As Launch Date looms larger and sooner the theme of checking off all the “little Big” jobs on the punch list continues although we still have a few “Big” jobs such as painting the bottom with foul release paint which continued as well this past week so without any further ado let’s jump right in to see all those jobs both little and BIG that Team Möbius looked after this week of January 25-30, 2021.
We’re Shafted!
One of the “little Big” jobs that we completed this past week is getting the propeller shaft fully aligned with the output flange on the Nogva Gearbox and hence this week’s title.
In this photo the dark Burgundy is the Aft Output end of the Nogva Gearbox and the bright Red is the flange on the propeller shaft which continues through the Tides Marine shaft seal system and out of the boat through the large AL prop shaft tube which is hidden here by the Blue Tides Marine silicone bellows hose. This dimensioned drawing of the complete Nogva CPP or controlled Pitch Propeller, shaft, seal and flange will help orient things a bit.
Here I have gone below the boat rotate the CPP prop back and forth while pushing it hard forward so that the two flanges meet. A few months back we had spent quite a bit of time getting this alignment close as we installed the anti-vibration mounts on the Gardner and the Nogva and you read about that HERE, so now it was time for the fine and final adjustment to get these two flanges perfectly aligned. As you may recall from previous posts the two flanges need to be eXtremely closely aligned both concentrically as per the illustration on the Left and also laterally as shown on the Right. Maximum deviation we are allowed is up to 0.005mm / 0.002in (human hair is about 0.05mm diameter) and ideally we are going for zero. Needing such perfection I called on my Perfect Partner, aka Captain Christine to assist and although she is prone to laying down on the job (sorry, couldn’t resist) she was a huge help and made this task go much faster. We check the alignment by inserting a thin feeler gauge, which is the silver strip you see here, that is a tight sliding fit into the space between the faces of these two flanges and see what the gap is at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock. Any difference in size of the gap at these locations tells us how far it is out either horizontally at 3 & 6 o’clock or vertically at 12 and 6. Adding to the challenge the prop shaft needs to be supported in its perfectly centered position which my red hydraulic bottle jack is looking after. Mr. Gee, our Gardner 6LXB is solidly bolted up to the Nogva Gearbox so they are essentially an eXtremely solid single unit that is supported by six anti-vibration mounts such as the Silver one you can see on the Stbd. side of the Nogva Gearbox on the far Right in this photo. You can see the large vertical threaded part of these mounts with the large supporting hex nut on the bottom and smaller locking nut on the top. To align the flanges vertically I need to turn the large nuts at the very front of Mr. Gee or these back two on the Nogva, Up/Down to move the Nogva flange until the gap is zero all the way around.
The process then is for me to go around the four Front/Rear mounts and turn those big nuts Up/Down while Christine moved the feeler gauges around the circumference of the flanges and called out the differences in the gap to me.
With Christine laying down in the space behind the Aft end of the ER Enclosure overtop of the Tides Marine seal at the bottom, there wasn’t enough room to take a photo but this previous shot shows what she was doing as she reached in with the feeler gauges to check the gap and call out the differences to me. Doing this all by myself was very time consuming so now you see what I called in the Big Boss to help out!
It still took us almost 2 hours but in the end we got the gap down to zero such that both flanges were touching all the way around. With these two flanges now fully aligned we could insert the 8 hardened Grade 8 bolts through both flanges and torque them down to 120NM and the alignment was done!
White grease is TefGel 45 to prevent any corrosion and ensure that these nuts are just as easy to undo after many years on the job when we need to remove the prop shaft or the Nogva/Gardner for some reason in the distant future. Many of these “little Big” jobs are like dominos in that as getting one done lets you do the next. So with the flanges aligned and mounts all torqued down I could now finish installing the Tides Marine SureSeal system. This is an eXtremely critical bit of kit as this is responsible for keeping the prop shaft cutlass bearing lubricated with a flow of fresh sea water AND keeping that sea water OUT of the boat! Here is what the real deal looks like now fully installed. The Blue silicone “Articulating hose” in the illustration above, is double clamped onto the Stern or Prop Shaft Tube at the bottom and onto the Black SureSeal housing at the top.
The way this works is that inside the SureSeal are two stationary rubber lip seals with the 65mm OD Prop Shaft rotating inside them that keeps the water sea water inside the Prop Shaft Tube from being able to get past and into the boat.
We keep a VERY close eye on that Blue silicone hose over the years as if it were to ever rupture we would have an eXtremely large volume of water flooding into the boat!
FYI, The Black ring at the top is the very handy holder for a second set of replacement lip seals which you can change out with the boat still in the water as you don’t have to remove the Prop Shaft to replace them; just pry the old ones forward, cut them off and slide the new ones into place.
Last part of installing the SureSeal system is to provide a pressurized flow of fresh sea water into the Prop Shaft Tube which travels down the tube and lubricates the Cutlass bearing which supports the Prop Shaft as it exits the boat.
One of the reasons I chose to locate the Silver Heat Exchanger you see in the Upper Right was to be able to tap into its drain plug on the salt water side and use this as the source of pressurized salt water for the SureSeal. Nice short hose run and Cihan had that all hooked up in no time. The second Red hose on the Left goes up along the Aft wall of the ER with a ball valve on the end of it so that I can check the salt water flow rate when we first start up and from time to time afterwards and ensure that there is at least 4L/min / 1USG/min when the engine is idling. Both those little Big jobs checked off the list and this is what the finished result looks like when peering down into the space Christine has now vacated on the outside of the Aft wall of the ER. Silver Gardner Coolant Heat Exchanger bottom right, Tides Marine SureSeal middle Left and Red Prop Flange middle Right and the Red Nogva Gearbox Oil Heat Exchanger at the top.
To keep the ER air tight a 6mm AL plate is bolted with a gasket over top and covered wtih the same composite grid floor plates as the rest of the Workshop and ER. Cihan checked off another Big little job by plumbing the Sea Water and Engine Coolant water lines up at the forward Starboard/Right corner of Mr. Gee and the ER. It is pretty busy up there so I’ve labelled some of this plumbing to help you make sense of it. Can be a bit confusing as there are three fluids running around here; Sea Water that comes in via the Sea Chest just visible on the far middle Right here and through the Strainer and Manifold on its way to the Jabsco Impeller Pump and then out of that Pump and into the Engine Oil Heat Exchanger where it runs Aft exiting out and into that Silver Sea Water Heat Exchanger you saw up above in the SureSeal installation sequence.
Hope you got all that because YES children that WILL be on the Test on Friday!
Driving Big Red #2
Over on the opposite Port/Left side of Mr. Gee I finally have the drive system for our second Electrodyne 250Ah @ 24V alternator all designed and the adapters all machined so time to get them all installed. You may recall this photo from THIS previous blog post about installing what I call Big Red #2 and how I intended to drive it from the PTO or Power Take Off on the Gardner using a Jack Shaft I had from a previous job. This is a quick screen shot from my Fusion 360 design for the adapters at either end of the Red JackShaft. Green cylinder on the far Left is the Output shaft from the Gardner PTO, Purple is the AL adaptor to couple the Jackshaft to the PTO and at the far Right in Gold is the steel multi V-belt drive pulley that came with the Electrodyne which I will machine with four threaded holes to bolt the other end of the Red Jackshaft to.
Note: Jackshaft simplified here to just a rod with flanges at either end.
This is the PTO from the Gardner with that Purple aluminium adaptor in the rendering above now pushed onto the Green PTO Output shaft and secured with four round hex head through bolts.
The Red Flange on the front U-joint end of the JackShaft barely visible on the Right will bolt to that AL adaptor with four more M6 SS bolts. This is the Aft end of the JackShaft where this U-joint will be similarly bolted to that steel 8V pulley on Big Red #2. The day came to an end at this point yesterday so not quite finished but this shot will show you how the whole JackShaft will connect the power from the PTO back to Big Red #2. This monster Electrodyne alternator could absorb as much as 10HP at full 250 amps of output which the gear driven PTO can put out easily and this Cardan or Jack Shaft should be more than up to the task.
Stay tuned for more though folks on the final installation of Big Red #2 next week AND just wait till you see the sweet setup I’ve come up with to drive Big Red #1 using a cogged timing belt setup that is now almost done.
Well Sand My Bottom!
Also not quite done but work continued this past week on getting the bottom underwater portion of the hull all primed and filled in preparation for applying the silicone based Foul Release paint, International InterSleek 1100SR.
The Paint Crew finished applying all the epoxy filler to smooth out all the welds and create a sleek smooth surface for the InterSleek 1000SR Foul Release top coat to come.
You can see some of the filled welds around the Prop Tunnel above and ….. the filleted edges around the AL threaded mounting disk for the Zinc on the Rudder. The circle on the Right is the filled in through hole we put in the Rudder to make it possible to remove the Prop Shaft without having to drop the Rudder. Because we hope to not need to remove the Prop Shaft for many years this hole is filled in to provide a fully flush curved surface on the Rudder sides to maximize a smooth laminar flow of water over the Rudder. Sanding the first coat of epoxy filler on the Keel and Prop Tunnel into smooth large radius coves. ….. and the Aft Depth Sounder transducer. …. and one of the 5 Sea Chests. By end of the week they had the last of the 5 coats of International epoxy primer rolled as you can see around the Bow Thruster Tunnel, another smaller Sea Chest intake and Zinc mounting disk up near the bow. Final coat of epoxy primer being rolled on Aft and we’ll see the application of the InterSleek 1100SR next week.
Grand Dame of Dyneema!
Lest you should think that The Captain only lays down on the job, this will prove that she sometimes sits! But Christine has become and expert Dyneema splicer after doing so many as she installs all the Lifelines around the Main Deck. This are the AL Stanchions with their Lifelines now in place on the Aft end of the Port/Left side. The Tender will come On/Off this side so these 3 LifeLines have Pelican Hooks that are easy to release so we can then pull up the Stanchions and roll up the whole setup and stow when the Tender is aboard. Closer view of how these Pelican Hooks and Thimbles work. You start to appreciate how Christine’s Dyneema splicing expertise has developed so quickly when you start to count up all the splices required for each LifeLine in the system we’ve come up with. On the far Right is an endless loop that wraps around the AL Stanchion through a small AL D-ring to keep it in place and a SS Thimble captured on the end. Last step of this will be to lash the loop around the SS Thimble closed so that when it is undone the Thimble can’t come out.
Looking down the LifeLines to the Left you can see another splice at the Left end of the Pelican Hook and then further Aft/Left two more around these Black anodized Donuts or Rings you can see further to the Left. Christine leaves a gap of about 80-100mm / 3-4” between these two rings and then wraps multiple lashings between them to tension the life lines. And of course each of these Rings require yet another splice!
INTERIOR UPDATES:
Hilmi and Ramazan continued their work inside Möbius this past week and we also find more of Captain Christine’s fingerprints up here at the Main Helm where she and Hilmi have been working to install and connect Boat Computer #1 you see here on the Port/Left side of the Main Helm Chair. Its ultimate home will be inside this space behind the 50” Monitor on the outside and this AC/Heating Air Handler inside. This space is normally covered by this hinged Rosewood back with a recess for the adjustable mounting system for the 50” monitor that doubles as both our movie watching entertainment screen when on anchor and then one of 4 screens for boat data and navigation when underway. Down in the Guest Cabin Ramazan is completing the last of the Ado LVT vinyl plank flooring. While the smallest by surface area it has ELEVEN removeable sections above the bolt on tank access hatches below so this area is taking the most time.
Pull out Bed in the Upper Left and Christine’s Office desk on the Right. Six of those removable floor sections all weighted down while the adhesive dries. Removable floor sections?
What removable floor sections? Ramzan then stepped up his game (sorry) by moving up to install the vinyl flooring on the steps leading up from the SuperSalon to the Aft Deck.
Another tricky and time consuming bit of detail as each step has one of these handrail posts he needs to go around. Which, as you can see, he had no trouble doing eXtremely well! And that’s a wrap for the week that was January 25-30, 2021. Yikes! The first month of 2021 gone already???
Well at least it puts us another week closer to LAUNCH so as with “being shafted” that is all a very good thing.
Thanks for joining us for yet another episode here at Möbius.World. REALLY appreciate and value you doing so and please feel encouraged to add your comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
The start of our marine based circumnavigation of this awemazing planet of ours will have to wait for a few more months but yesterday (Saturday Jan 23, 2021) marked the completion of my 68th circumnavigation of the sun and I’ve already got my 69th off to a great start.
I had a marvelous birthday yesterday by being able to do what I love most, build things with my hands, with the person I love most as well as receiving an overwhelming number of B’day best wishes from so many friends and family I am so fortunate to have in my life.
Christine and I spent the day at Naval Yachts working on our Tender and were delighted to be able to fully install our Castoldi 224 DD jet drive and Yanmar 4JH4 TE 110HP diesel inboard engine which was another great milestone for us to hit and she is now well enough done for us to load onto the Aft Deck of Möbius before we Launch. Just as we were finishing putting the Yanmar in place Dincer and Baris showed up with a delicious strawberry B’day cake which was a delightful surprise and made my day all the more special.
Team Möbius also hit several other major milestones this past week so grab your favorite beverage and comfy chair and let’s jump right into this week’s Progress Update Show & Tell.
PAINT MY BOTTOM!
Perhaps the biggest milestone this past week was the start of putting on our “bottom paint” which is the only paint there will be on Möbius as all other aluminium surfaces are being left in their beautiful Silver “raw” aluminium state for minimal maintenance and the “all business” work/commercial/military esthetic we want for the exterior of XPM78-01 Möbius.
However for the same low maintenance reasons, the situation is reversed for all the aluminium surfaces that are below the Waterline WL which will be painted with 5 coats of Epoxy Primers and then some top coasts of International InterSleek 1100SR which is a silicone based Foul Release type of Bottom Paint.
The final bit of preparation of the hull was done by Nihat who finished up with what should be the final bit of aluminium welding when he welded on the threaded attachment discs for the ten zinc anodes that will be bolted onto the hull after it is all painted.
These zinc discs are how we protect all the various dissimilar metals on Möbius which range from Stainless Steel, to Bronze to Aluminium and several others, from Galvanic Corrosion which is what occurs when two or more dissimilar metals are immersed in an electrolyte such as sea water. Referred to as “sacrificial” anodes Zinc is one of the least “Noble” of metals and so it will ‘sacrifice’ itself by corroding first and thus protecting the other metals. As these Zincs wear away with corrosion they are easy to replace with new ones. Zincs come in all shapes and sizes and we’ve decided to go with the more streamlined round disc shaped ones so Uğur quickly made up ten of these 80mm/” 3 diameter discs of 20mm / 3/4” thick AL and then welded them along the length of the hull.
This one will help protect the Rudder and its shaft.
BTW, the oval plate you see tacked in place near the leading edge of the Rudder is for the through hole in the Rudder which allows us to much more easily remove the prop shaft should that ever be neccessary by turning the Rudder hard over and letting the prop shaft slide through it so there is no need to remove the Rudder.
The tacked on plates covering this hole on either side allow the paint crew can cover this with Epoxy filler and create a smooth sleek shape to the Rudder for maximum performance. Two more, one on either side, of the Keel and Prop Shaft Skeg and then six more matched pairs along the length of the hull up to just aft of the Bow Thruster tunnels at the Bow. First order of business for the Paint Crew was to fully “tent” the bottom of the hull with plastic sheets. This is both to keep dust out from other work going on in the shipyard and keep in any overspray when they are spraying on the Bottom Paint. The other reason for the tenting is to control the temperature and humidity of the hull which is done by this air heating system that is sealed onto the plastic tent sides. We have been having a bit of a cold snap the past week here in Antalya with night time temps dipping down to 4C / 38F so we needed to bring the temperature of the AL hull up to < 15C / 60F for painting and filling. Getting warmer, just a few more degrees to go. Plastic all taped down to the concrete floors to seal everything in/out and it was paint time! Azad, standing on the Left is Naval’s Master Painter and Ali on the Right and Mehmet kneeling on the Left round out our Paint Crew who where meeting here to go over the painting application process. You learn the hard way that it is not advisable to mix various different brands of paint so everything from the first coat of etching primer to the filler and the final InterSleek 100SR Topcoat is all from International Paints. I have had excellent success with International paint on our previous boat so I wanted to continue to “go with what you know” for critical things like Bottom Paint. As you may recall, Ali and Mehmet had spent all last week sanding down all the AL hull surfaces to remove the AL oxide that naturally forms on raw AL and they gave it all a quick light sand, wiped it all down with acetone thinners and clean white rags and Möbius was ready to have her Bottom painted!
I prefer rolling on the primer rather than spraying as I think it improves the critical initial adhesion. All the welds will be filled and sanded so as to create a completely smooth surface for minimal resistance when slithering through the sea. So these areas received the first coat of White InterPrime 820 which is a high performance, high build epoxy primer specifically formulated for underwater Al surfaces that will have epoxy filler applied on top. Once all the welds and other areas that will have Epoxy filter applied were covered in the White 820 primer, Ali & Mehmet rolled on the Bronze coloured InterPrime 450 which is optimized for maximum water barrier and long term anticorrosive protection. And in just a few hours they had all the AL underwater surfaces fully covered with their first coat of Epoxy primer. Once they had all the AL covered with the initial coat of Epoxy primers, they could start mixing up the epoxy filler and smooth that onto all the welds to create smooth hydrodynamic surfaces for the water to flow over. Mehmet and Ali have painted and filled a LOT of boats so they are eXtremely fast and efficient at applying this first coat of filler. This first coat provides the majority of the filler needed to smooth out all the welds and then after it is fully hardened they will take their long boards and orbital sanders to smooth out all the surfaces and add any more filler needed to make each surface perfectly smooth. Having smooth flat and curved surfaces not only makes the hull much more slippery, it also makes it easiest for us to clean when we dive the boat every few months to wipe off any growth that has formed from sitting at anchor for long periods. In this photo we can see two good examples of this such as the exit from the Bow Thruster tunnel and the nicely coved welds between the thick Keel Bar and the hull plates on the very bottom. Clean water flow over the CPP propeller and the Rudder are two other eXtremely important areas so all the welds and transitions receive a good coating of filler so they can be sanded into smooth gentle curves for the final paint to go on top.
Be sure to join us here next week when the sanding, filling and primer continues.
EMERGENCY TILLER
With their work done outside the boat, Nihat and Uğur moved inside to build and install the Emergency Tiller. This is another one of those bits of kit that we hope never to use but are always glad to have just in case. I designed the whole Tiller Arm to be eXtremely simple and eXtremely robust so you can see how the Tiller Arm itself has been machined from a single solid block of aluminium which clamps around the 127mm / 5” OD AL Rudder Shaft. We extended the top of the Rudder Shaft up above the Tiller Arm and milled a large 80mm / 3” hole in it for a 2.3m / 7.5ft thick walled AL pipe to slide into. To help support this Emergency Tiller pipe, Uğur is bolting this 20mm / 3/4” thick AL plate to the front wings of the Tiller Arm This provides plenty of leverage to the Emergency Tiller pipe so it can provide more than enough power to turn and hole the Rudder in position in even the most demanding of rough water conditions. Almost finished here, just need to put some holes in those two AL tabs on the front of the Tiller pipe so that we can fasten two Dyneema block and tackle setups between the end of the Tiller and the side frames of the hull to keep the Rudder in whatever position needed and to be able to steer the boat smoothly by letting one block out and pulling the other in.
We will test it out on sea trials and then stow it hoping to never need to bring it out again, but it does help us SWAN or Sleep Well At Night knowing it is there.
Mr. Gee puts his Jackets On
Mr. Gee got some attention this past week as well when I found the time to install all of the insulation jackets covering all the SS dry stack pipes of his Halyard exhaust system. This is what his dry stack looks like when it is “naked” and with the aft two of the support braces installed. And this is what it looks like as I started dressing him up with his class Gray insulation jackets.
As they did with the whole exhaust system, Oliver and his talented team at Halyard in the UK did a fabulous job building this set of jackets that wrap the entire dry stack portion of the eXhaust to keep the heat out of the Engine Room until it has the sea water injected into it and cool everything down as it enters that large White Silencer/Water Separator just visible on the far upper Left.
This is a stack of the little mini jackets that wrap around each connection joint of the three main jackets and ensure that no heat escapes out these joints.
The bulk of the insulation value comes from that White fluffy material you can see running the length of these inside surfaces and with a thin SS mesh sewn in to keep it all in place. Then thick canvas like material is sewn into each end of each jacket so that each joint is very tight and no air can flow in or out. The outer jacket material is very soft and supple to your hand yet fully fireproof and adds another layer of insulation. Cords are sewn into packets along both outer edges so that you can cinch each jacket up tight where it wraps around the jacket underneath.
Double D-Rings on the center straps make it easy to wrap the jacket around the pipe and cinch them down tightly around the circumference of each pipe and pull the straps tight. I started by wrapping the first long vertical jacket on the far Right here followed by the second short curved jacket that butts up to the vertical one around the elbow to make the transition to the long horizontal jacket I have partly fastened in place here.
With all three of the longer jackets all strapped down I now wrap one of these narrower jackets around each joint where the inner jackets meet to fully seal in all those joints. You can see the first narrow jacket fully cinched down around the end of the vertical jacket and the bottom of the elbow and I’m about to wrap the next one around the joint between the horizontal jacket and the elbow jacket. Very much a KISSS Keep It Simple Safe & Smart system which I am very pleased with. Keeps most of the heat inside the exhaust system and out of the Engine Room, Safe to be around such hot components with little danger of grabbing or falling against such eXtremely hot parts and easy to remove to check or do maintenance. Well done Halyard!
CPP PITCH GAUGE SENDER
Hilmi also spent some time in the ER this past week installing this bronze Kobelt Pitch sensor on the Nogva CPP Gearbox. Very similar to a Rudder angle sensor, the Bronze arm with the spacers taped onto will be connected to the lever on the Nogva that changes the Pitch of the CPP prop blades. This data is then sent out that Black cable and up to the CPP Pitch gauges at each Helm station as well as being put onto the boat data network that we can view on any screen from our phones and tablets up to the big boat monitors.
HOUSE BATTERY BANKS FINISHED
Hilmi and I also spent some time in the Basement and were able to finish the four House Battery Banks under the floors down there. Each bank consists of four FireFly Carbon Foam 4V @ 450Ah batteries wired in Series to create a 24V @ 450Ah bank. Each of these four banks are wired directly into the main DC High Amperage Distribution Panel above them.
The bottom six 4V batteries are Bank #1 located in the Aft most battery compartment which is under the floor and goes down to the very bottom of the hull along each side of the 25mm thick Keel Bar that runs the length of the boat. Each compartment is sealed in with 6mm AL floor plates and rubber gaskets. Starting to tidy up all the wiring in Bank #2 at the bottom and #3 on top. Red/Black cables are the positive and negative cables each 250mm2 which is about 4/0 AWG size to ensure that we have no less than 2% voltage drop in any of these cables.
The Gray wires connect a variety of temperature sensors to each battery bank so we can monitor the temperature of each individual bank as well as the ambient temperature of the Battery Compartments which are vented in/out with thermostatically controlled fans. The temperature data is not only for our eyes but is also fed directly to the Victron BMV 712C Smart Shunt battery monitors which is in turn used to set the charging rates from any of the five MultiPlus Inverter/Chargers so that their battery charging is fully optimized. Last to be worked on Bank #4 we are about to connect up the large cables and sensors gives you a less obscured view of the thick Copper positive cable take off with the T-Class fuse that the cable bolts to and the Victron battery temperature sensor under the bolt to the positive terminal of the battery. Back up in Banks @ & 3 the cables are all now fully secured with zip ties and you can see the simple battery hold down system we came up with by cutting those shaped blocks of composite foam that wedge each battery firmly in place when the gasketed lid is bolted down. After one last check of the BMV battery monitors and double checked all the connections, the penetration in the top center section atop all the battery compartments could be filled with special fireproof filler to fully seal the compartments and firmly hold each wire and cable in place. Stepping back a bit to show you the lid being bolted down over Banks #2 & 3 and that now sealed penetration with all the big Red/Black cables coming out of the Battery Compartments and directly into the High Amp DC Distribution box on the upper Left. One of two 120V MultiPlus Inverter/Chargers seen on the Right, three more 240V MultiPlus’ are on the opposite side.
Möbius is now all powered up which is yet another big milestone for us.
SHOWER TEAK FLOORS ARE IN
Orkan and Ali finished building the three sections of Teak flooring for both Showers and moved them onto the boat this past week.
This is the Shower in the Guest Cabin showing off its beautiful new Teak floor. If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) you can see how the edges are relieved with a 15mm/5/8” gap away from the walls which is here the water falls down to the shower pan below and then out the drain into the Grey Water tanks.
Each floor section is removable for cleaning and maintenance. Same design up in the Master Head. With a second floor panel in the connected Shower. All coming together very nicely if I do say so myself and the combination of materials and colours are very pleasing to our eyes and seem to be able to keep up with those artfully etched glass walls. Last bit of Teak is the permanently affixed panel that goes on top of the seat in the Master Shower to help keep you from slipping when sitting so Ali got right to work at that. Ali and Orkan do all the Teak deck work at Naval so they too have LOTS of practice and make this all happen very quickly.
SUPERSALON SUPERING ALONG
Up in the SuperSalon, Nihat and Uğur finished mounting the Llebroc Main Helm Chair to the now finished Ado LVT vinyl floor. In eXtreme sea conditions the forces on these pedestal bases can be high in the eXtreme so they are bolted through 60mm / 2.5” thick solid laminated blocking under the flooring and thru the Aluminium floors into 15mm thick AL reinforcement plates in the ceiling of the Basement. I took this shot while briefly sitting in the fully mounted Helm Chair with the camera lens held at eye height to give you an idea of the view forward from the Main Helm. It is a bit cluttered up there on the Bow right now as Christine is finishing off all the Dyneema lifelines and Uğur is putting in the Dorade Cowls, but you can still see how much visibility we have when conning the boat from this Main Helm Station. And here is one of the silicone cowls on the four Dorade boxes on the front deck. These ensure that we always have plenty of fresh air circulating in our Master Cabin even in rough breaking seas when we would not be able to have the hatches open. Ventilation on an XMP type of boat is critical for two of our four priorities; Comfort and Safety.
Each White/Red silicone cowl can also be rotated 360 degrees by just loosening that notched Gray ring at the base and then tightening it back down. Any water that gets into the cowl simply flows out those slots in the bottom of the AL Dorade Box and none can get down the 100mm / 4” AL vent pipes going down into the Master Cabin. Uğur and I worked together to install the locking latches in the large hinged hatch in the SuperSalon that gives you access to the Basement below. Ramazon had finished laying down all the LVT vinyl flooring so we could now cut out the recesses for the two SS locking latches for lifting up and locking down this big hatch.
We were running a bit short handed so we had to call in this foreign help and he worked out so-so. I just love my little Milwaukee 18V router and it made short work of routing out the recesses in the vinyl flooring and underlying plywood for the SS latches to fit into and be flush with the flooring. It was a bit tricky as the recesses needed to be multiple depths for the different steps in the base of the SS latches as you can see here.
We cut out little cardboard temples you can see in these photos and used them mark out the floor and then I could carefully sneak the router up to those lines. On the underside of the Hatch these SS levers turn to engage into slots on the frame and ensure that the hatch stays fully closed and could not fly open if we were to ever roll over.
TENDER is READY to GO ONBOARD Möbius
As I mentioned in the intro, Christine and I spent the day yesterday (Saturday Jan 23, 2021) at the shipyard as we wanted to get the Tender ready to be loaded onto the Aft Deck of Möbius just before the boat mover takes Möbius over to be launched. Uğur and Nihat had finished the hull last month and now we needed to get the jet drive installed and the Yanmar engine in place before lifting the Tender onto the Aft Deck. Earlier in the week the Fenders we had ordered over a month ago showed up and are great to have so we can install them soon. It took a lot of searching but we finally found a Turkish company making these very industrial grade rubber fenders for bit Pilot Boats, Tugs and docks which were just what we were looking for.
If you look closely in the rendering above you can see how we have designed these fenders to wrap all around the upper edge of the hull which will enable us to easily rub up against rough docks and concrete walls as well as use the Tender as we intend to as a “tug” for moving Möbius around or helping out other boats.
Not sure when I will have time to install these but I’ll show you when it does happen.
I will likely install a row of these on the stern of Möbius as well so we would be able to similarly push up against a rough concrete wall with no damage or concerns. We started by disassembling my hydraulic hoist up in my workshop at Naval and moved it down to the shipyard so we could use it to lift our Castoldi 224 DD jet drive and Yanmar 4JH4 TE 110HP diesel inboard engine into the Tender. I designed the hinged lid on top of the Engine Bay in the Tender so it would go well over center when fully raised but we tied it on just to be safe as we had to lift the Tender up quite a bit to be able to get the jet drive in from underneath. Always great to have a fully rigid and solid aluminium boat hull and so it was a piece of cake to wrap a length of webbing around the Swim Platform and attach the end of the hoist to this to life the whole aft end of the Tender off the floor. This hoist is just SO handy to have and I’ll be taking it with us when we go as it all comes apart and stores very small. Equally handy and coming with us are these jack stands which I’ve had for probably 30+ years and worked just fine to prop the Tender up above the floor so we could slide the Castoldi jet drive home from underneath. We had done a dry fit of the Jet Drive into the Tender when we were building the hull and then stored it, upside down here, it the wood crate it had been shipped in. Now it was time to flip him over and get him permanently installed and sealed into the hull. ”Are you SURE you know what you’re doing?!” asked the Captain which is not a new phrase from her as you might imagine.
Yet another super handy tool is my little car floor jack and it worked well to balance the Jet Drive on and then jack up into the Castoldi supplied AL frame that had been welded into the bottom of the hull. We first did one last dry fit just to make doubly sure that all the holes I had drilled in the thick transom plate and the bottom flange in the hull and then lowered it back down to clean all the mating surfaces with Acetone. Then squeezed on a good bead of Sikaflex 291i structural adhesive on all the mating surfaces. Then slide it home one last time and insert the SS bolts and torque them all down. With the Jet Drive now all bolted in place we could now install the two cylinders on either side. Port/Left side is the cylinder that moves the jet nozzle and steers the boat. Starboard/Right cylinder moves this bucket that sits overtop of the flow of water coming out of the jet and redirects in whatever direction you wish to go forward, reverse or sideways. The whole installation went very smoothly and the Jet Drive was now fully in place. Next up………….. unboxing and installing our four cylinder Yanmar 4JH4 TE 110HP diesel inboard engine that has never even been out of the box he shipped in. After some initial concerns that the motor in our Tender would be three times more powerful than the Yanmar in her last 33’ Caliber sailboat, the Captain seems to be warming to the driving force in our Tender. It took some work to find the model I wanted which s this one with all direct mechanical fuel injection rather than ECU controlled common rail but thanks to the super helpful Yanmar dealer at Denpar Marine here, this is just what I wanted. I have used this same hoist to lift all of Mr. Gee’s 1200Kg / 2650 lbs many times during his full factory rebuild so lifting the mere 217Kg/ 478lb Yanmar was a piece of cake. We rolled the Yanmar around to the Stbd side and then under the hull and it dropped right onto the 25mm / 1” thick AL engine beds welded into the hull.
The Yanmar has landed!
With so many other priorities on our plates this will be good enough for now to just have the Yanmar sitting on the Engine Beds and I’ll get back to bolting the motor mounts in properly later.
This engine and jet drive are a matched pair that Castoldi put together so it came as a very complete system that I am very pleased with.
This is a Direct Drive jet drive so there is a short cardon shaft (drive shaft) that connects the output shaft from the Yanmar to the input of the Castoldi which makes alignment and connection all very simple and this is all work that I can do after we launch and have the Tender on the Aft Deck of Möbius. But for now, this closes the door on our Tender and she is now all ready for the crane to lift it onto the Aft Deck of Möbius just before the boat mover shows up to carry Möbius over to the harbour and LAUNCH!!!
Can’t let myself be distracted by that excitement yet as there is still SO MUCH to do before she is ready to launch but there is definitely light at the end of this looooooong and winding tunnel!
So do stay tuned for the big finale folks, it IS getting closer and closer and we would be delighted to take you along with us over the finish line! I’m sure that many of you are feeling like this journey would never end and we sincerely thank you for sticking with us and for all your contributions of questions and suggestions that have been so helpful along the way and PLEASE do keep them coming by typing them into the “Join the Discussion” box below and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.
Another busy week for Team Möbius as we all focus on getting her finished and ready for her Splash Day first kiss with the sea, which we are now counting in weeks rather than months or years, so exciting times here at Naval Yachts to be sure. As is often the case near the end of an eXtremely big project and certainly at the end of Project Goldilocks, most of the work is on all those “small jobs” chasing down all the loose ends from previous work installing all the systems, cabinetry, propulsion, etc. And as most of you would know from your work on projects it is the last 5% of a job that seems to often take 50% of the time! However, good progress is being made and I will take you on a whirlwind tour through all the little things that got done this week which add up to be an eXtremely BIG deal as it gets us another week closer to Launch Date.
So strap yourself in and hang on for this week’s Show & Tell tour of the Good Ship Möbius for the week that was January 11-15, 2021.
HELMS:
You may recall from reading previous posts that we have been very busy finishing off lots of those “little jobs” to complete the Upper and Lower Helm Stations and that continued this week.
This is the Llebroc Tradewinds CX High Back helm chair that will be our perch when piloting Möbius from the Upper SkyBridge Helm and Nihat and Uğur got that all mounted and through bolted this past week. We needed to wait until the TreadMaster had all be glued down to all the aluminium floors in the SkyBridge and then we could mark out the exact location of the 6 through bolts for the base of the pedestal. Directly below this Upper Helm Chair base is this area above the Galley so Nihat removed the 50mm/2” EPDM insulation foam to expose the area where the supporting plates and through bolts would go.
This is a good example of why all the panels on the ceilings and many on the walls are made to be easily removable by using FastMount clips which are the White dots you can clearly see against the Black ceiling framing in the photo above. Being able to remove any panel in a few seconds is an eXtreme time saver for such jobs. There can be a tremendous amount of force exerted on that base when a good sized adult is perched way up on top of the Helm Chair in rough seas so Nihat & Uğur installed some 20mm AL plate on the underside of the AL floor plates and then ran the through bolts from the pedestal base to sandwich the whole assembly and create an eXtremely solid pedestal for this Upper Helm Chair. As is so often the case with these “little” jobs, all the time and work is in the preparation and the actual installation goes very quickly. So once they had all the prep work done with the support plates and drilling the holes it didn’t take them long to torque down these six 316SS C’sunk bolts and the Upper Helm Pedestal was all done and ready for the adjustable base plate and slider of the chair to fit over the top of the AL piston you see here. This piston has a powerful gas lift cylinder inside that makes it easy to raise/lower the Helm Chair about 30cm/12”. In front of the Upper Helm Chair, this custom made Switch Panel for all our external lights finally arrived and fit like a glove in the opening below the Standard Horizon GX600 VHF-AIS. Hilmi had already installed all the wires so it did not take him long to get all these switches wired up. We tested out all the lights and everything worked just as planned. Such as these Green Navigation Lights that Hilmi is checking out here on the Starboard/Right side of the SkyBridge coaming. Red Nav Light on the Port side working just as well.
BTW, a fun way to remember the Red/Green orientation is “There’s no Red Port Left” (thanks for the correction Max!)
TreadMaster on these side decks is all ready to be glued down which they also completed this past week.
Christine and I installed the two 24” touch monitors as you saw last week and there are a few more “little jobs” need to be looked after but this Upper Helm Station is nearing completion now which has been great to see. Similar story down below at the Main Helm where we also installed the two 19” touch monitors last week and this Helm is now also getting close to finished. This is the Llebroc Bandera Series 2 Helm Chair which, similar to the Upper Helm Chair, needs to have its pedestal mounted and through bolted in the floor. We needed to wait until Ramazan had finished installing all the Ado LVT vinyl flooring and then layout the location of the solid block floor that had been installed here for the through bolts to go through the 50mm/2” thick insulated and heated floor.
Drilling and installing these through bolts is a bit tricky due to all the cable trays filled with electrical cables running underneath this floor in the Basement, but we lowered the cable trays and drilled all the holes with no problem after lots of careful measurement.
This is where we left off on Friday so Uğur and Nihat will pick up here when we all get to work Monday morning. Just behind the Main Helm Chair we had to do the same kind of layout and prep for through bolting this Zwaardvis Triton Deluxe adjustable pedestal for the Dinette Table. In addition to the Up/Down adjustment of the pedestal itself you can see here how the Zwaardvis T-System XY slider bolts on top and allows us to move the table fore/aft and left/right by 200mm/8” which enables us to put the Rosewood table in the Goldilocks just right position for eating/working, lounging of made down into a bed. The little Black unit on top will be fastened to the underside of the table and you just pull that Black lever and the cable releases the “brake” while you slide the table in the XY axis you want and then release to lock the table in place.
Very KISSS – Keep It Simple Smart & Safe! By Friday Faruk, Orkan and Ali had finished up the remaining “little jobs” with the TreadMaster non-slip surfaces. Both Side Decks and the front platform in front of the hinged Solar Panel bank is now all completed. As is this small area around the Lewmar EST65 Warping/Kedging winch.
OTHER ELECTRICAL JOBS
Our head Sparkie Hilmi had a busy week as well.
He installed the Black Foot Switch for the Warping/Kedging winch above, so one more little job checked off the punch list. Finished wiring up all the components in the Upper Helm Station. Kobelt WalkAbout remote control box in the upper Left corner, Nogva CPP clutch controls below it and Horn, Engine Stop & Start buttons on the bottom.
Std Horizon GX6000 VHF-AIS top center with the External Light Switch panel below which we saw earlier. Right of the VHF is the Vetus Bow Thruster joystick and the Furuno NAVPilot 711C below it. Maxwell anchor windlass control upper Right with Kobelt 7170 Jog Lever below. Round gauge on far upper Right is the Pitch angle of the CPP propeller and hiding under the plastic is the Kobelt 6501 electronic control head for the Gardner Throttle and Nogva CPP Pitch adjustment levers. Looking through the WT door off the Aft Deck and peering into the dark space above as you walk through into the SuperSalon, you might be able to make out the neat little alcove up above that Hilmi and Christine worked on this past week. Here is a closer view with the upholstered panel removed to show the components installed in this well protected space. Far Left is the Axis M7104 Video Encoder that puts our non IP cameras onto the network, In the middle is one of several Planet Industrial 10/100TX Ethernet switches and the incredible Kingdel i9 9th gen mini computer that Christine put together to be our Boat Computer #2.
HOUSE BATTERY BANKS
Yesterday (Friday 15th) Hilmi and I spent some time down in the Basement working to finish off the installation of the 24 FireFly Carbon Foam batteries which make up our 1800Ah 24V House Battery. Hilmi has all 24 batteries wired up in their 6S4P configuration where six 4V batteries are wired in Series to create four 24V @ 450Ah banks which in turn are wired in Parallel to create a single 24V @ 1800Ah House Battery which gives us a total capacity of 45kWh to power all the AC and DC circuits onboard. While we can safely take these Carbon Foam batteries down to 20$ SOC State of Charge, we will typically not take them below about 50% SOC so as to maximize their cycle lifespan and still give us up to 900Ah or 21.6kWh to keep us safely and fully powered up at all times. Before we look after the last step of organizing and supporting all the cables, Hilmi, Ramazan and I worked on this very KISSS way of holding each of the 24 4Volt cells in solidly in place under all conditions. Each 4V cell/battery weighs 43kg/95lbs and by wedging each battery in place using these composite foam pieces you see in these photos. Right beside Möbius, Naval is building a big fancy 20m catamaran out of very high tech composite materials and this foam board was all left over “scraps” that caught my curiosity so I tested out some samples and this stuff is awemazing!
It is literally light as a feather and I can beat it with a sledge hammer and not put a dent in it! I’ve tried soaking it in water, vinegar and acetone with no absorption or other affects so I had an Aha! moment and thought this was the Goldilocks solution for a KISSS battery hold down system you see here. Along the sides, while difficult to see here, a two stepped piece of composite foam snuggly wedges in place between the sides of each pair of batteries and the aluminium tank sides and the thicker upper stepped part holds the batteries down by the ledge along the outer edge of each battery case. Down the middle a T shaped piece of composite foam is wedged into the 40mm/1.6” air gap where the sides of the batteries meet. If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) at the foam piece on the far Left, you can see how the T cut out fits on top of the ledge on the Blue plastic battery case. When the AL plate lids are bolted on top this will squeeze the batteries tight against the AL floor down at the 25mm ‘’/ 1’ thick Keel Bar
I’ll be back next week to show you how we have organized and tied down all these big 25mm2 / 4/0 cables and then bolt on the 6mm AL cover plates with gaskets to seal the whole battery compartment which is then vented with thermostatically controlled fans to keep the batteries cool and well vented.
LIFELINES!
Christine has been working onboard Möbius every day for the past few weeks now and took on one of the larger jobs remaining; installing all our Dyneema Lifelines. I’m not sure if she is holding on out of pride of her work here on the Aft Deck or to help keep her tired little body upright after a grueling week.
We are using Dyneema for all our lines and rigging as it just SO superior to standard lines and Stainless Steel twisted wire being stronger, safer, kinder to the hands, easy to inspect and monitor. Christine is going to do a separate blog post here with all the details so I will leave you to read that when it goes up in a few days.
Being as pleased and proud of her as I am though, can’t resist just a few photos of her handiwork to whet your appetite for more.
Simple eye splice where each Lifeline begins with this “Luggage Tag” style attachment to the 40mm/1.6” thick walled AL stanchion posts. The top Lifeline is 90cm / 36” above the deck and the bottom one is a custom Goldilocks Just Right height to help keep our stubby legged Barney the Yorkshire Terror onboard. Where the Dyneema Lifelines simply pass through a Stanchion these short lengths of 10mm / 3/8” AL pipe have been welded at the height of each of the 3 Lifelines. For Lifelines that we need to remove regularly, she splices a Pelican Hook on the other end with a simple endless loop around the end gate stanchion pipe. Along the length of each Lifeline, to provide adjustment and re-tensioning over time, Christine has spliced on two Black aluminium “donuts” and then lashed between the two with smaller diameter Dyneema. This one is just temporary while we are testing out the layout but will give you an idea how this system works.
SuperSalon is Floored!
Ramazan has quickly become a Master at installing the Ado LVT vinyl flooring we are covering all the floors in all three living compartments on Möbius. For orientation of this photo I am standing about where the Main Helm chair is looking Aft at the stairs leading up to the Aft Deck. Ramazan has about half of the Ado LVT vinyl planks installed on the Right side in front of the two door style 130L Fridges in the back and 2 70 liter drawer freezers in the foreground. The bare plywood rectangular piece on Ramazan’s Left is the hinged hatch that lifts up to access the stairs down into the Basement under the whole SuperSalon floor. Here is what it looks like from the opposite end, standing in that WT door off the Aft Deck looking forward to the Main Helm at the front of the SuperSalon. Galley is partially visible on the far Right. A few hours later and that Basement Hatch is almost fully covered and Ramazan did a fabulous job having it blend in almost invisibly to the rest of the floor. Main Helm and Dinette Table floors all laid down and I’ve started to lay out the locations for the pedestal bases of the Helm Chair and the Dinette pedestals. Flooring all done in the Galley now. With the LVT flooring all done in the Master Cabin and the SuperSalon, Ramazan transferred his attention to the Corridor and Guest Cabin area which will likely the the most time consuming as there are 10 tank access ports he needs to lay the flooring around.
Here in the Corridor that connects the stairs up at the top of the photo coming down from the SuperSalon, to the WT door into the Workshop which is where I’m standing to take this photo. He pulled up the temporary plywood covering that has been covering this area so he could level off the tops of the Blue rigid foam board for the final marine plywood to go on next. Easy to see how PEX tubing for the In-Floor heating is snaking through the foam and the aluminium tape helps reflect the heat upward through the plywood. Plywood is now screwed in place to the wood frames underneath and Ramazan has started to lay down the Ado LVT vinyl planks.
Stay tuned for next week’s episode where he will likely finish off all the vinyl flooring.
Mr. Gee gets Cagey!
You may recall from last week’s Progress Update that I had designed this pipe rail or cage setup attached to the four motor mounts I had designed months ago and work continued on this week. Here is where we left off last Weekly Update with the front and rear rails or “staples” that Uğur and Nihat had installed. On Monday, Uğur and Nihat finished off the “cage” by bolting on the two lengthwise tie rods to complete this very rigid cage around Mr. Gee. As with so many elements on Möbius this serves multiple purposes, one is to provide a safety element when we are doing our hourly engine room checks on a passage and a sudden lurch in the boat’s movement might cause you to loose your balance and reach out to grab one of the hot or moving parts of Mr. Gee. Now this “cage” provides you with a safe cool hand hold all the way around.
Second purpose of this pipe cage is to provide the frame for the four support rods that need to go up to support the dry stack components of the Halyard exhaust system. These four “ears” or tabs have been welded on to provide the lower attachment point for those four SS support rods. Cihan and Mesut fabricated four of these SS support rods in no time by welding some SS slugs into the end of each SS pipe and threading it for the Heim joints that would go in each end. I am just test fitting the Heim joints here so the SS lock nuts are not yet in place but you can see how this simple setup creates a Goldilocks support rod that is of course all very KISSS Keep it Simple Smart & Strong. Here is what it looked like as we shut down yesterday. Next week Cihan will install the front two supports but already the exhaust dry stack is eXtremely solid and I can barely make it move when I grab it and shake it for all I’m worth. Two other important “little” jobs Cihan and I worked on this past week were the mounting of the Morse cables to the Nogva CPP Pitch lever and the throttle lever on Mr. Gee, and the solenoid for the shutoff lever on Mr. Gee.
I whipped up this little sketch on my new favorite drawing board; cardboard! No work of art and rather embarrassing for a former Draughting/Drafting instructor but it works well to outline my basic ideas and communicate them with Cihan with no problems given my poor Turkish language skills.
I just love working with Cihan and everyone on Team Möbius because it is such a collaborative relationship. I did that initial sketch you see above and discuss the key parameters with Cihan and ask him to run with it and build whatever he thinks will work best and is easiest for him to build. This is the modified design he came up with and fabricated in minutes out of some 10mm / 3/8” aluminium plate. The purplish colored Morse cable on top here transfers the mechanical movement from the Kobelt electronic Actuator box up above on the ER wall down to thee throttle lever on Mr. Gee to change his RPM and then the 24V solenoid underneath moves the engine shut off lever below.
A similar Morse cable comes down from the other side of the Kobelt Actuator to move the Pitch control lever on the Nogva CPP Servo Reduction gearbox but I failed to get some photos of that. Her is a better angle of the finished result of the Throttle cable on top and the Shut off solenoid below.
Two more jobs checked off the list! Another prime example of how these “little” jobs take a BIG amount of time was finishing off this very busy area around Mr. Gee’s oil filter. The bronze block on the Left has four fittings in it, the top one I’ve installed one of the two direct oil pressure gauges and then the Black line below it takes the pressurized oil directly to the valves in the cylinder head. The bottom two outlets I have just plugged off for now but will soon have an oil pressure alarm sensor installed. On the Right side of the big cast Oil Filter canister is the Black oil pressure adjustment valve and then that beautiful bronze oil temperature thermometer and a 2nd oil pressure gauge on the far Right. The reason for two oil pressure gauges is that the one on the Right measures the oil pressure when it is highest coming directly out of the oil pump inside the crankcase whereas the one on the far Left measures the oil pressure at the far end of the line just before it gets pumped back into the crankcase. This setup allows me to instantly see the difference from start to finish of the oil pressure to the engine and enables me to quickly spot any problem long before it advances.
There are also digital equivalents in the form of temperature and pressure sensors that will put this data onto our N2K network where I can log it by the minute and have a full history of all these metrics being logged every second of every day.
And that’s a wrap for the week of January 11-15, 2021 people! Thanks so much for getting through yet another one of Wayne’s rambling Weekly Progress Updates and in spite of my pathetically long response time to them, PLEASE do add your questions and comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
And 2021 is off to rapid start as the first week of the year has already whipped by me in a flash. Very busy times here as we all push to finish XPM78-01 Möbius and get her in the water by the new target Launch Date of February 12th! Which BTW, is now only 33 calendar days and 25 working days from now. Yikes!!
However, as we all learn over time, deadlines are good things to help us keep our eyes on the prize and get things done so as to ensure that there is no “Slip-Sliding Away” of our Launch Date! Therefore, I am going to stick with using this fixed Launch Date to help keep the positive pressure on all of us on Team Möbius to “get ‘er done” and as my 4 year old granddaughter Blair says (with gusto!) “Let’s DO this!”
I’ll take that advise to heart with my introduction to this Weekly Progress Update and jump right into this week’s Show & Tell of what all happened aboard the Good Ship Möbius this past week of Jan 4-8, 2021
Non-Stick on the Bottom:
Continuing the very rewarding trend of late of hitting lots of different milestones of this build, work began this week on preparing the bottom of the hull for its foul release bottom paint. First step was to clear out all the equipment and materials which had been accumulating underneath the hull on the shop floor. It helps to have a forklift of course so it didn’t take too long to move everything elsewhere at Naval Yachts and have a clear floor space under Möbius to work on. Next up was to get rid of the short little hull support posts and replace them with these longer steel tubes that connect just under the Rub Rails and slope down to the floor where they are secured into the concrete with long lag bolts.
You’ll note too that the upper part of the hull sides have now been covered in plastic to keep their freshly sanded surfaces clean. The two newest members of Team Möbius, Ali kneeling on the Right and Mehmet standing on the Left, get to work grinding down the welds below the waterline and removing the layer of Aluminium Oxide Al2O3that has formed since these hull plates were first welded in place over two years ago. The automatic and rapid formation of Al2O3 is one of the big benefits of building hulls from Aluminium as it is a very had and durable protective layer that prevents any further oxidization or corrosion. However Al2O3 is equally good at “protecting” the hull from paint, which is part of the reason why we are leaving all the exposed aluminium on Möbius unpainted. The one exception is below the waterline where we need to prevent marine growth from forming as this creates a lot of drag on the hull as it slides through the water. So you need to remove all the Al2O3 before the first coat of epoxy primer goes on. This is the first round of removing the Al2O3 and then just before the first coat of primer is sprayed on, they will give it a light sanding with orbital sanders and a wipe down with Acetone to make sure the AL surfaces are completely clean and oxide free so the primer will bond well
The only item below the waterline that does not get painted is the big 1m OD beautiful Bronze Nogva CPP propeller, though later on, it too will get some special treatment to prevent fouling as even the slightest bit of grown or roughness on a propeller blade causes severe reduction in transferring power from the prop to the water. The special tube we cut through the Rudder can now be be filled in so Uğur tacked this elliptical AL plate to block off the hole for now. Whenever we might need to pull out the prop shaft, this hole allows me to do so without having to remove the Rudder which can add a lot of time to the prop shaft Re & Re. This will get covered with some epoxy filler and sanded flush with the surface of the Rudder plates as a super slippery Rudder also helps a lot to increase the efficiency of the Rudder and Steering overall. Another important part of the preparation for the bottom paint is taking off the upper edge of the “Boot Stripe” at the very top to make the transition from the bottom paint to the unpainted aluminium above. This is made SO much easier now that we have laser levels to use rather than the laborious process of measuring every few feet as I’ve had to do in the past to establish what you hope is a level straight line. In keeping with the “lean & mean” exterior esthetic, the Boot Stripe and the bottom paint will both be Black but the Boot Stripe will be glossy Black Polyurethane whereas the Bottom Paint will be the matt finish of the silicone based International InterSleek 1100SR
For those not so familiar with bottom paints, most boats use an Anti-Fouling type of paint which prevents micro organisms from growing on it by having various biocide chemicals such as copper, tin and now more modern toxins which try to prevent growth from forming. This has been done for centuries with many old wooden boats having their bottoms sheathed with sheets of thin copper. Looking nice and straight to me!
Anti-Foul type bottom paint doesn’t last too long, 6 months to 2 years max, before it either wears off or looses all its anti fouling chemicals and you have to haul out, remove all the old and paint on new coats which is neither quick nor inexpensive, to say nothing of the environmental concerns. Instead of “Anti” foul we are going to use international InterSleek 1100SR which is a Foul RELEASE type of solution which in the simplest terms is a coating of silicone fluoropolymer which is akin to the non-stick coating such as Teflon on frying pans. When I was a young boy I was struck by the idea of “Better Living Through Chemistry” and my daughter Lia is an Organic Chemist so this more modern and much more effective different kind of chemistry that creates Foul Release paint was a no-brainer for me. A little kick up at the stern end of the bottom paint to add a bit of flair!
When moving, nothing sticks to the hull but when we sit at anchor for weeks or months at a time, grown will still form on our InterSleek bottom BUT it all comes off with a simple wipe with a cloth or sponge so the amount of time and effort it will take us to “dive the bottom” and clean the hull will be drastically reduced from our previous boats even though Möbius has a much larger bottom surface. Uğur looked after one more bit of preparation for the bottom painting by sculpting the Exhaust Exit pipe which is not far above the waterline and below the top of the Black Boot Stripe so it too will be painted.
I will talk more about the Foul Release and InterSleek1100 paint as we start applying it in the coming weeks, so to finish up for now let me just add that Foul Release type bottom paints and InterSleek are not well known by most boat owners but it has been the norm for large commercial and military ships since the 90’s. Based on their experience the InterSleek1100 should last for around 5 to 7+ years, so we are eXtremely anxious to see how it performs for us on Möbius. Stay tuned for the next couple of years to find out!
Non-Slip up on Top:
Just as important as keeping our bottom Non-Stick to prevent growth, we need to keep all our decks and floors up on top to be very Non-Skid to prevent us from slipping when walking around, often in bare wet feet and a energetically moving boat.
For all our decks and other exterior AL surfaces we are using what we think is the ultimate Non-Slip material called TreadMaster which has the tag line “The Original Anti Slip Deck Covering” which has lasted for more than 20 years for many of our friends.
In previous weekly updates you’ve seen the Team covering all the Main Decks and stairs with Treadmaster and this week the finished off the last remaining items such as these AL stairs from the Aft Deck down into the Workshop. We will leave all the “Slip Sliding Away” to Simon & Garfunkel while we stay put safe with our feel solidly in place on our TreadMaster and that composite grid flooring down in the Workshop and ER thanks very much! We left what could be the most dangerous or at least slip-prone deck for last; these narrow slopped Side Decks that flank the SkyBridge. Orkan was able to use all the left over TreadMaster from doing the Main Decks to cut out all these smaller “tiles” of TreadMaster to cover these Side Decks and here he has them all cut out and flipped over upside down ready for the AL Side Decks to be sanded and cleaned. Faruk and Ali could now get busy mixing up the West Systems epoxy adhesive and gluing each piece of TreadMaster into its final positions on the Side Deck surfaces and squeezing out the epoxy to every edge with the HD roller you see here in the foreground.
TreadMaster is now all done and one more milestone achieved. Well done Team Möbius!!
Much ADO about Non-Slip Inside Too!
Last week you may recall seeing Ramazan finish installing the ADO vinyl LVT flooring in the Master Cabin and he has that now all finished. Keeping ourselves safe at sea requires that ALL our floors are very Non-Slippery and as you can perhaps make out in this photo, we chose these Ado LVT vinyl floor planks in large part due to the highly textured nature they have that is similar to old well worn woodgrain on patio or pool decks. His final job to finish the Master Cabin was the two stairs leading up to the Port/Left side of the bed and the removable access lid beside the Shower. These are the only vinyl flooring that is glued down, the rest is all “floating” so it can expand and contract in different temperatures. Here is is using some very heavy weights to keep these pieces flat and squished onto the underlying marine plywood while the adhesive dries overnight. Master Cabin flooring all finished, Ramazan moved onward and upward to the SuperSalon and moved everything off the floors in there and gave all the plywood base a thorough vacuuming and cleanup. First task for the SuperSalon floor was to install the wood framing and rigid insulation on the large hinged hatch that provides access down into the cavernous Basement that lies below the AL floor of the whole SuperSalon. After checking that each plywood floor panel was solidly screwed down, Ramazan stared to do his layout for the floor planks. Starting with this reference line for laying down each row of planks perfectly parallel to the centerline of the boat. Click – Click, assemble one row of planks.
Click – Click, lock that row into the previous one laid down.
Rinse and Repeat, with lots of careful scribing and fitting around all the radiused Rosewood toe kicks surrounding all the cabinetry.
Screens, Screens and more Screens!
Winding back the clock by a few days, another eXtremely big milestone for Christine and I happened this week and this photo should give plenty of clues as to what this was.
Can you guess what we are up to here? Hint.
It has something to do with these two unfilled spaces front and center at the Main Helm. That’s right! Time to unbox and install all our beautiful big, sunlight readable, touch screen LiteMax helm monitors; two 19” here in the Main Helm and then two more 24” up on the SkyBridge Helm and then on each side of the Main Helm will be another 43” monitor on the Right and a 50” TV/Monitor on the Left.
After a LOT of research and some help from a fellow passage maker, Peter Hayden over on “Adventures of Tanglewood” we finally tracked down the OEM manufacturer of most marine MFD’s and monitors and bought all five Helm monitors from LiteMax in New Taipei City, Taiwan. The two 19” Main Helm monitors are LiteMax NavPixel Marine model NPD1968 and this link will give you all the technical details for those wishing to know more. The specs that mattered most to us are that these are fully sunlight readable with 1600 nits (a good phone screen is about 300 nits), AOT touch, high shock & vibration resistance, IP65 waterproof and can be powered from 9-36V DC. Both monitors slide into this hinged plate above the Main Helm dashboard and allow us to tilt these monitors however we wish to have the best line of sight and least reflection. Captain Christine is peeling off the protective plastic layer to check out the non-reflective screens below. Another feature we value highly is that these monitors have physical and easy to reach control knobs and buttons. Always frustrating to try to figure out how to increase the brightness as daylight arrives and you’ve had the screens turned down close to black for night time viewing. Didn’t take us long to get the two 19” monitors mounted into the Main Helm and so we moved up to the SkyBridge where these two openings on the Upper Helm Station were begging to be filled. First we removed the rear AL panel to give us access to the inside so we could tighten down the very well done mounting screw setup on these monitors.
We also put in a layer of thin EPDM foam rubber to fully seal each monitor into the AL Helm Station. They fit into their openings like a glove and as you can see the big opening we had designed into this AL Helm Station provided easy access all around each monitor to secure them tightly against each frame. These 24” monitors are LiteMax NavPixel model NPD2425 with similar specs as the one’s down below. Plenty of connection port choices on the back including the power terminals on the far Left which will be connected to our 24V DC system and then via DVI-D to our onboard boat computers. As you might see reflected in the plastic protective covers, I took this shot with my camera at eye height when you are sitting in the SkyBridge Helm Chair so this will give you a good sense of the perspective you’ll have when conning the boat from up here with great visibility of the entire Bow and Anchor Deck up front. When I wasn’t looking Captain Christine snapped this shot of me finishing up the installation under her watchful eye.
We are eXtremely excited to get these bad boys all powered up and connected to our boat computers but that will have to wait until next week so stay tuned for that.
POWER!
Speaking of powering things up, whenever Mr. Gee is running we have up to 24kW of power from the two Electrodyne 250A @28V alternators he is spinning down in the Engine Room. Here is a peek at the cabling that Hilmi completed this week which takes the AC output from the stator windings directly to the externally mounted Electrodyne Rectifiers over on the far Right side of the Workshop. Each of these Electrodyne beautiful brutes has two individual alternators inside and so there are six cables coming out of each alternator to carry the 3 phase AC current. So Hilmi put his hydraulic lug press to good use crimping all 12 lugs onto each cable. That shot up above is of Big Red #2 which is driven by the PTO off the bottom Left of Mr. Gee which you can see a wee bit of in the very bottom Right of this photo.
On the Upper Left here, this is Big Red #1 which is mounted up above on this 40mm/ 1 5/8” AL plate I fabricated and bolted onto the pad on Mr. Gee’s cast aluminium crankcase just for this purpose. This will be driven by a cogged “timing belt” setup which I am busy fabricating right now and I will show you more of next week.
Here though you can see the other six cables coming out of the Junction Box atop Big Red #1 on their way over and out of the ER to connect to the Rectifiers that are staying nice and cool out in the Workshop.
Mr. Gee Gets Cagey
Those with eXtremely sharp eyes and memory might notice a new addition to Mr. Gee this week?
Keeping with our KISS or Keep It Simple Safe & Smart approach, I designed a dual purpose AL pipe “cage” to wrap around Mr. Gee to provide solid hand holds whenever you are near him while he’s running. This then also creates the perfect base for the four support rods that go from the pipes of this cage up to the exhaust dry stack system up above which I will show you more of next week.
I pulled off the 2D drawings from my Fusion 360 3D mode above, sent them over to Uğur on WhatsApp and he and Nihat got busy transforming these 2D drawings into 40mm AL pipe reality down on the shop floor. Same technique you’ve seen us use before, Uğur and Nihat create these large radius bends by cutting a series of slots on the inside of the curve in the 40mm thick wall AL pipe, bends them and then tacks them in place. We then test fit them in place on Mr. Gee and once tweaked into just the right fit Uğur welds the slots closed. As you might notice on the model rendering above, each “staple” shaped rail will be bolted to AL plates that span the motor mounts we fabricated here at Naval.
Uğur could now weld on the 20mm / 3/4” thick base plates and weld all the bend slots closed. Nihat picks up with his angle grinder and quickly cleans up all the welds to create smooth soft curves. That gives Uğur time to go back into the ER and drill and tap all the threaded holes in the Engine Mount plates so the finished staples can be bolted in place.
Uğur and Nihat were only available Monday and Tuesday this week so this is where they left off and will pick up again tomorrow (Monday) morning to bolt in the longitudinal pipes and start fabricating the support rods that attach to the four AL tabs you can see they have now welded to the tops of each stable rails and will connect to the SS dry stack exhaust pipes you can see here.
We’ve Been Hosed!
Our eXtremely productive plumber Cihan was also with us for Monday and Tuesday and he made great progress plumbing in a lot of hoses and other items so let’s check that out. This is outside the Aft Stbd/Right corner of the Engine Room Enclosure with the plate removed that covers the far end where the prop shaft enters the ER and connects to the Nogva CPP Servo Reduction Gearbox via the Blue (purple looking here) dripless Tides Marine shaft seal. Up above and off to the far Right side of the prop shaft, you can just see the silver coloured AL heat exchanger with the bronze elbow which is what Cihan is now plumbing with this white hose.
This is the heat exchanger that cools down the fresh water/antifreeze mix that circulates through the inside of Mr. Gee and that is what this white hose carries to/from Mr. Gee and the heat exchanger.
If you look at the black composite end plate on this heat exchanger you can see that Cihan has already connected the hose that carries the cool sea water from the Sea Chest in the ER. Inside the ER on the Right side of Mr. Gee you can now see where two of the white sea hoses connect to Mr. Gee. The top hose in this photo will carry fresh water coolant from the integrated water pump on Mr. Gee and the bottom hose carries sea water out of the long Bronze Engine Oil Heat Exchanger back to the Coolant Heat exchanger we saw in the photos above. My apologies for not having time to draw up some better illustrations to explain how these heat exchangers all interconnect but for now this photo will show you two of the pumps in this system. The round aluminium pump in the center of the photo above is the integral Garner centrifugal water pump which pumps fresh water/antifreeze coolant back from that silver AL heat exchanger we saw earlier.
The Bronze Jabsco pump on the Right is one that I am in the process of mounting and it is the impeller pump that pulls sea water from the ER Supply Sea Chest into the “IN” labelled port and then out of this pump into that bronze elbow with the Blue painters tape up above. This sea water then runs the length of that Bronze Engine Oil Heat Exchanger bolted to the side of Mr. Gee and exits via the white hose you can see two photos up from here and goes down to that silver AL heat exchanger we saw at the beginning.
The longer white hose in this photo carries Mr. Gee’s fresh coolant back to that silver AL Heat Exchanger.
Clear as mud to most of you and a pathetic job by this former mechanics teacher but best I can do for now folks. The other new addition this past week was Cihan’s installation of this Blue Beauty which is the big “sand” filter which removes most of the sea critters and debris from the salt water supply for the Delfin 200L/min watermaker.
This is not found in most boats and are normally used in large swimming pool installations, but I long ago discovered that these are the “secret” to extending the life of the other two sea water filters on the watermaker last for months rather than weeks. This filter is filled with a special kind of sand known as Zeolite and it is the first line of defense to filter out the sea water being pumped out of the Sea Chest into the watermaker. There is a six way valve on top which you use to change between running the seat water through the filter and back flushing it in reverse once in a while to fully clean out all the debris that has been collected by the Zeolite sand. Simple, easy and eXtremely effective. Super simple in design and to use and plumb with just three ports: Top Right SS hose barb is where sea water is pumped into the filter by the low pressure high volume 24V pump connected to the Sea Chest. Bottom Right is where the cleaned sea water exits and is pumped over to the two standard filters behind the watermaker. Far Left with the SS elbow is where the dirty back flushed water exits and goes out the exiting sea chest in the ER. In the background on the wall behind the white watermaker housing on the bottom Right, you can see the three other WM filters; the pair on the Left are the Primary/Secondary sea water filters and the one off to the Right is a carbon filter to remove any harmful chemicals in the fresh water you use for back flushing the WM at the end of a run. As usual of late I’ve got more photos to show you than I have time and dinner is once again waiting with my eXtremely patient and beautiful Bride on this Sunday evening so I’m going to call this a wrap for now and do my best to cover more next week.
Thanks for joining me on this first posting of 2021 and I hope it helps in some small way to get your new year off to a good start. How about if YOU start your New Year off by adding your comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below? They are all true gifts to me and much appreciated!
Though I continue to shake my head in disbelief, it does indeed appear (on Jan 2nd as I write this) that this tumultuous and challenging year that was 2020 is rapidly ending and 2021 just as rapidly beginning. Actually, it is now Jan 2nd as I am writing this so as usual, Wayne is way behind!
As with many of you I suspect, seeing the end of 2020 is somewhat welcome as we look to put most of the severely challenging aspects we experienced in 2020 behind us. However being the “terminal optimist” I am, my observation would be that the end of 2020 is all the more welcomed with exponentially increasing trend lines of positive progress that is happening around us as 2020 winds down. This progress is both in the most important and macro view of the truly awemazing progress that has been made with more and more effective vaccines and testing for Covid-19 as well as in my much more micro perspective of finishing and launching XPM78-01 Möbius. I think most of you might agree that ending the year with positive progress rapidly rising is certainly a welcome change from when it was all going the other direction,
One of the words I would personally chose to describe 2020 is “accelerant”. My brilliant and beautiful daughter Lia is a very successful chemist and one of the many things I learned through her is that, as Wikipedia words it
“Accelerants are substances that can bond, mix or disturb another substance and cause an increase in the speed of a natural, or artificial chemical process. Accelerants play a major role in chemistry—most chemical reactions can be hastened with an accelerant.
My point here being that I think that as we put 2020 in the rear view mirror and perhaps provides us with the 20/20 or better “vision” that hindsight most often does, we will see that 2020 was very much an accelerant for trends that were already happening prior to the beginning of 2020 and increased the speed and rate of change of these trends which were BOTH, positive and negative.While making sure to attention to and learn from those negative trends I chose to focus on the positive trends which have been equally or great accelerated by the events of 2020 and which I will try to further in 2021 and beyond.
Very selfishly, those trends include the accelerated rate at which Christine and I hope to finish the building of Möbius and start a whole new trend which we can also accelerate, that of returning to our life at sea as full time liveaboards as we pick up where we left of in “wandering, pondering and wondering the world one nautical smile at a time.” You can be the judge of how well we do at this if you chose to continue to follow our adventures here on the Möbius.World blog as we make the transition from building to cruising. Wish us luck, we’re going to need it!
OK, after yet another “brevity challenged” opening, let’s get to what you really came here for; this week’s Progress Update Show & Tell for the 3.5 day week of December 28-31, 2020. New Years is a VERY big deal here in Turkey and so everyone on Team Möbius and Naval Yachts was very anxious to finish up at 13:00 on Thursday and get the New Years festivities started. It all worked out very well on the calendar as well as this gave all of us a 3.5 day weekend to celebrate the end of 2020 and ring in 2021. As in many parts of the world there was no shortage of fireworks for Christine and I to enjoy from our 9th story apartment here in Antalya as we toasted this dual closing and opening of windows in our world. We hope that however and wherever you were for New Year’s Eve 2020 that you too were able to celebrate this annual transition and that 2021 will turn out to be one of if not the best year we have ever had.
Why is Wayne Floored?
Two very good reasons this last week of 2020 has me so floored and this is the first; Uğur and Nihat installed the grated floors in the Engine Room surrounding Mr. Gee! This is the same very cool composite floor grating that you’ve seen us installing for the floors in the Forepeak and the Workshop. eXtremely rigid, impervious to all chemicals, easy see-through to the bilge spaces below, easy to install and lift out when needed. Very simple aluminium L-bar framing to support these floor grates which Nihat and Uğur have perfected now and weld up in a jiffy. This is the frame for the raised floor at the Aft end of the ER. By raising the floor here about 200mm/8” above the two side level floors flanking Mr. Gee, we were able to make this all one level floor across the whole width of the ER. In addition to the Safety factor when moving about in the ER during our hourly ER checks on passages and when I’m working in there, the grating also protects the hoses, solenoids, dipstick, etc. on the Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox and the two heat exchangers on either side of it. Then we dropped the two side floors down to be about 50mm/2” above the tank tops so as to give me the maximum amount of space on either side of Mr. Gee when I’m servicing and working on him. This Port/Left side is the service side of the Gardner 6LXB where the majority of components are such as the fuel injection system, dipstick, on engine fuel & oil filters, throttle lever, etc. so it is wider and longer and relatively clear of other obstructions other than the sea water exit manifold that connects to the exiting Sea Chest in the top Left corner. Purposely a bit busier on the opposite Starboard/Right side where the dual sea water intake strainers and the sea water supply manifold live and connect to the Supply Sea Chest partially visible in the upper Right corner here behind the 127mm/5” ID exhaust hose as it exits the ER and runs under the Day Tank to exit out the side of the hull.
The red hose is now ready for Cihan to install on the side of Mr. Gee where it will transport the engine coolant (water + antifreeze) out of the ER and through a heat exchanger loop inside the Webasto IsoTherm Calorifier/water heater tank where it gives up some of its heat to our DHW Domestic Hot Water system and reduces the need for the Kabola KB45 diesel boiler to provide our DHW whenever Mr. Gee is running. I am very happy with the way this has all turned out and how much it adds to our priorities of Safety, Comfort and Low Maintenance inside the ER. In the next week or so Uğur and Nihat will be fabricating and installing the Exhaust System supports which will add even more safety to working in here and I’m already excited about showing you that.
Master Cabin is Floored!
And what is the second reason I ended the year being so floored?
Hmmm, it sure doesn’t look that it has to do with increasing the comfort of the big bed in the Master Cabin?
Oh wait! This is where Ramazan has put all the planks of LVT vinyl flooring for the past 2 days so that little ceramic heater in the upper right corner can bring the temperature of everything up 20+ degrees C / 68F where Ado, the manufacturer, recommends for installation. These LVT planks are installed as a “floating floor” so no adhesive is used so that the vinyl can expand and contract a bit without causing any buckling or warping. As we will be taking Möbius through the full spectrum of temperatures from the poles of Antarctica and the Arctic down to the tropical heat on the Equator, we need to account for these kinds of conditions.
Each plank “click locks” to the next plank on both sides and ends so the installation is relatively easy but quite time consuming on a boat where there are almost no square corners or parallel lines and so all the planks at the ends and sides of each room must all be carefully and accurately custom cut and fit.
Here is a good example of that where Ramazan had to carefully cut the LVT flooring to fit just right around this area just inside the door on the full height wardrobe as you enter the Master Cabin. Ramazan started by laying out the Centerline of the hull and using that to provide the lengthwise reference line for laying down all the LVT planks. Then he worked from there putting down the LVT planks parallel to this Centerline and cutting the edges to fit just right up against the Rosewood wall panels. The blank plywood rectangle under the vacuum is one of the many places on the Master and Guest Cabin floors that need to be removable to allow you to get at the access ports to the water and fuel tanks below all the floors. This one in the Master Cabin is the largest of all because it spans the corners of four individual water tanks which we located here for that reason. Hey! I would have sworn that there used to be a removable access panel here?!?
Ramazan is quite the flooring expert having apparently laid down a lot of this LVT flooring and you can see this on display here where he has been able to make the joint where the ends of the LVT blanks butt together with almost no gap at all.
On the rare occasions when we need to remove these sections of the floor to inspect or clean out a fuel or water tank, we simply use one of my favorite tools, an industrial suction cup like this which you’ve seen us using to install the big 26mm thick laminated glass panels round the Pilot House a few weeks ago. We won’t get to installing these until a bit later but in anticipation of the inevitable questions about what happens to these removable floor panels in the unlikely event of a full roll over (lets hope!), we will be installing these SS floor anchors. I’ve used these floor anchors from PYI before on previous boats and they not only work eXtremely well, they are more bits of kit on my “boat jewelry” list for being so beautifully designed and built. Flooring pretty much all done in the Master Cabin and here is a full length shot of the floor alongside the bed leading to the stairs up to the SuperSalon.
We are eXtremely pleased with how all the various colours, materials and textures have all come together. Not bad for two very inexperienced interior designers don’t you think?
And the indirect dimmable LED string lighting really helps to not only increase the Safety factor throughout but also really uses the Silver/White colour we chose for these LVT planks to maximum advantage in reflecting and diffusing that light across the floors and around the edges. What better way to show you the flooring than by getting down on floor level? Best I could do to try and show you the texture of these LVT planks which works eXtremely well as a non-skid surface even with bare wet feet.
BTW, the LED strip lights are just being test fit right now and will soon be installed into their grooves with some clear silicone to keep them fully hidden and well secured.
Fitting out Mr. Gee
Cihan was able to return for two days this past week and he is always a treat for me to work with and is super productive. Remember those red hoses that connect Mr. Gee’s hot water to the Calorifier you saw in the ER in the Flooring section above? Cihan now has them all connected and starting to insulate them to keep the heat in the water and out of the ER. This is the front Stbd/Right side of Mr. Gee and we are tapping into his AL coolant manifold up on top of the cylinder head to return the coolant from the Calorifier. We then tapped into what was a drain plug fitting in this lower coolant manifold where the water comes out of Mr. Gee’s side mounted centrifugal water pump. Over on the opposite Port/Left front corner of Mr. Gee, Cihan now has the diesel fuel return line hose connected now. With Cihan being so busy on other jobs at Naval I’ve been busy lending a hand by fabricating some of the mounts he needs to complete jobs such as mounting one of the big Electrodyne 24V 250A alternators on that same upper left corner of Mr. Gee you see in the photo above.
KISS right? Some 20mm/ 3/4” thick AL plate gives the neccessary strength and rigidity to support this hefty alternators that tip the scales at 33kg/73lbs each. Ask me how I know?! Once I had the two plates all drilled for the four mounting studs on Mr. Gee and had worked out the precise location of the alternator so that its serpentine belt pulley would be aligned and on the same plane as the other three pulleys I could drill and tap this 40mm/1.6” thick mounting block. After test fitting this on the Electrodyne alternator the mounting block needed a bit of trimming to fully clear the body of the alternator when bolted in place but nothing that my super handy Milwaukee angle grinder could make short work of. Here is the final result with Big Red #1 now fully fitted onto Mr. Gee.
I’ve lost track of how many times I had to lift all 33kg of this beautiful red beast up and down to get these mounts all worked out but I’m thankful for the workout that helps me keep my girlish figure I guess!
Also pleased with the way this mount will work out position wise to give me good access for future maintenance and with being rock solid to carry on the Gardner tradition that Mr. Gee demands. For those wondering, the six terminal studs on the sides of the junction boxes on each Electrodyne are where the AC current comes out of the two “Siamese twin” alternators inside each Electrodyne and then carry that 3 phase AC current over to the external Rectifiers mounted outside the ER over on the Stbd/Right side of the Workshop. That AC current will be carried by those 12 Red cables, 6 from each Electrodyne, that you can see coiled up to the Right of the alternator and in some of the photos in the ER Flooring section above.
Next up for me is to work on getting all the cogged belt pulleys mounted and aligned but that will have to wait till next week.
I Can See CLEARLY NOW!
Saving the “Clearly” part of this week’s title for this last part of our Show & Tell this week as this is another one of those big milestone events in the build for Christine and me. It actually all started more than a month ago when this photo was taken. Do you see the clues as to what this is all about? Does this closeup help you guess? Correct! This was when the acrylic team from Hakan Glass was onboard back in November to build the hardboard templates for each of the 15 removable acrylic windows that will allow us to make the whole SkyBridge weatherproof! Let me backup a bit and show you the design that I worked out with the guys at Hakan Glass. This test sample they made will help me show you how it all works.
Four basic components …………………… 1. The clear 8mm / 3/8” thick cast acrylic sheet that forms the tough windows. Cast acrylic is more heat and scratch resistant than common Plexiglass which is usually extruded. Acrylic has a tensile strength >10,000 lbs/sq inch and an impact resistance about 17 times greater than ordinary glass and under high impact, (cyclones anyone?) it won’t shatter and if it does break it fractures into large, dull-edged pieces.
Acrylic is also eXtremely clear, half the weight of glass and resistant to most chemicals.
Clear, Safe, weatherproof, not easily scratched.
Low Maintenance – Check 2. Aluminium anodized U-channel extrusions for the track frames that hold the acrylic sheets in place. Note that the U-channel on the Left has its upper side cut down to be half as high as the regular one on the Right as that is key to how this system works as I’ll explain in a minute.
Being anodized AL these U-channel extrusions are easy to keep clean and never oxidise.
Low Maintenance – Check 3. Black EPDM rubber edge molding that keeps the sheets tightly in their frames so they don’t rattle or move.
Simple, Secure & Quiet
Comfort – Check
4. To add some Secret Sauce to the mix let’s stir in two strips of these silicone magnetic seals that are typically used on glass shower doors.
Simple to use, Clear, Long lasting & Weathertight.
Comfort + Low Maintenance – Check
Now let’s put it all together to see the solution we’ve cooked up for Möbius’ SkyBridge.
Remember how we cut off half of the height of one side of the lower U-channel? That’s what you are seeing here. With half the height of the inside wall of the bottom U-channel, you can push the acrylic sheet all the way up into the full sized upper U-channel which allows you to now push the bottom edge of the acrylic panel into the U-channel and then push it down and presto, you’re done! My inspiration for this design comes from something most of you would likely know from putting bug screens in and out of the outside windows in your home. You know the ones where you remove them by pushing the frame of the bug screen up into the top U-channel in the window frame and then pull the bottom out of the lower U-channel which it now clears.
There is always great elegance to me in simplicity.
But what about where two acrylic sheets need to butt together on the long side stretches of the SkyBridge you ask?
Aha! Simple, just press a length of these silicone shower door strips onto each edge and their internal magnets snap the gap shut. Last step, with each acrylic panel installed just press the Black EPDM rubber edge molding firmly into the small space between the inside edge of the AL U-channel to lock the acrylic tightly in place.
et voilà!
You’ve can now clearly see those beautiful views all around you from this premium vantage point high above the water while all the wind and rain stay outside and you are completely dry and comfy inside. Wait …………………. What’s that you say? You are now in the tropics and it is hot and humid? You want those high up beautiful views more than ever but you also want some good breezes and fresh air?
No problem. Möbius has you covered. Just lift out as many of those acrylic window panels as you’d like because every one of them is removable! But how would you remove them you ask?
Ahhh, remember out little friend from the previous section on how we lift out the removable floor panels? Yup, that same little fella works even better to grab onto those sleek smooth acrylic panels and quick lift up and out comes the panel to be stowed away while all those fresh tropical breezes flow through and keep you cool and smiling.
Well, you get the idea.
OK, now let me quickly flash through what the process looked as the talented boys from Hakan Glass cooked up this recipe of 4 simple ingredients I had put together:
Start by cutting some of these 3m/10’ lengths of anodized AL U-channel in a table saw to take off 1/2 the height of the one edge for the bottom and some of the side frames. Glue the U-channel pieces to the tops and bottoms of the AL framed openings of the SkyBridge and its roof using clear industrial epoxy adhesive. Once all the lengths of U-channel have been affixed, tape off the joints where the U-Chanel joins with the frames of the SkyBridge on the inside and outside …. ……. then apply a small cove of black Sikaflex 296 to completely seal these joints and add a nice visual accent to these edges. Cut and fit hardboard to create templates for each removable acrylic window panel. Cut and fit the two magnetic edge seals where two acrylic window panels meet to make sure that the size of the templates are just right when they are pushed Up/Down into place and the two aft corner panels are also pushed sideways into their vertical U-channels. Rinse and Repeat for all 15 window panels surrounding the SkyBridge and then take the templates back to the Hakan workshop to cut them all to size. Two weeks later, make Wayne’s day by bringing all 15 acrylic window panels to him on Möbius. Clean up all the edges of the acrylic panels and start fitting each numbered panel to its awaiting U-channel frames. Finish off the Black Sikaflex sealant and remove all the Blue painters tape. Let Wayne double check that the EPDM seals squeeze each acrylic window panel to his just right Goldilocks fit to help them seal and be rattle proof.
Sheesh! Some Owners are SO fussy! Peel off all the protective plastic covering on the outside and …. ……. inside of each acrylic panel.
Note the 10 year guarantee! Clean up the Sikaflex seals on the inside and clean off all the aluminium with solvent. Let Mr. Fussy get his kicks by checking out how slickly and strongly these magnetic strips old the vertical edge joints together and get tighter as the wind pushes against them. Sides and Aft end panels all in place now with their magnetic seals and Black edge trim. Finish putting in the Black EPDM strips on the three front facing windows. Stand back and take a tour around the boat to admire this outstanding job! Crystal clear view out the Aft facing windows from the outside and ….. …… the inside. And all clear from the Upper Helm Captain! And looks eXtremely sharp from the outside too!
Well done Hakan Glass! Gold stars to you all with our thanks for such clearly outstanding work! And that’s a wrap for the week, the month and the year that was 2020!
Happy New Year to one and all and we can’t wait to bring you the final episodes as all of us on Team Möbius renew our efforts to finish off Project Goldilocks and put this awemazing boat, and her Owners where they belong; IN THE WATER!!!
See you again next week as we get 2021 off to a rapid start!
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