Everything continues to heat up here at Naval Yachts with hot +40C summer days and lots more progress with the building of XPM78-01 Möbius. Onboard Möbius the Cabinetry team, Aluminium team and the Plumbing team continued from where we left off last week and in the Engineering/Design office lots of progress with Interior Design work, choosing materials and working out construction details and 2D drawings. Welcome aboard and let’s go check it all out.
Let’s start in up front with the work on the Head/Toilet and Shower in the Master Cabin with some quick renders from our awemazing Interior Designer Yesim. This is what you’ll see when standing beside the bed just after entering the Master Cabin. The two outer walls of the shower are solid glass and will be etched with an artistic pattern our talented and dear friend Sherry is busy designing for us.
Cupboards for clothes, washer/dryer are on the Starboard/Right side which you’ve seen being built in previous posts and this week the Vanity Sink at the far end was completed.
Seen from above with the deck removed you can see a bit more detail such as the two big hatches above the Vanity and the Shower, the seat in the shower and the sink in the Head area. We are going with an open walk through into the shower with a clear glass panel going up from the sink counter to just below the hatch opening to allow air and light into both the Head and the Shower areas.
Removing the door and the wall beside the Vanity sink gives us a better view of this whole space. There will be a “shower tower” diagonally mounted in the far corner of the shower and the seat will be done in either teak or rosewood. In the Head there is an iridescent blue/black countertop mounted sink to match the one in the Vanity with hers/his mirrored medicine cabinets in the side wall and the VacuFlush toilet/bidet on the far right.
All the interior walls, ceiling and floor of this whole space will be built in place using fiberglass panels and hand laid cloth to make the whole unit fully sealed with no joints. Production boats and homes would make this as one piece in a mold and then lift it in place in the boat before the deck goes on. However as with all the interior cabinetry we wanted to bring all the interior components into the already welded up boat and fasten it all solidly to the aluminium frames and stringers.
Christine is busy hunting down some tiles to add a bit of colour and style to the interior and check out the sinks she found for here and in the Vanity. This rectangular one will go on the counter in the Head.
And this oval shaped one will go in the Vanity.
These are very unique sinks made from solid tempered glass that is about 20mm/ 3/4” thick with hand painted patterns on the outer surfaces with great depth and sparkle when seen from above. Matched up with our aquamarine colour scheme for things like the Horizon Line throughout the boat and 1seemed like the Goldilocks just right, just for us sinks.
Back onboard this is about where we left off last week when Omur and Selim had the Vanity Sink cabinet roughed in place and the first wall of the Head/Bathroom positioned. This is where the oval glass sink above will be mounted.
Matching cabinetry details throughout with these Horizon Line/Hand holds and well radiused edges on all the solid Rosewood.
Back in the Cabinetry shop Ömür is putting together the medicine cabinet that will be mounted above the Vanity Sink. Dado/groove you see in the bottom edge for the LED indirect lighting.
Ömür’s ever focused eye checking out the inner details before taking this onboard Möbius ……
…… to fit it in place up against the Forepeak WT Bulkhead.
The white epoxy painted grid in the background is affixed to the aluminium plate of the WT Bulkhead with epoxy painted wood blocks and provides the foundation for the cabinets such as this Medicine Cabinet to be screwed in place for now.
With the Head wall removed you can see how the Vanity Sink cabinetry ties into the Starboard side cabinetry and how the overhead hatch will really light up this area.
Yesim and Harken (middle) our gifted 2D cabinetry drawing wizard join Ömür and myself onboard to go over the many intricate details for this busy space with plumbing, wiring, cabinetry, doors, in floor heating, drains, water supply, fuel tank access and the list goes on. Every day is filled with hundreds of such details and decisions which keep all of us on our toes and at the top of our game.
Here for example we are confirming the location of the hollow channel inside the door jamb in the foreground where the wiring will come down to the light switches below Harken’s elbow.
(for those wondering, my hand is the upper left to keep out the lens flare from the big hatch over the Shower.)
With those details worked out for now Ömür screws the marine plywood backing that form the end wall of the Head. A similar construction will take place next week on the hull side walls and then all these plywood surfaces will be laminated with fiberglass sheets to form the continuous walls, floors and ceiling surfaces.
Ömür and Selim move their attention to the aft Port corner of the Master Cabin and starts to attach more of those solid wood blocks to the aluminium plate behind the white acoustic foam insulation.
Next day when the adhesive has cured the grid framework can be screwed in place.
Zooming in closer you can see how the grids are constructed with tongue and groove for the triangular braces and keeping this gridwork all eXtremely light yet strong. When the plywood panels are mounted on top of the grid it will create another layer of insulation of trapped air……
…….. that will sit atop the three layers of varying density acoustic insulation you can make out under my thumb. If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) you can see the thin dark gray middle layer sandwiched between the black foam laying against the aluminium bulkhead plate and the thick white outer layer.
On the other side of the aluminium plate inside the Basement is yet another layer of 50mm / 2” thick EPDM foam. Can you tell I’m just a wee bit fussy about building eXtremely quite boats??!! 
Just before we leave the Cabinetry team lets go back to the Cabinetry shop and meet the newest team member, Ömer. Spelled with an E and not to be confused with Ömür, we find him busy working on the first of the cabinets for the Aft Guest Cabin. This will be the bookcase above Christine’s Office desk.
Just before he put on the final frame board I was able to get this close up to show how the biscuits work to align and reinforce the solid Rosewood attachments to the laminated cabinet sides.
These biscuits ensure everything lines up just right and then Ömer can clamp them while the glue dries like you see in the first photo above.
Similar technique being used here to attach the solid rosewood edging around the perimeter of the door for the Head. In this case you can see how the wood wedges apply added pressure to push the solid edging against the laminated foam cored door.
Next day Ömer has all the clamps off Christine’s bookcase.
The middle shelf goes in to finish off the bookcase cabinet. The edge of this middle shelf will be painted with white polyurethane for some contrast so it is made from Birch rather than Rosewood.
Heading back to the shipyard floor beside Möbius Uğur is busy prepping the intake sea chest that will go into the Starboard side of the Engine Room. The angled bottom end of this 120mm / 5” diameter by 10mm / 3/8” wall pipe will be welded to the bottom hull plates and bring fresh sea water up to the hole you can see here.
There are two of these holes where the inlet pipes he is fabricating here will take sea water over to two strainers mounted on their ends. You can see a top view of all this in the drawing on the left with the top flange of the Sea Chest on the far left and then the two strainers on the right.
Once he has all the pieces of pipe tacked in place Uğur takes the assembly onboard and fits it in place in the forward Starboard corner of the Engine Room.
The flanged top will have a Lexan cover bolted to it and sits well above the waterline making it easy to see if anything gets sucked inside. There is a threaded plug and a quick connect compressed air fitting in this cover so you can use either a broom stick or compressed air to quickly flush out any such intruder.
For the technically inquisitive in the shot above that is the 25mm /1” Starboard engine bed plate sloping aft at the bottom and the Starboard water tank sitting under the two sea water inlet pipes. The large opening is one of the access ports and the round SAE5 flanges with the SS studs are where the supply/return lines attach along with Maretron and Hart system tank level gauges and temp gauges.
The bottom flanges of two Vetus strainers will be mounted on top of those vertical pipe stubs on the right above and these will then feed into a manifold that supplies fresh sea water to things like the engine heat exchangers, water maker, wet exhaust, fire hose, salt water wash down pump and other such consumers.
Two strainers are used for redundancy and each pipe has a large ball valve on it with one open at all times to supply sea water to its strainer and the other one ready to be opened in an instant if the other is clogged or needs to be cleaned out. The black knobs make it easy to remove the lids of these strainers with no tools and have clear tops for quick visual inspection on each tour of the Engine Room which we do about every 1-2 hours when underway on long passages as part of our watch routine.
Standing up on the Aft Deck looking down through the big hatch into the Engine Room lets you see how this intake Sea Chest and strainers in the lower left corner will be setup. An exiting Sea Chest will be installed in the same position over on the right side bottom corner. Both of these Sea Chest tubes are coming up through Gray Water tanks which are seldom used but can be used to hold water from the Aft Cabin shower, Workshop sink and Aft Deck Outdoor Galley sink.
You can see the ER door on the angled corner of the ER Enclosure in the top right of this photo, the two thick engine beds running from top to bottom flanked by Water Tanks on either side. In the upper center you can see the long oval foil shape of the keel running down either side of the 25mm thick keel bar that runs the entire length of the hull.
Behind Uğur, Nihat has been working on the Day Tank, laying on its side here, and has welded in the 20mm thick plate you see on the bottom. This thickness is needed for the pipe threads that will soon be drilled and tapped for a series of 3/4” SS ball valves for the fuel lines bringing fuel into this Day Tank such as the return lines from the Gardner and supply lines from the fuel pumps that transfer fuel from one of the six integral fuel tanks.
There are also a series of SAE5 flanges for Maretron and Hart tank level gauges. On the bottom is a sump to contain any water or contaminants that might somehow make it all the way to the Day Tank which is at the very end of our fuel polishing and filtration system. There is also a ball valve at the top and bottom of this Day Tank with a clear length of hose between to provide visual confirmation of the fuel level in this critical supply tank.
Never a dull moment for Nihat so he also looked after cutting in the air vent penetrations in the Aft Deck that come up into the two big Vent Boxes. The one he is cutting here pulls fresh air out of the Workshop and the one aft/right of that will be for extracting air out of the Engine Room.
Techie Note; the ER vent is quite a bit larger than what you can see marked out here as you want to have the exhaust venting be about 120% greater than the intake to allow for the expansion of the air as it warms up in the ER and more so to ensure that there is a slight vacuum in the ER as the air exits to be sure that any fumes and smells are pulled out. Many boats don’t have this setup and their ER’s are slightly pressurized which tends to drive fumes into other areas of the boat. and tend to have higher engine room temps which can be very problematic.
Another job on the 2DO list for Uğur and Nihat was these vertical ends of the window frames that run atop the Wing Boxes on either side of the Aft Deck area. Here you can see that they have tacked a length of vertical flat bar and capped it with a matching length of 30mm / 1 1/4” pipe.
This provides both a protective caps for the end edge of the 25mm thick glass windows and the pipe adds a sturdy vertical handhold that is in addition to the horizontal one above.
Cihan was too much of a moving target this week for me to catch too many pictures of him but he and his plumbers continued to be very busy throughout the boat laying down hoses and pipes for various water lines such as bilge, potable, Gray, Black and Chiller along with fuel hoses.
These are potable water lines he is securing to the white perforated AL cable/hose trays.
We didn’t put some of the frame penetrations into the 3D model until after the cut files were sent off to the aluminium supplier and CNC cutter because we wanted to make some of the hose layout and routing decisions later in the build. Additional penetration holes therefore needed to be cut into the frames and stringers for these new hose and pipe runs.
While having these holes already CNC cut when all the AL parts first arrived is very nice, it doesn’t take too long to cut through the 10mm / 3/8” aluminium frame plates when you have great carbide tipped hole says like this!
Like little mouse trails it wasn’t hard to see where Cihan and his helper had been this week with remnants such as these as telltale evidence.
And that’s the week that was August 5-9 here at Naval Yachts as XPM78-01 continues to transform from virtual 3D models and renderings into the beautiful reality of aluminium and Rosewood. Hope you enjoyed this week’s progress update and thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to join us.
The very big Eid al-Adha holiday began here today and runs from August 11 to 14th so everyone at Naval Yachts gets a well deserved four day holiday and the yard reopens on Thursday so just a 2 day work week next. I will be using the time to keep making progress on system designs, parts and equipment order lists and designing a few things like hatch closing mechanisms, alternator and water pump belt drive systems for the Gardner and so on. I will also try to write and post some of the more technical outlines and explanations of the various major systems such as Electrical, Battery and Charging systems, engine systems such as exhaust and cooling and so on. Stay tuned for those if you are interesting in diving into those details with me.
– Wayne
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