISHING UP the HOTWORKS on the TENDER:
Down on the shop floor off to the front right of Möbius, Nihat was also with us for Monday and Tuesday this past week and was able to finish off the last few small jobs to complete the “hotworks” or welding up of the Tender.
This is the Aft Port/Left corner of the Tender with the Engine Bay lid opened up. Nihat is grinding all the welds down flush and then doing the final sanding of all the AL surfaces with a random orbital sander with the same finish that he has perfected from all his work doing the same to the outer surfaces and hull of Möbius. A sneak peak at the interior of the Engine Bay where you can see the Port side Engine Bed starting where Nihat’s foot is and the framed opening for the Castoldi 244DD jet drive behind with the “Mickey Mouse” cut-out in the thick transom plate.
This will likely end the work on the Tender until after we launch Möbius and I can spend the time to do all the outfitting installing the Yanmar 110HP 4cyl diesel inboard engine and the jet drive.
SNEAK PEAK at the FINISHED INTERIOR:
An American couple and their son, who are also faithful followers here on the blog and have become very interested in having an XPM of their own, came by on Tuesday for an extended tour on Möbius and visit with Naval Yachts and the Free Zone.
So on Monday we all pitched in to remove all the protective plastic and cardboard covering up all the interior surfaces so they could see what is underneath and the quality of work that Team Möbius is capable of producing. Möbius received a much needed and very thorough cleaning to look her best for these prospective new XPM owners.
Both their visit and seeing Möbius at her clean and shiny best were equally eXciting for Christine and I, so let me capitalize on this opportunity to give all of you a sneak peek of the interior. I will go through this in very rapid fire fashion, so hang on as we take you on a quick whirlwind tour of the freshly cleaned and exposed finished interior of mv Möbius
MASTER CABIN:
Staring up at the very front of the interior in the Master Cabin, this is the Vanity Sink which sits front and center up against the WT bulkhead with the Forepeak on the other (very well insulated )side.
Flanked by the Washer & Dryer behind the Blue/Green leather doors on the Right and the Shower on the Left.
Almost complete and just waiting for the 2 thin strips of mirrors on either side of the soon to be mirrored door above the sink.
Sorry, I can never resist the glowing beauty of this unique hand painted all glass sink.
Note the combo 120V + 240V plug behind the sink and spread throughout this “world wired” boat. Stepping back a bit will help orient you to the Master Cabin and you can now see the whole Starboard/Right side bank of cupboards and wardrobes with the Washer & Dryer at the front.
On the Left side is the door into the Head/Bathroom as well as the adjoining Shower hiding behind that etched glass corner wall. Before I continue walking back, a quick peek through the door into the Head to show the matching rectangular Blue glass sink inside. The vertical doors above are anxiously awaiting their mirrors.
Bidet VacuFlush toilet is just visible on the bottom Right and the adjoining Shower is on the far Left. Continuing aft one step at a time reveals the full etched corner walls of the Shower. One more step back and the Master Bed comes into view with its overhead boxed ceiling and the Bureau of Drawers on the far Right side which is also waiting for the big mirror that will soon be mounted inside the Rosewood framed side wall.
Just wait till you see this space filled with a hanging 3D textile sculpture of our Möbius strip which our artist / niece Lindsey created for us! Baking up ALL the way Aft in the Master Cabin and starting up the stairs to get this shot looking down into the entrance to the Master Cabin.
The door which goes here is one of our Swiss Doors that I’ve shown in previous months which do double duty by being a door in two positions. Here it is the door in the large full height Wardrobe on the Right as you walk in here, and then this same door closes this entry into the Master Cabin itself. Brilliant! if I do say so myself and eliminates one complete door here and two more back in the Guest Cabin. Going back up to the front of the Master Cabin and looking Aft now, you can see how that door on the Left of the stairs is now closing off the Wardrobe behind it and can then be swung “open” to close off the Entryway into the Master Cabin. One last shot in the Master Cabin before we head upstairs to check out the SuperSalon. This is the two stairs that wind their way up to the platform on the Port/Left side of the bed. This platform serves multiple purposes;
* the HVAC Air Handler is housed below inside this platform
* provides easy access for Christine getting In/Out of her side of the bed
* easy access when making the bed
* when on long passages and covered with a custom fit memory foam mattress, this platform transforms into a very safe and comfortable bed for whichever one of us in Off Watch in really rough weather where the high sides keep you safely snuggled into bed no matter what Mother Nature is doing to Möbius on the outside.
SuperSalon, GALLEY, MAIN HELM & LOUNGE areas:
Continuing with this “one step back” tour of the interior, let me head up the stairs out of the Master Cabin which you can see at the bottom Right here and take you on a quick tour of the whole SuperSalon.
Main Helm on the Left here and the forward end of the L-shaped Dinette seat on the bottom Right. One more step back into the space where the Dinette Table will soon be mounted on that aluminium XY Slider peeking out of the bottom Left corner. Dinette Settee on the bottom Right, Main Helm Chair middle Left with the forward electrical control panel partially open on the Right side of the Main Helm.
Two 19” touchscreen daylight readable monitors will soon be mounted into those two rectangular openings on the Black leather covered panel front and center of the Main Helm dashboard. Sliding over to Port/Left for a better view of the Main Helm and where those two monitors will be mounted. Stairs down to the Master Cabin through the space on the bottom Right.
Look closely and you will be reminded that all the 26mm triple laminated safety glass windows are now fully installed around all 360 degrees of this truly SUPER Salon. Stepping back on the Port side the Dinette Settee comes into better view now and you can now see how that gorgeous Zwaardvis AL pedestal works. Up/Down Z axis adjusts with an pneumatic lift cylinder inside the 2 stage pedestal and then the table top can be moved 200mm/8” in the XY axis to adjust the table to Goldilocks position Left/Right and Fore/Aft. Pivoting to Stbd/Right side for a better view of the Settee, pedestal and a sneak peek into the Galley. Stepping back yet another step or two to go up the stairs leading out of the SuperSalon to the Aft Deck, reveals the twin 130 liter side by side Vitrifrigo refrigerators nestled inside their Ro$ewood cabinets on the Left and some of the countertop Galley Garages on the Right. Two more steps up those stairs to give you this shot looking forward and down into the Galley on the Right, dual door fridges on the Left and if you turn Left at the bottom of these stairs you will continue down a matching staircase to the Corridor leading to the Guest Cabin and Workshop. Staying on that same top step at about Aft Deck height and pivoting towards the Stbd/Right side of the hull to give you this overhead view of the Galley and its surrounding Galley Garages.
Stepping into the Galley itself briefly to see the four burner Bosch induction cooktop with built in central exhaust fan and the matching Bosch Smart Oven that automagically combines convection, microwave and broiler elements to cook each dish to Goldilocks perfection. Double SS sink inset into the Turkish Turquoise marble countertops. Smaller faucet on the Right is plumbed direct to the 150L fresh water “Emergency Tank” that is independent of the rest of the fresh water system for some “just in case” backup of always ready very fresh water. Moving forward for a change provides this perspective of the full Galley looking Aft towards the Rear Stbd/Right side.
Stairs up to the Aft Deck and the Outdoor Galley on the far Right here surrounded by windows, windows, windows with views, views, views everywhere you look. Just before we leave the SuperSalon, a rightfully proud Sinan posing with his masterful upholstery work on the these Sky Blue Ultra Leather covered Settee cushions. Just imagine what they will look like when we finally get to remove al their plastic covers!
Table is down close to its “bed” position here and the Black release handle for the XY slider is hanging down below waiting to be mounted to the underside of the table next week. Trying not so successfully at being incognito, Captain Christine aka my Beautiful Bride, couldn’t resist the chance to try out her first sitting at the Dinette table with it now at full eating/working height. Looking straight Aft at the stairs and out the door onto the Outdoor Galley on the Aft Deck here. Dinette table back down into Bed mode with Coffee Table mode in between and the stairs leading down to the Corridor and Guest Cabin on the far Right. Apologies for not getting better shots of it but over on the very Aft Left corner of the SuperSalon the stairs just out of sight below here lead down to the Corridor that takes you Aft through a WT Bofor door if you keep walking straight and if you turn Left you have the Guest Bathroom/Head on your Left, Shower on your Right. If you walk straight ahead now, you enter Guest Cabin/Office and can see the fold down Latte coloured Ultra Leather Couch/Bed in the bottom Left with the Pullman Berth that Sinan is about to pull down above. This Couch has been custom designed for Christine to be her Goldilocks “pondering pad” when she is cooking up the next plot twist in her next sure to be a best seller thriller novel with its super wide base to give her plenty of room to relax and curl up.
Then the bottom portion pulls all the way out towards you and turns this into a full Queen size bed. Christine’s Office desk just visible on the far Right here with printer bay on the left side of the desk and plenty of bookshelves above and on the opposite side of the Couch
Need more bed space in the Guest Cabin you say? No problem, flip up two latches …………………….. …………….. and the Pullman Berth folds down to provide yet another single bed as Sinan demonstrates here. Before you know it was Thursday and time to cover everything back up again for the next few weeks of finishing off the interior. So here’s the deal folks. It is now past 21:00 for me here in Antalya at the end of a wonderful Christmas weekend and the Chef has been eXtremely patient with me, yet again, and keeping her Turkey Soup on the boil. I still have not gotten to that BIG exciting job that happened this week and is the key to the “Much Clearer” part of this post’s title BUT, I’m going to have to disappoint you or at least keep you waiting until next week to cover all that.
For now, let me just end by wishing ALL of you a VERY Merry Christmas and that you all find ways to make this last week of 2020 as good as it can possibly be. I’ll be back to you next weekend with the latest Weekly Progress Update and really hope you will join me again then.
I thought it best to bring you this message and update all on its own and keep it separate from this weeks XPM78-01 Möbius Progress Update 21-25 Dec. 2020 which will follow shortly. Hope you enjoy
Especially for all our friends and family who join us in celebrating Christmas as the crazy year that was 2020 winds down, Christine and I want to take the time to send ALL of you who join us here in Mobius.World our most eXtreme best wishes and share some of the joy that accompanies this holiday season no mater what has gone on in the months before and during.
While Christine and I were deeply disappointed to not have set sail last year and that we were not able to enjoy Christmas 2020 as we would have wished, surrounded by our family, friends, children and Grandchildren, we were still able to be with them via modern mediums that made us feel a bit less far away. And we both feel truly grateful to have each other to go through all we have together and that we have been able to remain happy and healthy through out the whole year.
No matter how and whatever happens, we ARE surrounded by our friends, family and nothing but LOVE! Could we be any more fortunate? I don’t think so!
Oh, and did I mention that Santa found us two turkeys in Turkey with no problem again this year, which believe it or not is our fourth Xmas in Turkey and our eighth Xmas together. Mrs. Santa was eXtremely generous this year with not only her kisses BUT also with her gifts! I am still in disbelief of the apparent and serious error in Santa’s bookkeeping which somehow misplaced MY name at the very top of his Good Boy list which resulted in me unwrapping THIS awemazing new bit of kit on Christmas morning!
Christine and I have been lusting after a drone for over six years or more but when we sold Learnativity our previous 52’ sailboat, we kept telling ourselves that it would be smart to wait until Möbius was finished and we really had the use case for a drone. Apparently that time is NOW and boy was it ever worth the wait!
This is the latest model from DJI the Mini 2 and we are both still shaking our heads in disbelief of what this truly MINI drone is capable of:
It weighs a scant 249 grams which makes it just below the legal limit where you need to have a license to fly it, though we will get ours anyway.
Captures 4k video at 30 Frames/sec and 100Mbs
Shoots 12MP photos in JPEG + RAW
Can fly for 31 minutes on one battery charge and up to 16 m/s = 36MPH/58km/hr
Flies in 29-38km/hr wind (gee why would that be important to us?)
Controller has a range of up to 10km
OK, I’ll stop gushing now but YES! it is an eXtremely eXciting new toy for both of us!
How Mrs. Santa managed to get this delivered to me her in Turkey and before Xmas will remain one of life’s little mysteries but this is one VERY happy little Christmas elf right now.
Timing is perfect as we now have a drone for a month or more so we can get all our licenses and permits to fly legally and get in some practice time before we launch and take off in Möbius with this little guy to capture all our new adventures from above and all around.
Oh, and when I said I had been mistakenly put at the very TOP of Santa’s Good Boy list, I wasn’t kidding because this even came with DJI’s “Fly More kit” which includes:
* a very nice and equally mini carrying bag
* 3 batteries,
* a super smart 18W USB-C charger that is a 2way general purpose USB device charger
* 3 sets of extra prop blades
WOWSA!! But who am I to doubt Santa and Mrs. Santa so I will just say THANK YOU!!!
Therefore let this serve as an early warning that you will soon be seeing LOTS of video footage shot from the unique vantage point of this newest member of our family on Möbius. Stay tuned as the adventure continues from above once we set out to sea the world from our new floating home mv Möbius.
Both Christine and myself want to wish all of you an eXtremely Happy Holiday season however you chose to celebrate it and we will be back to you next week with more best wishes as we all say farewell to 2020 and start ringing in 2021.
A bit of a slow week progress wise on XPM78-01 Möbius this past week as our work week was unexpectedly reduced to four days due to a complete power outage at the Antalya Free Zone where Naval Yachts and about 30 other shipyards are located. We are now entering the wet winter season here in Antalya and while we have been having some spectacularly beautiful blue skies and sunny days, the rain has also been arriving along with LOTS of thunder and lightning last weekend. I assume this is what took out the power in the Free Zone and gave us all an unexpected “snow day” off as we used to call it when I was a kid growing up in various parts of Canada where we would often get so much snow overnight that the roads were all impassable and so all the schools would close. Oh drat said all the parents, Oh Yayyyyyyy, said all us kids! While I’m still very young at ❤ I was now saying “Oh Drat!” at not being able to work on Möbius at Naval but I just turned my bike around and pedalled back home to work from there so it wasn’t a totally lost day.
Several members of Team Möbius were not working on Möbius this past week but for those of us who were we did get lots done so I have plenty for this week’s Show & Tell for you and I also have some photos to share that I didn’t have time to include in the past few blog updates. So grab a comfy chair and tasty beverage and let’s go see what happened onboard the Good Ship Möbius for the four days of December 15-18, 2020.
You will figure out this week’s Update title as you go through this posting where many of the jobs being worked on started wtih the letter “T” such as the dinette Table, the Tender, Teak shower floors and TreadMaster. A bit like when Sesame Street would be “Brought to you by the letter T” perhaps? and you will soon see what the “Ado” is all about so let’s get going ……………………….
First though, we interrupt our regular programming for a word from our sponsor, well MY “sponsor” so to speak.
** Wayne’s “mushiness” Warning!!! This next bit is NOT technical boatbuilding stuff so if that’s what you are anxious to get to, scroll down to the next section please.
For the braver souls and fellow romantics, read on……………
Happy 7th Anniversary of our First Kiss Captain Christine!
* If you have not already done so you may want to read my previous post here on 22 November for some context. It was titled “The simple comment that Changed My Life Forever Better” which it tells the story about how Christine and I first connected thanks to this little character; “Barney the Yorkshire Terror” . If you read that story you will already know that I’m a hopeful romantic. (who would call romance helpless?!?!?!!?!?)
Given our rather unconventional first connection and all the equally unique adventures that followed, we have a LOT of different “anniversaries” and we LOVE celebrating every one of them, every year.
My favorite anniversary though is the one we celebrate today, December 19th of our very fist kiss on the very first day we met in person when Christine flew all the way from her sailboat in Florida to where I was on my sailboat in Fiji and I snapped this very fist photo of her as she walked into the Arrival gate at Nadi International Airport on 19th December, 2013.
Christine says that for her it was “Love at first Skype”, which happened about a month earlier and I won’t refute. However for me it was THAT FIRST KISS when we finally first met in person on 19 December, 2013 and I knew for sure that I had just kissed (and been kissed back I might add!!!) by the woman who would become my best friend, my lover, my wife, my Captain and my partner in life, for life.
Happy 7th First Kiss Anniversary my Love! Can’t wait to get started on our next set of adventures for the next 7 years together! First though, lets start by enjoying this First Kiss anniversary day with these flowers in our cozy little apartment in Antalya.
OK, OK! Now back to our regular programming ………………..
All this aluminium beauty comes from the Zwaardvis Pedestals company in the Netherlands and it is all “boat jewelry” in my eyes. This Z-axis or vertical height adjustable pedestal has 2 stages for maximum height adjustment which is assisted by an internal gas lift cylinder similar to what you might have on the rear hatch of a SUV. You order these by the weight of your table top so the assist is just right and changing the height an easy single handed operation by simply releasing one or both locking handles, moving the table up/down to the height you want and closing the levers. The XY slider, allows us to move the table 200mm / 8” fore/aft and side to side to also get the XY position of the table just right.
Up high and close in for eating or working and then down and out for more of a coffee table setup and then all the way down to put the table top and surrounding seats all the same height to create a very large bed for those rare occasions we have more overnight guests than our lovely Guest cabin with a Queen + Pullman bed can accommodate.
This is where Ramazan started on Tuesday with the solid 50mm / 2” solid Rosewood edging all glued with biscuit joints around the circumference. Then he has put a large 40mm / 1.6” radius around all the edges and given it a good sanding. Now the table moves up to the 2nd floor Finishing Room where Neşet here is inspecting all the surfaces with a very fine eye in order to …… ……. find any remaining small spots that need filing in order to make them glass smooth after this first coat of clear Polyurethane “varnish”. Then it is “rinse & repeat” four more times to build up the five coats of PU that goes onto each piece of Rosewood cabinetry.
This is how it looks after the 2nd coat has been applied and is ready for wet sanding before the 3rd coat is sprayed on.
“T” is also for Teak Shower Floors
We didn’t want any Teak on the exterior of Möbius, nor any SS, paint, etc. but we welcomed the use of Teak to make the removable floor inserts in both Showers.
Orkan is the Teak Decking specialist and Naval so he was the perfect guy to apply those deck making skills to these interior floors as you can see he has done masterfully here.
In keeping Low Maintenance as a top priority, we didn’t want to have a Teak grate style flooring so we came up with this self draining system where all the water simply runs off the four sides through these recesses and then runs over to the drain in the center of the fiberglass shower floor below.
These floor plates have a series of fiberglass “feet” on the bottom to keep the air/water space between the teak and the fiberglass and they can be easily lifted out to clean underneath from time to time.
We use diaphragm pumps almost exclusively for all our water, bilge, crash pumps on Möbius as our experience has taught us that these are FAR superior to centrifugal style pumps in that they have that proverbial “suck a golf ball through a garden hose” type of suction power and require NO filters or screens so they almost never clog.
The IC or Intelligent Control that Whale has added to these pumps makes them work all the better by having a simple solid state water sensing probe embedded in the Yellow manifold you see here which automatically turns the pump On/Off as needed and allows you to connect 2 different sources of Grey Water which we use to drain both the Master Bathroom/Head and Shower floors.
Simple and efficient, what’s not to like?!! At the other end of the size scale of our diaphragm pumps is this brute underneath the Stbd/Right workbench in the Workshop. It does double duty being both our high volume/high water bilge pump and our Fire “hydrant” system that pumps sea water from the Sea Chest to a fire hose and nozzle stored in he Aft Hazmat locker. Several of you were curious about this pump so HERE is a link to the basic specs on our Feit PVM 1R diaphragm Pump.
* 24V 0.75 HP motor
* 120 Litres/min / 32 USG/min
@ 7 meters / 23 ft Delivery and 4m / 13 ft Suction
“T” is also for TreadMaster:
Another job continuing on from last week’s Progress Update is the laying of the last of the TreadMaster on all the aluminium decks and stairs. You can read all the details of the method in the previous posts and here is the TreadMaster Team; Faruk (Left) spreading the epoxy adhesive, Ali bringing the cut-to-size piece of TreadMaster to lay down on this epoxy, and Orhan following behind getting ready to cut the next piece. Ali in position with the piece of TreadMaster that Orhan has pre-cut as Faruk evens out the peanut butter consistency West Systems epoxy with his V-notched spreader. More “Rinse & Repeat” and they soon have the Aft Deck fully covered with TreadMaster. After drying overnight Ali covers all the fresh new Treadmaster wtih protective cardboard as these will continue to be high traffic areas during the rest of the build. Taking a quick tour around the boat to show some of the other areas getting the full TreadMaster treatment.
Treads on each of the Spiral stairs up from the Aft Deck to the SkyBridge ready for their TM. et Voila! Super safe, easy on the feet stairs up to the SkyBridge. And same going back down. Rough cut TM set in place down the Starboard/Right side of the SkyBridge with the 20mm / 3/4” spacers fast glued in place to keep the spacing just right while they are being epoxied down. With all the SkyBridge deck sheets of TM cut to finished size with their radiused corners, Faruk and Ali get busy gluing them all down. SkyBridge Helm Chair just set here for now. Once the TM all dries it will be moved aft to the Helm Station and through bolted in place there.
Hmmmm, with a view like this maybe a good spot for a 3rd or 4th Llebroc chair?? Swim Platform done. Stairs on both sides going up from the Swim Platform to the Aft Deck all TM’d now. Side Decks ready to have their TM glued down. Front Deck all done and dusted!
Protective cardboard all taped down. Anchor Chain Stopper all mounted so this Anchor Deck can now have all its TM glued down. And the Forepeak Hatch has its Bofor Dog Latches all mounted and has received its full TreadMaster treatment.
Much “Ado” about Flooring!
This will just be a preview to wet our appetite for next week’s Möbius Progress Update and will complete the rest of this week’s title riddle for you. This is a stack of the Ado LVT or Luxury Vinyl Tile “click-in-place” floor planks that we are using in all the interior floors on Möbius.
Ado is a HUGE Turkish building materials company and one of their specialties is Luxury Vinyl Tile or LVT flooring systems typically used in very high traffic situations such as airport terminals, commercial buildings and residential homes. LVT is completely waterproof, Fireproof, made for use overtop of in-floor heated floors, quiet and eXtremely tough with life spans over 20 years even in very high traffic applications such as airport terminals so it seemed like the Goldilocks Just Right choice for Möbius. This link will show you the white highly textured “Aperta 2010” we have chosen to use from their “Viva Series”. As per this label on the boxes, this is the “Click” type with a 0.7mm thick “wear Layer” as per the Tech Spec illustration above. Tough to focus on but this is my attempt to show you how the interlocking “Click” system works. I suspect many of you will have installed flooring with a similar system in your homes and boats as this has been popular for over 20 years in the building trades and is a very DIY system. Difficult to show how well textured this flooring is, but think well seasoned and aged wood decks on boats and homes and you’ll have it just right. We have tested samples with bare wet feet and it has proven it will be eXtremely non-slip throughout the boat.
Stay tuned for more as the Ado flooring installation begins next week.
”T” is also for Tender:
Nihat (seen here) and Uğur only worked on Möbius two days this week but I have all of their work from last week to catch up with you on so still plenty to show you as they finished off their “hot works” stage of welding up the aluminium jet drive tender hull. Nihat has now had an eXtreme amount of practice at grinding down the welds on all the hull plates on Möbius herself so he was VERY fast at getting all the Tender’s welds flush and all the corners nicely radiused. meanwhile, inside the Tender, Uğur was busy cutting in this access to the area underneath the bench seat in the Steering Console. Like Nihat, Uğur is also very fast and he had this hinged seat lid all done in one afternoon from start to finish.
We will either just make up some rectangular seat cushions for the seat and back or perhaps buy some “bucket” style fish boat seats to go in here. Uğur was even faster at welding in these two Lift Bridle attachment points up at the Bow. And mere minutes later, these two matching ones at the Aft end corners down at floor level. Next up was fabricating and attaching these two boarding safety handrails that go on either side of the flat Bow. Uğur is a master at these nicely radiused bends at any angle which work out better than using a hydraulic pipe bender for small numbers of bends.
A series of evenly spaced cuts with an angle grinder make it easy to form these different radius bends. And then each cut is welded back solid. All the welds are ground down and sanded and you’re done!
40mm / 1.6” OD thick walled AL pipe These safety boarding hand rails needed to be removable so we played with a few positions and picked this one. We used the very simple bolted flange system that we have used throughout the building of Möbius. The thicker (10mmm / 3/8”) bottom flange is threaded and welded to the hull itself to create a base for the thinner top flange welded to the handrails to bolt to with NO penetration of the hull itself. All four bases get tacked in place with the Handrails bolted to them so we can test for just right position before fully welding the threaded bottom flanges to the hull. Super Polisher Nihat then comes in and cleans up the welds and the hull areas around them and it is all done!
I will probably pick up on the work to complete the Tender by installing the Castoldi 244 Jet Drive and the 4 cylinder Yanmar HTE 110HP engine, but that will all need to wait till after we launch Möbius so this may be the last you see of the Tender here for the next few months but do stay tuned for that and the test drive! And that’s going to be a wrap folks for the 4 day week that was December 14-18, 2020 here at Naval Yachts and onboard the Good Ship Möbius.
Thank you SO much for taking time out of your busy day to join me here and hope you will do so again next week. Love to get your thoughts, questions and suggestions on any of the above so please type them into the “Join the Discussion” box right down below.
With Team Möbius back to work and augmented by additional sub-contractors the rate of progress was at an all time high this past week so there is a LOT to Show & Tell you about this week. I will apologise in advance that this week’s Progress Update may be a bit rushed both because I have so much to cover and it is now already mid afternoon on Sunday here. But before I jump right into all the progress updates, some other news from around the shipyard for you.
FINAL PLANS are SIGNED & SEALED!
The biggest news for Christine and I this week is that we finalized all the details for the final finishing of XPM78-01 Möbius with Naval Yachts and signed off on all the new addendum documents, which is what Baris (left) and Dincer, the founding brothers of Naval Yachts are smiling about here! With projects of this size and complexity and especially for such a unique first XPM series build, there are a LOT of changes and adjustments along the way and a LOT of equipment, materials and sub-contractors that needed to be ordered and it has taken all of us more hours than we would like to know, to sort out all these details and get them all formally documented. So we were elated to have all four of us, Builders + Owners, sign off on this Friday afternoon.
Wayne Looses 1 old Titanium Screw and Gains 7 new ones!
Immediately after we all signed the new addendum on Friday, my elation transformed into something else when I spent several hours “under the knife” in the Dentist’s office! Another reason why this blog post will be a bit rushed as I’m not quite up to full speed again just yet. For those curious to know, the scorecard from that surgery is that Wayne is now:
MINUS:
one molar and
one titanium screw (one of more than a hundred I have from a nasty motorcycle accident back in 1997) but now plus 6 titanium implant
PLUS:
7 titanium implant screws
some extra jawbone (grafts)
29 stitches
I won’t bore you with any more details but given the somewhat technical nature of my posts and for those curious about dental implants, as I was, here is these 2 illustrations will give you the basic picture of what’s involved.
Now it is just a waiting game to get the stitches removed in 10 days and then let the jawbone and implants merge for two months or so before I go back to have the ceramic (Zirconia) crowns put in and I can chew again!
Möbius gets a New Neighbor
This actually happened two weeks ago so I’m a bit delinquent in posting this but we now have a new neighbor off of Möbius’ Stbd Aft corner. She’s a Turkish flagged boat “Celeb” and is in the yard at Naval Yachts for some relatively minor work and some out-of-the-water winter storage. Once again, our friendly neighborhood 72 wheel Yellow boat mover was called in for this move and it all came off without a hitch as usual. There were more changes to the neighborhood a few blocks away from us over on the Free Zone side of the harbour where they are completely redoing the shoreside facilities to put in an all new humungous dry dock and other launching facilities. This work has been going on for quite a few months already with the removal of the existing concrete walls, the whole rail launch and TraveLift launch facilities and a whole lot of dirt to enlarge the water area.
That leaves the Free Zone with no launching facilities but fortunately just on the other side of this harbor in the background here, is Setur Marina and so the authorities can open up the gates and let the boat movers bring boats in/out of the marina and into the Free Zone.
With Möbius’ launch date *hopefully* coming up early in the New Year it is likely that we may need to launch into Setur Marina rather than inside the Free Zone harbour. Either way works fine as the emphasis for us is LAUNCH ASAP!!
This pile driver has been running non-stop 24/7 for the past week putting in over 20 so far of these steel cylinders which I presume will be filled with concrete to form the underlying foundation for all the new concrete and dry-dock equipment to come. OK, with this week’s episode of “What’s New in the Neighborhood”, let’s get back to the shipyard and get you caught up on this past week’s progress on finishing XPM78-01 Möbius.
LITTLE JOBS = BIG DEAL:
As I did in last week’s posting, let me quickly run you through a set of several “little jobs” which got looked after this past week. Some of you sent in comments noting that you liked the more rapid-fire sequences of work so I will repeat that here and please do let me know how well it is working or not by putting your comments in the “Join the Discussion” box at the bottom of every blog posting.
And as I noted last week these may be “little” in terms of amount of work, these jobs are all play very important roles themselves and perhaps most important of all are what define a FINISHED yacht!
First good example of how these little jobs can be so important was the finishing of the door into the Engine Room. Uğur and Nihat had fabricated and mounted this door many months ago but it needed to be fully insulated with fireproof EPDM insulation covered with the laminated aluminium/composite sandwich AlucoBond material you have seen being used to cover all the walls and ceilings of the Engine Room and Workshop.
They started by welding in these short lengths of aluminium L-bars for the AlucoBond to be fastened to. Then Nihat cut the 50mm / 2” thick EPDM foam insulation and fitted each piece into their compartments. AlucoBond is then cut to size and screwed in place. Uğur than installs two of the same beautiful Bofor Dogs & Latches you saw him installing in the big AL hatches up on the main deck for the Forepeak and Engine Room. Then the door can be remounted on its hinges while it awaits the 26mm thick tempered glass window to be installed to complete this door. Next up for the same basic treatment was this hatch that goes into the floor in the SuperSalon to provide the only access to the cavernous Basement which sits under the entire SuperSalon floor. Same 50mm EPDM foam is inserted into each of the little bays formed by the reinforcing AL stringers of this hatch, which is upside down here BTW.
Then Uğur spreads on a light coating of contact cement while ………. ……. Nihat cuts out the thick foil covered fireproof cloth that will cover and protect the EPDM insulation. With the foil cloth all glued down, Nihat finished off the edges with some AL foil tape and this hatch was then mounted to the awaiting piano hinge in the Salon floor opening into the Basement. The first of many “little” jobs in getting the below the waterline portion of the hull all prepped for the upcoming application of all the epoxy primer preceding spraying on the International InterSleek 1100SR Foul Release bottom paint we have decided to use.
Here Uğur has removed the propeller blades on the Vetus Bow Thruster and sanded all the internal AL surfaces. I was able to pull my weight a little bit this week as well by finishing off some similarly small but important jobs, as well as one quite BIG BEAUTIFUL BEASTLY job on Mr. Gee, our Gardner 6LXB engine. More on that later.
The Black cone and disk up near the top Left here is the front end of the Chain based Hand Cranking system that I am now starting to mount. I have pulled it far forward here in order to mount the cast AL coolant tank.
Below this tank on the Right is the secondary fuel filter and return line and in the weeks ahead you will be seeing much more of that flat rectangular Pad in the bottom Left where I will soon be mounting one of the Big Red Electrodyne alternators. A classic example of how Gardner leaves nothing to chance is this cast in place detail of how you need to use the correct type of anti-freeze and fill it to the correct level. Big Red #2 near the bottom Left with blue taped box, as I’ve taken to calling the second 250A @ 28V Electrodyne alternators is the much bigger job I worked on this past week and I’ll cover that in more detail a bit later in this post. With this 2nd alternator now securely mounted to the side of Mr. Gee I was able to finish installing these beautiful copper oil lines that snake their way around Mr. Gee to carry his lifeblood engine oil to and from where it needs to go.
Large AL unit taking up the center of of the photo above and aft end here, is the complete fuel pump and mechanical injection system. The six vertical (5 Black 1 Red) levers you see in the photo above allow you to hand prime each of the 6 fuel injectors as well as shut off one injector at a time to check performance while running.
Burgundy cylinder in the top middle is the secondary oil filter housing with its copper oil lines bringing oil to/from this filter. A few more finishing touches on Mr. Gee’s Stbd/Right side such as the exiting salt water hose now connected to the rear of this gorgeous cast bronze engine oil cooler, and the vertical braided SS mesh exhaust connector in the upper Left here is now bolted to the aft end of the cast iron exhaust manifold. In the bottom middle of the photo above and up close here, the Black 24V Starter is now fully installed and connected. Two Red cables as one is from the twin FireFly G31 starter batteries and the other cable can connect the starter to the massive House Battery Bank in case the starter batteries should ever not be working.
Beauty & the Beast’s Love Child?
Take note in the 2 photos above of how Gardner attaches the starter to the massive cast aluminium crankcase with that silver strap and you can see in this illustration from the 6LXB Parts Manual how they attached the standard Gardner alternator in the same way over on the opposite side.
I wanted to mount Big Red #2, which is what I’ve come to call the second Electrodyne alternator, to the same place that Gardner used but would Big Red fit? Only one way to find out; try it! As did Gardner, I first made 2 shims from some AL 10mm plate to adjust the radius of the cast in place ribs to match Big Red’s 188mm / 7.4” outside diameter and bolted them in place as you can see here. Here is an uncluttered straight on shot of the mounting base for Big Red #2. Fuel pump bowl in the upper Left corner, bottom of the cast AL injection pump running across the top and you can see the two “nubbins” where the hinge pin will slide through to hold the forked bolt that tightens the flat strap to cinch the alternator up tight. That forked bolt is part # 11/19/20 in the illustration above but with Big Red being a bit on the Beastly side of the girth scale the original forked bolt was too short so I whipped up this new larger and longer version out of some SS plate and threaded rod. I fashioned the fork out of a small block of SS and tapped it for a M10 threaded rod and threaded the two together. A SS nut to lock it in place and then for added safety and strength I thought it best to TIG weld the nut and threaded rod to the fork. I will give you that I can be given to some hyperbole and eXaggeration from time to time but I think you need to give me that it is no eXaggeration to suggest that “shoehorn fit” describes this situation?!! Each GE 250-24 Electrodyne alternator tips the scales at 40 kg/88 lbs and so again I will make my case that calling these Red Beauties Beasts is also no mere Hodgins Hyperbole! As you might imagine, I had to take Big Red #2 in and out quite a few times as I adjusted its position and tested out the strap mounting setup to get that all to work out and still clear everything. Fortunately and as I’ll explain in a bit, took advantage of the fact that I had to take these alternators apart so I was able to cut their weight down quite a bit which made all my test mounting a bit less muscle building. With the alternator temporarily held in place with some wood blocks I could test out the fit of this Black strap which is has a 10mm / 3/8” pin that slides through the bottom as you can see in the illustration above and the bottom of this photo.
Up at the top you can see the nut on the end of the upper forked bolt what cinches the alternator tight up against the radiused ribs you saw earlier.
I am close here BUT the large copper wires that carry the AC current out of the alternator need to come through that hole in the case across from my fingers, so I need to nudge it forward a wee bit more so the strap clears the hole. Oh, and I also need to make sure that the length of this Jack Shaft with U-joints on each end that I am retrofitting to drive Big Red #2 from the Gardner PTO (Power Take Off) on the Left here.
(click to enlarge any photo)
I’m getting ahead of myself a bit so let me stop and provide a quick overview of these Electrodyne E 250-24 alternators that I’ve chosen to use and mount on Mr. Gee which I think will help you see how they truly are the Goldilocks combination or “Love Child” of Beauty and the Beast. In addition to these basic specs my primary reasons for choosing these Electrodyne brutes include:
truly rugged “beastly” construction and weighing in at 40kg / 88 lbs each
Beautiful simplicity with only one moving part, the stator shaft and no moving electrical parts
More simplicity being Brushless with no brushes and no brush springs
One piece steel “double ended” housing with TWO alternators; one at each end.
Remote Rectifier which moves most of the performance robbing heat outside the ER
eXceptional life with 20,000 hours between recommended servicing
Here is what one looks like in real life. The box on top is simply a junction box where the 6 (3 from each alternator)AC current carrying wires emerge from inside the alternator body and connect to six large cables that go to the remote rectifiers outside the ER in the Workshop. I ordered these alternators directly from Electrodyne in Oklahoma almost 2 years ago and spent a LOT of time with Dale Gould who is the Operations Manager at Electrodyne and he has been truly fabulous to work with on every level from getting these beasts built to the specs we decided upon, getting them shipped to me (not as easy as it sounds) and even creating little how to videos to show me how to do the alterations I needed on my end. Can’t thank Dale and his team enough nor recommend them more highly to you.
In the interim, I ended up changing how and where I was going to mount these two beastly beauties on Mr. Gee and so I now needed change the location of these Junction Boxes from where I had originally asked Dale to position them. Not a big deal and I always welcome any chance to get “up close and personal” with every bit of kit on Möbius as I’m also the guy that needs to maintain everything and keep us up an running at all times in all conditions. The aluminium Junction Boxes are bolted to the steel housing and to reposition them I needed to re-drill and tap (thread) four new holes for the new position.
First step was to remove the two pressed on aluminium ROTORS which have all the permanent magnets embedded in them and rotate around a few millimeters away from the stationary Stator coils you see here. With the Non-Drive end Rotor off I could now remove the Rotor on the Drive end by pressing out it and its shaft from the internal hub and bearings inside the case. This close up of the inside of the AL Rotor let’s you see how all the permanent magnets such as the two I’m pointing at here, are embedded into the AL Rotor. I know this is riveting Show & Tell for so many of you, NOT! but the disassembly goes pretty quickly from here so I’ll speed through the process even faster for you from here.
Top Lid comes off the Junction Box enabling me to disconnect all the wires from their studs in the sides of the Junction Box body. Each set of Stator windings, one at each end, can now be unbolted and ……. …… pulled off of their tight fit to the central hub inside the housing allowing me to now carefully pull the three large gauge solid copper wires and terminals out through the holes in the housing one at a time. One end Stator windings removed, ready to spin around and do the same to remove the Stator windings on the other end.
Removing 4 Allen head bolts, one seen in the bottom Right here, let’s me remove each Junction Box. Full dis-assembled now!
Possibly resembling Dr. Frankenstein’s workbench I am already LOVING my new Workshop and all 11 meters of workbenches! I marked the new location of the Junction Boxes with felt pen and so now it was a simple matter of lining up the 2 holes in the bottom of the Junction Box with the new holes in the housing and clamping them in position. I could then use the 4 bolt holes in the Junction Box as a template to mark the corresponding center marks to drill into the housing. I had carefully taped off all access to the inside of the housing to prevent any metal chips or dust from getting inside and it was a bit tricky to drill the 4 holes into the housing at this angle but it worked out fine and I could then cut the 10-32 threads into the housing with my tap set. And now re-attach the Junction Box in its new permanent location on the housing with the 4 Allen head bolts you see here in each corner of the Junction Box. The trickiest part of the reassembly was fishing the thick stiff solid copper wires back through the hole in the Junction Box and housing as they just barely have enough room to fit through and the hole is behind the Stator windings, but it all went smoothly and I soon had all 6 Stator wires and both Field Wires all back in place and ready to connect to their awaiting studs in the sides of the Junction Box One done; one to go!
But I need to wait to mount the Junction Box on the lower Big Red #2 on the side of Mr. Gee as you saw above because I need to strap it in first and THEN I can bolt the Junction Box to the housing OVER TOP of the strap. As you can see, all my trial and fit had made a bit of a mess so I needed to put back some of the Beauty into these two Beasts with a good sanding and repainting. I just happened to have this short little Jack Shaft left over from another project and in a lovely stroke of synchronicity it worked out to be the Goldilocks solution to drive Big Red #2 from the gear driven PTO on Mr. Gee. So it needed a matching paint job as well. With all the openings and AL rotors all plugged and masked off it didn’t take me long to shoot these with three coats of Red International “Perfection” epoxy. Although it was not the ideal shade of Red, a bit on the orangey side …. …… they definately looked better than when I started and were now all ready to be installed onto Mr. Gee.
Hopefully Dale and all his team at Electrodyne will like what he sees too.
Now let’s quickly get onto the mounting of Big Red #2!!
I will try to mount BR#1 next week so stay tuned for more scintillating story telling then! By now I was getting pretty quick at mounting BR#2 to the side of Mr. Gee and I wanted to do one final test fit of the Junction Box to double check that everything really did clear. To my absolute joy and delight everything just barely cleared! Click to enlarge this photo or any other and you can see how close some of those fits are. If you look closely you will see that there are a LOT of close fits! I think this must be some polar opposite of Murphey’s Law where the stars align and every close fit actually cleared!
Fortunately for me, mounting Big Red #2 on that upper flat pad you saw earlier will be a breeze compared to this one and I hope to get that done next week and will show you the results.
CHAING STOPPER:
Up at the Bow on the Anchor Deck, we needed to install this latest bit of boat jewellery; our gleaming solid SS Lewmar 13mm Chain Stopper!
It is a very simple system that can become eXtremely critical if your snubber line breaks in a big storm and you need to have a way to “for sure” hold your anchor chain to the boat no matter what. Yes, ask me how I know! Uğur and I quickly sketched up the design we thought would work best to solidly bolt this Chain Stopper to the deck framing and he had it all fabricated out of 20mm / 3/4” AL plate and was welding it to the Anchor Deck plate. Simple arched platform that elevates the Chain Stopper to be at the correct height of the chain as it comes off the gypsy chainwheel on the Maxwell VWC 4000 windlass and then the Chain Stopper is through bolted with 4 M16 SS bolts and nuts. A bit of Blue Threadlocker to make sure these never come loose but are still easy enough to unbolt if ever needed. One more “little but important” job done and checked off the list.
ELECTRICAL WORK:
Hilmi was a welcome addition back on Team Möbius this week and he was right into the same theme of completing many more of those little but important electrical jobs.
He started with this one; putting in the connections for Mr. Gee’s two G31 FireFly Carbon Foam starter batteries.
First Hilmi mounted the Red Start Battery Shut Off Switch and ran the cables from there to the Battery Box locations. Each battery will be enclosed in it’s own dedicated plastic battery box and mounted at the very far end of the Stbd/Right side wing of the Workshop underneath the Day Tank and up against the WT Bulkhead there.
They go forward another 40cm/16” from here and their lids just clear the 127mm/5” rubber exhaust hose that runs overtop of them.
Now time to tame all these electrical snakes slithering out of the Engine Room! One of the best features of our decision to put in a dedicated Engine Room enclosure is that we can keep this an “Engine only” Engine Room and locate almost everything else OUTSIDE the ER where they are much cooler, easier to access, less likely to be exposed in the case of fire and much easier to comply with all the ABYC and CE fire safety requirements.
No batteries, no electronics, no fuel filters or tanks; nothing but Mr. Gee and his immediate systems such as heat exchangers and exhaust.
What wires we do need to bring inside the ER, mostly for the Electrodyne alternators, come through this one penetration under the floor of the same Stbd wing of the Workshop on the other side of this photo. Hilmi takes it all in stride as usual and he, Ramadan and Cihan soon have the new cable trays in place …… …… and start routing and fastening the cables in place alongside ……. ……. and then under Mr. Gee.
Cihan does EXHAUSTING WORK!
Möbius’ Engine Room was a busy place this week as Cihan and Ramadan installed the Halyard Exhaust System which has been patiently waiting its turn down on the shop floor underneath Möbius for many months now.
As you might have noticed in some of the photos above, I had already installed the flexible SS woven mesh that bolts vertically to the aft end of Mr. Gee’s exhaust manifold.
So the fist part of the “dry” section of the Halyard Exhaust components to go in was the75mm/ 3” ID vertical SS riser you see here rising up here in the lower Right corner.
The two “wings” on this riser are where the two support rods will connect down to Mr. Gee to help stabilise them. My personal favorite bit of kit from Halyard is this beautifully crafted and polished SS water injection elbow which Cihan is assembling to its silicone bellows. Peering down for an inside view, you can see how the water jets are all distributed evenly around the inner circumference and make sure there is a very even spray and mixing of the seawater that is pumped through them with the exhaust gases exiting Mr. Gee.
This is where the exhaust changes from dry to wet and where most of the noise and the heat is removed by the mixing of the seawater and the exhaust gases. Simple job now for Cihan to slide the soaped up silicone bellows to the awaiting downward angled 127mm / 5” pipe on the Halyard “Combi” Silencer/Separator that has previously been mounted on its dedicated shelf on the front ER WT Bulkhead wall. Almost a year ago now, Yigit and I had spent several months working with Oliver and his team of engineers at Halyard HQ in the UK to design this Goldilocks Exhaust System for XPM78-01 Möbius. Together we exchanged countless 3D models that we were each creating and so it was wonderful to see this all fall into place like an accurately cut jig saw puzzle. Even Cihan, who has installed countless exhaust systems in the many other yachts he has worked on was very impressed and asked “How did you DO that??!!” With everything dry fitted and checked Cihan and Ramadan could now tighten up all the connecting bolts and SS hose clamps.
Using plenty of Tef-Gel on all threads of course! All that remained to be done was install the three rubber hoses needed to complete this Goldilocks exhaust system. Over on the far Left side is the Black 75mm/3” ID hose that quickly takes all the seawater in the bottom of the Silencer/Separator down to the dedicated AL pipe welded into the exiting Sea Chest and out to sea.
Next over to the Right is the White hose that delivers the fresh cold seawater up to the inlet pipe on that SS mixing elbow.
And then the large 127mm/5” ID Black hose transports the now cool and quiet exhaust gases from the Combi down and over to the AL pipe welded into the Stbd ER wall where it then connects to another short length of the same rubber exhaust hose and out the similarly welded in place AL exhaust exit pipe in the hull just above the WL.
DIVINE DINETTE TABLE & PEDESTAL SYSTEM:
Last I have time to cover in this week’s Show & Tell is yet another bit of boat jewellery and Rosewood; our Dinette Table!
It was love at first sight for me about 2 years ago when I first spotted this Triton Deluxe 2-stage table pedestal at the Zwaardvis booth at the big METS Marine Trade conference every year (except this one of course) in Amsterdam.
This is the fully lowered position which lowers the surface of the table to be flush with the surrounding seats where it can then become an additional Queen bed on those rare occasions when we have more quests, or more likely more Grandkids aboard than can be accommodated in the 2 beds in the Guest Cabin. Simply rotate those 2 SS handles and the air assist gas cylinder inside pushes the pedestal up to proper eating/working table height. But WAIT! There’s MORE!
Check out that Kissin’ Cousin from Zwaardvis sitting to the side of the Triton pedestal!
This is the Triton T-System X-Move slider which allows you to slide the table top 200mm / 8” in the X or Y, Fore/Aft or Left/Right direction by simply pulling this lever which mounts under the table. In the normal “fixed” position that little rectangular rubber pad on the Right is pressed up against the underside of the table and locks the table in whatever position you want. Pulling the hand pulls the rubber down allowing you to push/pull the table wherever you want and then release the lever to lock in that position. Brilliant! Over in the Cabinetry shop Ramadan #2, our newest Cabinetmaker has been busy building the Dinette Table top I designed. Very simple and sturdy, it has 50mm/2” thick solid Ro$ewood edges surrounding a Rosewood laminated plywood table top. Ramadan cut this hardboard template so we could try it in place in the Dinette on the Triton pedestal and slider and check out the clearances with the table in all its different X, Y and Z positions. Once we had it just right, he was able to laminate both sides of some 20mm/ 3/4” marine plywood ….. ……. with Rosewood veneer in the lovely heated laminating press they have here at Naval. Mitre all the corners of the solid edging. Cut the biscuit joints and the glue and clamp it all …. to create a single solid table top.
All ready to have the large radii shaped into all these solid edges, sanding, filling and varnishing and I will soon be able to show you this next bit of beautiful art work aboard the good ship Möbius. Well as usual I have much more to show you but I’m pooped, swollen and hungry as it is now after 21:00 here in Antalya on Sunday night so I’m going to call it quits for tonight and be back with much more next week.
Thanks SO much for taking time to get this far and join us on this grand adventure. As always we REALLY appreciate you adding any and all comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below so don’t be bashful now! Your feedback is invaluable and VERY much appreciated.
This week’s title is a bit of a riddle for you so see if you can figure out why I’ve strung together these words to summarise the progress on XPM78-01 Möbius this past week of Nov. 30th to Dec. 5th, 2020? And Yikes! someone please tell me that it is not already December and the end of 2020?!?! While I’m sure that we are all going to be somewhat happy to see this wild ride during 2020 come to an end, I do still shake my head as to how it can be possible that another whole year has flown by?!! So now looks like it won’t be till 2021 that XPM78-01 Möbius launches but trust me, it is all hands on deck in the most literal of ways with Team Möbius as we all recommit ourselves to “git ‘er dun” mode or as our 4 year old Granddaughter is fond of exclaiming; “Let’s DO this!!”
We are now hoping, emphasis on the hope part, to actually “Splash” or Launch her before the end of February now. However, the actual Launch Date remains the same as I’ve always answered that question; “Thursday”!
I will apologise in advance that I’m going to rush through creating this week’s blog posting as it is already mid afternoon on Sunday and it has been a truly exhausting week, both literally and figuratively, which is a clue as to the riddle of the title I mentioned above.
But enough with all this preamble get yourself a favorite beverage and a comfy seat and let’s jump right into this week’s Möbius Show & Tell.
“Little Jobs that add up to be a BIG Deal!
As with most big projects, at this late stage of the build there are a LOT of different jobs getting done as we all pull together and work on the punch list of jobs remaining. Some of these are quite small and continuations of jobs that I’ve covered here extensively in the past so rather than whole sections for each of these, let’s just blast through a few such “little jobs”, all of which add up to a BIG deal BTW.
If you have had a chance to follow along over the past month or so you’ve seen the installation of these two etched glass walls that form the corner of the shower in our Master Cabin. All thanks to the incredible talents of our dear friend Sherry and if you have not read the blogs in the past month where I’ve provided all the details and links to Sherry’s other art work, I can highly recommend taking the time to do so.
This week the glass installation contractors returned to finish the silicone seals around the perimeter of each glass panel and our Cabinetmaker “Ramazan” (pronounced Ram-a-Dan” in Turkish) installed the Ro$ewood trim board that run along the top and bottom exterior edges.
A bit hard to see in this photo (click to enlarge any photo) but I thought this backlit shot helped to show you Sherry’s etched artwork and just how truly “kewl” our Shower looks.
Adding significantly we think, to the overall artistic feel and “pop” of our Master Cabin Shower and Head/Bathroom is this additional work of art & engineering, our blue hued solid tempered water glass VIGO vessel bathroom sink!
Cihan was busy this week installing this Vigo sink and its very complimentary, we think, black faucet.
The oval shaped matching kissing cousin to this rectangular sink is just outside the door into the Head/Bathroom at our Vanity Sink area at the very front end of the Master Cabin. Captain Christine came into the shipyard earlier this week to work on completing the assembly of our LiteMax Durapixel 43” sunlight readable monitor that goes up in the forward Starboard/Right corner of the SuperSalon. After a LOT of searching, we finally found LiteMax in , New Taipei City Taiwan and purchased all 5 of our big sunlight readable monitors from them and had them shipped to us here at Naval. These 2 phots show how I simply attached each board to the aluminium back of the monitor with a SS machine screw that I epoxied in place. This 43” Durapixel model is part of their “Industrial Display” product line which are used for applications such as ATMs, airport displays, etc. and the metal case on the back of these was going to take up too much space for us so we ordered it with just these 3 circuit boards that are needed for the power supply, monitor control and all the various input/output plug ins.
It was great to see Ramazan working on these templates that he will be using next week to cut out these counter surfaces that set atop each of the two Vent Boxes out on the Aft Deck to create our Outside Galley.
This is the Vent Box/Countertop on the Port/Left side where the sink and faucet will live. And this is the two tiered counters on the Stbd/Right side where our electric Kenyan BBQ/Grill will go.
Ramazan will use these templates to cut each countertop from the “left overs” of Turkish Turquoise Marble that we used to build all our Galley countertops. We are totally “Gobsmacked” as my British friends might say by the looks of this Turquoise Turkish marble slab we found and were delighted that there was just enough left over to let us use them for these Outside Galley countertops. This shot taken from just outside the WT Entry door into the SuperSalon looking towards the Aft Stbd corner of the boat will give you a better sense of the size and scale of the Outdoor Galley.
The big “hole” between them is the big access hatch into the Engine Room below which will normally be closed with its all AL hatch door which you will be seeing a bit later here. On the Port/Left side just opposite the Galley, Ramazan was busy putting the finishing touches on the installation of our two Vitrifrigo 70 litre/18.5 USG drawer freezers. These are the latest models from Vitrifrigo and one of their very cool features (sorry couldn’t help myself) is that you can configure them to be anything you want from slightly cooling vegetable storage fridge all the way down to a rock hard freezer at -20° C / -4° F.
Making this change could not be simpler as all you do is change the temperature setting on the digital thermostat touch screen on the front of the drawer.
No space given up inside for the compressor as we ordered the models with remote mounted compressors and they are all down in the Basement below.
We are very impressed by the quality of Vitrifrigo products with examples such as these robust all SS drawer slides, the well done HD coiled cord to connect the sliding drawer to the door mounted thermostat and the beefy rubber self closing gaskets/seals to keep all the cold in and the heat out.
Once we launch and start using these we will be able to report on our overall electrical loads for our four fridge/freezers but we expect them to be very efficient. In addition to the already very good insulation of these units themselves, we have also installed them in cabinets that have 50mm/2” of rigid foam insulation around all 4 sides and backs.
Built in fan as you can see here to keep the air circulating and consistent throughout the whole freezer.
Having a total of 140L / 37USG of “freezer” space on top of 260L / 69 USG of refrigerator space is going to be true luxury for these two ex-singlehanded sailors who are used to MUCH smaller single top loader fridge/freezers where what you want is ALWAYS at the very bottom! Last but definately not least for our run through some of these “little” jobs, Nihat has now pretty much finished his HUGEY task of putting the final finished appearance on the seeming acres of all our exterior exposed bare aluminium surfaces. These 2 photos are of his handiwork in the Upper Helm Station in the SkyBridge. It is currently all wrapped up in protective plastic right now but just out of view in those photos above is THIS beauty that is patiently waiting to be bolted into that Upper Helm Station!
I had put a Llebroc Helm Chair in my previous sailboat Learnativity and as a full time single handed passage maker I quite literally lived in that chair for weeks at a time on long passages so I speak with some authority when I say that these are VERY comfy helm chairs!
I purchased that first Llebroc chair back in 2006 and they have had a LOT of improvements since so we were pretty sure we wanted to “go with what we know” but we just to make sure Christine and I went to every seat manufacturer at boat shows for over 2 years and tried out all of them. We also did a number of deliveries on other boats all with different seats so we had extended opportunities to test out many other seats. But, our bottoms and backs voted VERY clearly; Llebroc was the hands down Goldilocks Helm Chairs for us.
And this is the slightly different Llebroc Bandera Series 2 helm chair we are about to install down in the Lower Helm Station. It is a bit wider and a bit lower back so it is still super comfy but doesn’t get in the way of our 360 degree views outside the SuperSalon. When you are “conning the helm” for hours at a time you usually want to be sitting up nice and high so both chairs have over 18” of vertical “air lift” adjustment. When you are sitting up high though your feet can’t touch the floor which becomes very uncomfortable quickly so both helm chairs have these robust foot rest platforms which can be folded up out of the way when you are sitting lower. These foot rests shipped separately from the chairs and it didn’t take me long to bolt them on with the supplied SS Allen head bolts.
I am a bit fussy, OK, some say obsessive, about coating ALL threads and especially SS ones or ones where there are dissimilar metals involved, with a good coat of TefGel hence that little white jar in the foreground. but trust me it is SO worth this extra step to have fasteners that come out as easily as they went in 20+ years ago.
And yes, you can ask me how I know! Another great feature is that our Llebroc Helm Chairs are mounted on these Mariner 2 Sliders which provide 210mm/8” of fore/aft travel on these AL rods.
All the framing and primary parts of the chairs, pedestals and swivels are solid cast aluminium so everything is eXtremely rigid and solid. However, for this aging sailor’s badly damaged spine, THIS Is my favorite feature, the manual pump adjusted Lumbar back support! You have to use one of these to appreciate just how awemazing and once again, yes you can ask me how I know?!! Even though it is just temporarily in place and there is much to be finished around it, this Helm Chair will be seeing a LOT of use by both of us as we get back to sailing the world from either our upper or lower helm stations.
HATCH SEALS:
One of Ugur’s “little jobs” this past week was installing all the big thick EPDM rubber gaskets in all the three big all aluminium hatches on Möbius. This is the biggest of the three hatches, the one overtop of the Engine Room. Even though they only have one job, keeping these hatches completely watertight no matter what forces of sea water is crashing on deck and trying their bet to get through, these gaskets are eXtremely critical. One of these hatches is this one up at the Bow sealing off the whole Forepeak area below and there will undoubtedly be times when we “bury the nose” into some huge wave so you can imagine the water pressure that these seals need to keep out. It took me a bit of time to run the calculations and scenarios needed to chose the Goldilocks “just right” Durometer hardness for these seals. They need to be hard or stiff enough to seal well enough to keep out all that water pressure and yet they need to be soft enough to “squish” just the right amount when you close them and “dog” them down with their big beefy latches which I will show you in a bit below. To add to the challenge the width and thickness of each of these hatch gaskets/seals needed to be different to match their construction. This EPDM gasket on the ER Hatch is 40mm / 1.6” wide by 25mm / 1” thick and this shot shows how Uğur has done a nice job of gluing this seal in place and holding it to bend around the short radius on each corner with some temporary blocks. This way he could install each seal as one long piece with just one butt joint about half way along the length of the ER Hatch.
All of these EPDM seals are firmly glued in place with Sikaflex industrial adhesive so they should serve us well for many, many years.
HATCH DOGS & HANDLES
?? have you twigged to the riddle of this week’s title yet??
Of course those EPDM hatch seals can be as fabulous as you like, they are not going to do much sealing if they are not eXtremely well dogged down when closed so that they get that Goldilocks Just Right pressure to squish the Just Right about to form the Just Right watertight seal.
And THAT is what these bits of boat jewelry are for!
This is one of 14 Bofor Dog Locks & Handles which Uğur spent much of his time installing this past week. Bofor is one of our favorite Turkish companies we have found while building Möbius and you may remember that name as we also turned to Bofor for all our WT Doors on Möbius.
BTW, the “Brass roller” indicated here is a typo and as you can see in the photos the roller is actually Black Delrin so no concerns about having Brass and Aluminium touching each other which is a corrosion No-No.
This dimensioned drawing above and this illustrations below will give you a good idea of how these Dogs and Handles work and the quality of their construction. One example of the eXquisite quality of these Bofor products are the SS ball bearings that enable us to dog down these big hatches with tremendous clamping force and yet be smooth as butter when doing so.
One of my other many “obsessions” besides prodigious use of TefGel is to not have very clear clean decks with no “toe-stubbers” allowed. Hence our use of these flush mount Bofor Dogs.
In addition to being very good looking, these flush mount Dogs are also super practical as we open them with the same winch handles we use for our winches using this rather universal “star pattern” SS fitting.
Simple 1/4 turn to close or open. Here is how the four flush mount Dogs look on the Forepeak Hatch which Uğur has now completed and reinstalled on its hinges and dogged down to check for fit. This is what those four Dogs and their anodized aluminium Handles look like from the inside when the Forepeak Hatch is open for business. A bit closer look for those of you interested in a more detailed look at how these Dogs and Handles work. The Dogs on the ER Hatch are too high to reach so they only have the “Dog” portion and not the Handles but they operate the same way from up above using a winch handle. Simple though them may be, installing these Bofor Dogs & Handles takes great care and attention to mount them in just the right position.
The process begins with Uğur carefully laying out the location of the through holes for the body of each one has just the right amount of purchase on the AL frames underneath for that Delrin roller to rotate on. The body of the Dog Lock is then inserted into the hole and the AL collar in the foreground is threaded onto it from the underside. Down inside the Engine Room there was another bit of detail for Uğur to look after which was that the AlucoBond panelling inside the ER was in the way of the dogs.
This one at the far Aft end of the ER Hatch also needed to clear this clear water hose which is the drain from the six holes in the “gutter” around the full perimeter of the ER Hatch. We can’t have water dripping on Mr. Gee when we open his hatch now can we??!! But didn’t take Uğur too long to cut out the AlucoBond paneling where the Dogs need to be able to swing as they close to grab onto the AL frame you can see here. Last but not least was this vertical mounted Hatch/Door on the HazMat locker on the Aft Swim Platform. We will often have some big following seas which can sometimes break and really “poop” the whole Swim Platform and Aft Deck so equally robust seals are needed here as well.
TREADMASTER!!
The star of the show this past week in terms of exciting milestones for Christine and I to see when some of the newest members of Team Möbius started installing the TreadMaster that will cover any and all exterior aluminium plates where we walk.
The decks are the most obvious but this same TreadMaster will go onto all stair treads, tops of hatches, around winches and the floors of the SkyBridge and the Tender. TreadMaster is made in the UK and has been a standard non-slip surface on boats since 1990. It is quite a fascinating material as it is eXtremely soft and flexible as you can see here so it can perfectly follow most any surface. Yet at the same time it is also eXtremely tough and we have been on boats with TreadMaster decks that are over 20 years old and still working well. I took this close up shot to show you how the non-skid works with all these sharp edged diamonds cut about half way through the 5mm thick Treadmaster material. Tools of the Trade for applying Treadmaster include lots of West Systems epoxy with colloidal filler to get just the right “peanut butter consistency”, some V-notched spreaders and a very skookum roller for squeezing out the epoxy to just the right thickness. Let run through a rapid-fire set of photos to show you the overall process we came up with for installing all our TreadMaster on Möbius.
First they glue down registration strips of thin plywood that are 20mm / 3/4” wide, the width of the gap we wanted between each piece of TreadMaster.
Each corner of each sheet has a 30mm / 1.2” radius that is cut with a special cutter I made up out of a short length of 60mm SS pipe with a 90 degree section of the edge sharpened with my Dremel tool. This made quick work out of the hundreds of corners that needed to be cut and kept them all the same. These rounded corners prevent any lifting that a sharp 90 degree corner would likely experience and looks great to boot.
Once each sheet is cut and dry-fitted, it is removed and the underlying AL deck plate is given a light sand with some 120-180 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidized layer that natural forms and protects raw aluminium surfaces. This is a very desirable trait of aluminium that naturally protects all our AL surfaces but adhesive does not stick as well to the oxide layer so it needs to be removed to expose “fresh” clean AL for the adhesive epoxy to bond to.
Last bit of prep is to thoroughly clean the whole AL surface with clean cloths soaked in Acetone.
Time to mix up the epoxy adhesive now! West Systems makes this very quick and easy with their pump system; One pump of Resin + one pump of Hardener and you are good to go! Such a brilliant system! TreadMaster’s detailed installation instructions specify a “peanut butter” consistency and explicitly caution against one of ketchup, mayonnaise or yogurt. To do so requires the addition of High Density 406 Colloidal Silicone filler mixed at a ratio of 1:1 by volume with the mixed epoxy. Thorough stirring produces the just right Peanut Butter, smooth and creamy, not “Chunky” thank you very much and it is ready to be applied to the shiny clean AL deck surface. The peanut butter can be applied to either the TreadMaster or the AL deck but we found that it worked best to apply to the cleaned AL surfaces because you could really force the epoxy to stick to the entire surface right up to the edges and know for sure there were not missed spots Now the V-notched spreaders come into play and provided an easy fool proof way of getting the just right thickness of the epoxy mix across the entire surface. Now those fast glued registration guides come into play as the previously cut piece of TreadMaster now easily set into the just right position by simply pushing the piece up against the edges of these guides. The piece can then be quickly set in place by hand making sure that the edges in particular are all perfectly referenced against their respective guides. Now that hefty multi roller tool comes into its own by allowing you to put your full weight onto it as you rapidly roll out from the center to each edge thereby ensuring that all the epoxy is firmly and evenly squished and ……. … that you get the same amount of squeeze-out around all the edges Any uneven amount of squeeze-out can be easily seen and fixed with some added thumb pressure. And then the ultimate tool, your finger, forms the just right coved surface on the epoxy as it makes the transition from the AL deck to the TreadMaster edge. The fast glued registration guides can be quickly popped off with light tap with a chisel and you can now go over the entire edge of the finished sheet. Rinse and Repeat 100 times and you’re all done! Orkan, who is also Naval’s “Teak Deck Guy” was in charge of doing all cutting each sheet of TreadMaster to their Goldilocks Just Right size with their appropriate radiused corners and here he has got the Stbd/Right side Deck all covered with dry-fitted TreadMaster. He was in with me on Saturday, along with Faruk and Ramazan to take advantage of this quieter and dust free time in the shipyard and here is cutting and fitting the sheets on the Port/Left side of the Aft Deck. Meanwhile, Faruk on the Left and Ramazan teamed up to glue down all the Port side sheets on the Foredeck. As the winter darkness came on and it was quitting time on Saturday, Orkan had finished most of the Port side of the Aft Deck and we were all VERY pleased with how quickly and how well this whole process had worked.
Next week should see all the rest of the TreadMaster applied though it becomes slower as you do the smaller areas such as stair treads and such but I will show you all that next week.
CHAIN BIN FULLNESS
Somehow amidst all that went on this week I was able to finish putting Big Red 1 & 2 together, our two 250A @ 28V Electrodyne alternators and get them all painted and ready to install But I’ve promised several of you to cover them in quite a bit of detail so I’ll do that next week. But I was also able to build and install the neat grid in the Chain Bin and put all 100m / 330 feet of our 13mm anchor chain so let me finish up with a quick overview of all that. I began by giving the Chain Bin a much needed thorough cleaning after sitting open down in the Forepeak for almost a year now, and then attaching a length of 1/2” Dyneema line to the D-ring welded to the bottom of the Chain Bin. This red Dyneema line runs up through the vertical AL pipe and out the 90 degree hawse pipe in the Maxwell VWC 4000 windlass where I spliced it into the bitter end of the 13mm anchor chain. The purpose of this line is that if we ever got into a situation where we had to “cut and run” due to severe conditions mixed with an anchor that we can’t get up for some reason, then we would let out all our anchor chain and bring up this Dyneema tail onto the anchor deck where we could quickly cut it with a sharp knife. No time in such situations to be undoing shackles or going down into the Chain Bin to do this. For some time now, I’d been mulling over the best way to keep as much separation between the galvanized anchor chain and the aluminium Chain Bin as they are a bit far apart on the Noble scale of metals which can cause some corrosion. I had one of those fun Aha! moments when I realized that the composite grid material that we were using for the flooring in the ER, Forepeak and Workshop would be the Goldilocks solution! We had a bunch of scrap pieces left over from doing those floors so I traced out two half circles the diameter of the inside of the Chain Bin with my trusty Milwaukee “Hacksall” and soon had the two part, for ease of installation into the Chain Bin, all cut out. I then thought that water and much might get trapped a bit inside all those square grids so out came my Milwaukee angle grinder with a nice thick grinding wheel and made a quick pass down the middle of each row of square grids.
et Voilà! The Goldilocks Chain Bin bottom was born! Now time to get back up on the Anchor Deck and thread all 100 meters of that colour depth coded 13mm anchor chain into its new home down below. And THIS folks, is the result and what 100 meters of perfectly cone shaped anchor chain looks like inside a Goldilocks Chain Bin! OK, I’ve got lots more to Show & Tell but I’m exhausted and it is now 9pm and my personal chef par excellence, aka my Captain Christine, has been patiently keeping dinner warm so I’m going to end it here for this week and pick up where I left off.
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