For this past week, work on our XPM78-01 at Naval Yachts was focussed on the Cabinetry in the Galley and Guest Cabin and aluminium work on the rudder, chain bin, Dolphin watching seats and more.  Here is a Show & Tell summary so you can see for yourself.

Let’s begin with these beauties.  Can you guess what this is?
Will it help if I show you where it is going to go?

Correct! 

These are the eXtremely strong padeyes on each of the aft corners for attaching a drogue or perhaps a stern anchor line.

The hole has a 316 SS bushing pressed into it to reduce the wear from the shackle used to attach the drogue.

A drogue is one of the ways of helping control a boat in eXtremely large seas and is the opposite of a sea anchor as this illustration shows.

John over on the Attainable Adventures blog, which is a treasure trove of great information for blue water sailors, has this well done sketch showing the basic operation of a drogue and how it can help control a boat that is roaring down huge breaking waves by slowing it down and reducing the likelihood of the bow digging into the wave ahead at the bottom of the trough and pitch poling over itself.  NOT a good thing or an experience we ever hope to have!  But having this kind of emergency equipment aboard is one of the ways we implement our strategy of “readiness for the unexpected”.
As you might guess from looking at that sketch, trying to slow down almost 45 tons of boat racing down mountainous waves in these kinds of conditions puts an unimaginable amount of force on these systems and requires an equally eXtreme attachment point to attach the boat to the drogue.  Hence this design we came up with for the padeye we would use if we ever needed to deploy our drogue.

Peering inside the hull you can see the substantial amount of the padeye that sits inside and will be heavily welded to the frames on this aft corner of the hull.
Standing back you can see how this fits into the Aft Deck and Swim Platform layout.

And this is the matching padeye on the other side.

AFT PORT SIDE STANCHIONS:

Uğur also finished off the last of the stanchions to be installed, these ones on the Aft Port side which will be removable as they only go in when the Tender is off the deck.

Uğur has had LOTS of practice with all the other stanchions and their pipe sockets which are welded through the beefy Rub Rails so he soon has these last three stanchion sockets welded into the Rub Rails…….
…… and presses the black Delrin sleeves into each one.
He has finished fabricating the stanchion posts and they are now test fitted into their respective sockets.

DOLPHIN WATCHING SEATS:

Moving up to the bow, Uğur ticked off another job there with the mounting of the two Dolphin watching seats on either side of the bow pulpit railings.
We came up with this hinged arrangement so they can be easily flipped up and out of the way when anchoring.
Like this. 
I am still sketching up different ways of securing the seats when they are folded up.  Perhaps in this position where I would need to have a way to secure the hinged vertical leg.
Which wouldn’t be neccessary in this position where the leg sits tight against the seat rail but it presents an unattractive safety hazard with the part sticking up above the top rail.

Or I may just use some quick release pins to be able to remove the leg entirely and then come up with a nearby spot to hold it.

Stay tuned to see what emerges as the solution and by all means send in your ideas too.

GUEST CABIN:

Omer continues to apply his craftsmanship to the Guest Cabin and has now finished the slide out couch/bed assembly and moved on to building the headboard of the bed and the bookshelf unit that wraps around the forward Starboard corner of the cabin.

He has fitted this little angled cupboard between the bed and Christine’s desk which will be handy for both Guests and Christine to use.  It will have a door on it next.
Next he test fit the back of the couch.  The space below is to allow the large bottom cushion/mattress to slide all the way inside when it is folded up in couch mode and keep the depth of the bottom of the couch a good size.
Then he installed the framing for the top shelf and there is similar framing hidden down at the bottom.  The tape indicates that there will be removable access panels there so I can easily access the water manifolds and other systems that are back there if ever needed.
The carefully laminated top surface goes in next and spans the whole distance from the desk over to the forward wall that is the WT Bulkhead with the Basement on the other side.
Which will look like this.
This recess is where the back cushion will fit partially inside and held in place with in couch mode.  Half the thickness of the cushion will be inside this recess and have extending out.

With a matching arrangement on the other side.
With the couch/bed all fitted in place Omer turned his attention to the L shaped bookshelf unit that wraps around the forward corner of the Cabin.
It all starts out being very simple with the cutting of these top and bottom boards after they have been laminated with their Rosewood surfaces.
Renderings are so useful in helping with that phantasmagoria I mentioned in the previous posting where the virtual reality blends with the real reality and for those of us doing this every day you see the finished whole all the time no mater if you are looking at a largely empty space or those two L shaped boards in the photo above or this rendering on the left.
This helps to visualise both the relative size and shape of this bookshelf.
This is the bottom side of the bookshelf with Rosewood on the top and bottom surfaces and then there will be a white shelf in between which you can see in the rendering above.

GALLEY CABINETRY:

Not to be outdone Omur and Selim have been eXtremely busy working up in the Galley on the somewhat complex set of cabinets with over 18 drawers so let’s check that out next.  Yigit is aboard frequently monitoring the progress and helping me keep the thousands of little details all straight.  Yigit also looks after much of the ordering of all the materials and equipment from our many suppliers so his phone is his constant companion.
The cabinet in the upper area is the six drawer unit that goes in where Yigit is standing.

Quick jump to the virtual world of renderings to refresh the layout of the overall Super Salon with the Galley in the upper right corner.

Selim on the far left is standing inside what will be the forward corner of the Galley cabinets as he and Omur start getting this cabinet perfectly aligned with the others and precisely leveled. 

Notice how the white epoxy painted boards under the bases of each cabinet have been painstakingly leveled using all those little wood wedges.  These foundation boards also raise the cabinets up to the same height as the 40mm/ 1.6” rigid foam insulation which will eventually cover the entire floor and have the PEX tubing running through it for the in-floor heating.
Here we are looking down inside the cabinet that will have the double sink installed in the far right side.  The cut out on the back is to provide me access to the quite large volume area that is underneath the side decks.  In addition to all the tank vent and fill hoses you can see we will have other equipment in this area such as the air handlers for the AirCon system so having access all along this large volume area goes towards our goal of low and easy maintenance.
Next piece of this jigsaw puzzle is the cabinet on the left here for the induction cooktop and Smart Oven (combo microwave, convection, grill ovens).
Fits perfect!  For those of you who have been following for some time this will now help you visualise and understand why there is that white-stepped connector framing between the upper corner of the Guest Cabin down below and this far end of the Galley where the stove and oven fit in.

The cupboard in the middle here is sized for a standard dishwasher or a two drawer dishwasher to slide into but we prefer hand washing so this will instead be filled with two large drawers for pots and pans and the like.
Looking across that dishwasher cabinet to the “peninsula” cupboard opposite shows the 7 drawers it contains.  The tall skinny one in the middle will be like a drawer with no sides and pull out to reveal a set of shelving racks to provide easy access from either side to containers of things like spices.
Maybe something like this for example.
OK, Galley cabinets are all in place, time to move on to the adjoining L-shaped settee and dining area so they get started putting down the foundation frames and shimming them to be on eXactly the same level as the other cabinetry.

This is about how this area will look when standing over on the far Port/Left side looking across.  The table is on a pedestal which has some very cool hardware I found that allows it to move in all three axis: Z up/down, X fore/aft and Y left/right. This gives us total flexibility to have this table at just the right height and position to use as a dining table, coffee table or additional Queen Bed.
But WAIT!  There’s more!

Look what showed up late Friday evening as I was leaving the shipyard!

Without cheating by zooming in, can you guess what this sturdy crate contains?

It arrived via air freight direct from Vancouver if that helps?

Yup, all of the many components that make out our rock solid steering system along with the controls for the Gardner engine and the Nogva CPP servo gearbox. 
As per the label here this all comes from Kobelt which is based in one of my old home towns of Vancouver not far from where I did some of my teacher training at BCIT many decades ago.  I worked closely with our designer Dennis and Lance and his team at Kobelt for over two years to design the Goldilocks just right steering for our XPM78-01 so you can imagine how happy I was to see this big beautiful crate full of steering goodness finally arrive.

Even though it was very late and Yigit and I were the only ones still in the yard, I just couldn’t resist taking a peek inside a few of the boxes so I’ll share two with you. 

This is one of the pair of double acting 75mm/3” ID hydraulic cylinders that will move the rudder and steer the boat.  Each one is sized to be able to fully steer the boat in all conditions so a double redundant system.
And then check out one of the pair of Accu-Steer HPU400 hydraulic pumps which will provide all the hydraulic pressure to run those cylinders.  These are massively strong and weigh in at 44kg/95 lbs each and are an integral part of what I’m sure is going to be an awemazing steering system in our XPM78-01 Möbius.

Much more to follow on the whole steering system in upcoming Weekly Updates as the installation begins and I will also be posting some Tech Talk articles where we can dive into all the details of the whole steering system design.

And th-th-th-that’s all for this week that was October 7 to 11 2019. 

We really do enjoy sharing this whole adventure with you and want to thank all of you who take the time to read these.  Special thanks to those of you who contribute comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box down below and hope that more of you will do the same.

See you next week.

-Wayne