Sorry to keep you waiting so long for last week’s Progress Update as it is already time for me to be posting this week’s!  I did manage to get one post up last weekend all about Captain Christine’s 2020 B’day Adventure so if you have not read that you might like to and it will help explain why I’m late getting this week’s update written and posted.

However just because we were away doesn’t mean that anyone else on Team Möbius at Naval Yachts were any less productive and perhaps even more so with no pesky owners to get in the way.  And thanks to Yigit, Hakan and Uğur all taking pictures throughout my absence I have LOTS for this week’s Möbius Show & Tell, so let’s dive right in. 

ALUMINIUM TEAM:

For no good reason I will go through the different teams in alphabetical order this week so let’s start wtih the Aluminium Works team of Uğur, Nihat and Okan,

Any guesses as to what Nihat is working on so happily?
Will it help to know that this is all 15mm/5/8” thick AL plate?
How about if I give you a sneak peek at one of last week’s New Arrivals?

For those who might not recognize it, this is a Lewmar EST65 EVO ELS 24V self tailing electric winch.

And it needs a very solid home up on the bow deck, hence the 15mm plate
This is where it will go, right alongside the big Forepeak Hatch with a rectangular cut-out in the underlying Anchor Deck plate for access to the motor.

Crescent shaped gussets on the Left ……..
……….. will be welded inside to tie the sides of this housing into the underlying frames like this.
The 15mm top plate will be flush with the upper deck surface and tied into both decks and the Forepeak Hatch so this will provide the eXtremely strong and rigid base for the huge forces this winch needs to withstand.
Pretty quick job for Uğur to run the first pass of welds.
Climbing down into the Forepeak and looking up through that rectangular cut-out you can see how this winch housing has been welded on the inside with the additional gussets welded in as well.

This winch will be quite the workhorse for us with multiple uses such as helping to raise and lower the SkyBridge folding roof, pulling in shore lines when docking in high winds, emergency retrieval of the anchor if the Windlass fails and general use to handle large loads on lines at the Bow.

With the Bow Winch housing all built they moved Aft and started fabricating all the doors and mist eliminator frames in the two Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck which you can see in this rendering.

These vent boxes provide the waterproof ducting for all the air going in/out of the Engine Room and Workshop and have been carefully designed such that they cannot downflood with seawater during a 360 degree roll over.

This is the Port/Left side Vent Box which is for all the intake air. 

Stbd/Right side Vent box is for all extraction air.

The tops of these Vent Boxes will have marble countertops on them with a sink you can see here and a BBQ on the other side to create our outdoor Galley.
Nihat soon has the frame for this doorway tacked into the lower Port intake opening.  You can see the intake pipe on the inside lower Right corner in this and the photo above. 

This provides air for the Corridor and the Guest Shower so doesn’t need to be very large and we can use some of this area for storage if needed.
Fitting the vented door.
Over on the Stbd/Right side Vent Box, Nihat gets busy fabricating the frames for the doors and Extraction Air vents.

The electric BBQ Grill will be mounted on that lower surface on the Right side and a marble countertop on the Left.

More to follow next week as they finish off these Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck.

ELECTRICAL & NETWORKING:

Christine has added “Network Engineer & Designer” to her long list of titles and this is the current version of her overall network diagram.

It may look a bit confusing but the colours make it easy to see the different network types and having this overview is very helpful to see all the interconnections.

As per the legend at the bottom Blue is for the NMEA 2000 or N2K network, Red is the Ethernet network and Black is for “other” such as communications networks such as VHF radios, AIS and other proprietary wiring for things like cellular and WiFi networks.

This week Hilmi was focussed on installing all the Maretron “Black Boxes” and the multi-port blocks for the N2K backbone.

The N2K network is mostly used by our extensive Maretron monitoring system and as you can see in this diagram Christine has created with the very powerful Maretron N2K Builder app.
It is relatively straightforward conceptually with a continuous large blue “Backbone” cable that runs the length of the boat with all the Maretron devices and Black Boxes or BB, connected to it via T’s and Drop Cables.

Here in the Master Cabin for example, you can see how Hilmi has started to bring the Blue Backbone cable across the ceiling to bring it over from the Stbd to Port side.
Saying that we have an “eXtensive Maretron monitoring system” might be a wee bit of an understatement as this is just some of the Maretron N2K cables alone.

Here is what he is working on in the photo above which is in the cabinetry which is marked as “Master Cabin Stbd” in the Maretron diagram above if you want to follow along. 

The upper Maretron BB is a Switch Indicator Module or SIM100 which will soon have six Bilge High Water sensors attached to it and the lower BB is a Fluid Pressure Monitor or FPM100 which will soon have six tank level sensors connected to it.

The bottom block is a Multi-Port which is basically a series of T’s all put together in this one block.
Mounting the BB Black Boxes and Multi-Ports is very quick and easy but it takes a bit longer to do all the cabling, especially when you take the care and attention which Hilmi does to run every wire “just right”, support them throughout their length and label each one.

The Red/Black wires going into each BB have the tank or bilge water sensors on the other end and bring their individual outputs to the BB which is then connected via a Grey Drop Cable into the Multi-Port which in turn is plugged into the Blue Backbone cable to carry all this data back and forth through the system.
With that done, Hilmi moves over to the Port side of the Master Bed labeled “Master Stateroom Port” on the Maretron diagram above and installs two more Maretron BB’s. 
These are the same type BB’s as on the previous Stbd cupboard; one SIM100 for Bilge High Water sensors and one FPM100 for more tank level sensors and they start out like this …..
……. and then Hilmi works his magic and they are soon all wired up and look like this.
This is the home of our Aft Electrical Distribution Center which is starting to call Hilmi’s name as well so you will soon see him working his magic on these “plain” old AC and DC electrical wires and all their respective DIN rail circuit breakers so stay tuned for more from our Sparkies.

GUEST CABIN & SHIPS/WAYNE’s OFFICE:

Continuing our alphabetic run through, let’s to check out what Omer and Muhammed have been up to in the Guest Cabin area.

Omer has turned his attention to the Guest Shower and is busy prepping the foundation for the ceiling panel.  Nice big hatch to bring in lots of light and fresh air when you are showering.

And remember that vent pipe you saw inside the Port Vent Box that Nihat was working on in the photos above?  Well here you see the other end of it where it will connect to the ceiling with a diffuser.
Ceiling installed and the back wall will be next.

Once these have all been covered with 10mm marine plywood the Fiberglass Team will come in and glass all the walls, ceiling and floor into a seamless and fully sealed space the same as you’ve been seeing them do in the Master Cabin Head & Shower.
As you’ve seen elsewhere, where there are access ports to the integral fuel and water tanks below the floors, there will be a removable floor panel to provide access to these ports on the rare occasions when you need to get into a tank area for things like annual inspections.
Opposite the Shower is the Guest Head and Omer and Muhammed are now installing the Ro$ewood cabinetry that has just come back from the Finishing Shop gleaming with their fresh coats of hand rubbed PU varnish.

The sink sets atop the counter area on the far Right with the hole for the drain pipe visible here.
But that is quickly covered up with cardboard covers and blue tape to keep those surfaces clean and protected with the build goes on around them.

Cihan will soon be in here installing all the plumbing for hot and cold water, drains and toilet.
Outside of the Guest Shower & Head is “my” or the Ships Office and Corridor leading Aft to the Workshop on the Let here.  Omer and Muhammed are now installing the desk and drawers that span this whole 2.5m/8’ long length.
Turning to look forward towards the stairs leading up to the SuperSalon and that Electrical Distribution Panel we saw earlier, you can see more drawers and “cubbies” on the Right side of the desk.

MASTER CABIN:

Moving forward into the Master Cabin we find Selim (Left) and Şevki busy working on the cabinetry in there.  This is looking Aft at the stairs coming down from the SuperSalon with the Bureau of Drawers on the Left, King bed in the middle (covered with tools) and the floor area on the far Right side of this photo.
They too have been installing the cabinetry that is now flowing out of the Finishing Room as you can see with that beautiful long Rosewood panel along this Port side of the bed. 

Wall panels are also now out of the Upholstery Shop and have been snapped in place with their FastMount clips.
This is what the back side of each panel looks like.  The Black male FastMounts press into the White female sockets you can see in the far wall grid.  This is a bit expensive but pays for itself many times over by providing very long lasting solidly mounted panels which don’t move or creak and yet clip out in seconds to provide access to systems behind.
The AirCon and Heating Air Handler will soon be installed in this bedside cabinet and the forward one will be more storage.  Spiraling stairs leading up to the bed provide spots for the intake air vents for the Air Handler.
We are particularly delighted with the way this “floating” bedside table has worked out and gives Christine (this is her side of the bed) the perfect spot to set her phone, Kindle, books etc. 

Note too the juxtaposition of those Blonde patches of the Rosewood grain!  And yes, still worth every one of the many thousands of pennies this costs.
Up overhead the ceiling grid is being installed quickly and it too will soon have lots of FastMount clips for the removable White leather ceiling panels to snap into.
Backsides of all the Stbd/Right hull side cabinets are having their frames installed for the similarly removable panels on the back of each cabinet.
Stepping back into the Shower area to get this overall shot of just the forward section of cabinets and wardrobes that now have their back panels in place.

Bureau of Drawers on the Right, Vanity sink on the Left.

COMPOSITE/FIBERGLASS TEAM:

Faruk and Osma continued their eXcellent work in the Master Shower and Head.

They now have the one piece floor pan installed and the Shower seat has also been glassed in place.  Drain holes, bottom for the Shower and Top for the Head area are ready to be routed out for their respective SS drain plates.
As you’ve been seeing in previous weeks, they lay up all the individual pieces over in their Composite Shop using templates they have made up in the Shower & Head and then bring them back to be glassed in place. 

Here Osma is setting upper panel that goes above the glass wall in place after he lathered the back of it with some thickened resin.
When all the panels have been glassed in place all the corners and seams are taped off so they can be filled with thickened resin and gel coat colouring.  After the first round of filler has been carefully applied as it has here, the innermost brown tape is peeled off.  This leaves a wider area for the second and final round of filler to be applied with a nice radius.
Up above, Faruk trims the ceiling panel to be perfectly flush with the inside surfaces of the big 700mm/28” hatch which will flood both the Shower and the Head with lots of fresh air and light. 

Because the two corner walls of the Shower are glass, it will also bring all that beautiful natural light into the rest of the Master Cabin and really make Sherry’s artistic patterns etched into the glass even more stunning.
More Maretron sensors everywhere you look.  This cable is for the proximity sensor in each door and hatch to remind us if any hatch or door has not been fully closed before we head to sea.  Same idea as the lights on the dash of most cars that alert you if a door is not fully closed.

Hole in the background is for one of the LED ceiling lights.
Down on the floor, the one tank access port has been framed for its removable panel and the Head floor drain on the Left has been recessed for …………
……… its flush fitting SS drain grate.
The sink countertop and cabinet will soon be glassed into the lower area here with matching and mirrored Medicine cabinets above.  But you can see that there will be plenty of easy access to all the systems behind such as these water manifold ball valves.

PLUMBING:

The ever jovial Cihan has been his usual productive self of course so let’s go see some of his latest handiwork.

This is the Aft Stbd/Right side of the SuperSalon where the Galley cabinetry is about to be installed, but just before it arrives from the Finishing Shop Cihan has done a masterful job of squeezing in this 100mm/4” PVC ducting.  On the far Left side it goes through a waterproof penetration in the floor to extract air out of the Basement and then …..
……… on the far Right upper end is a T, closed off with blue tape here, where the exhaust from the induction cooktop vent enters. 

Looking closely on the far Right (click to enlarge any photo) you can see how this pipe continues straight aft and up into the Stbd Wing Box where a large axial extraction fan pulls all the air to the outside.
Directly forward from the PVC ducting Cihan has been working on the Stbd side Webasto Air Handler to change the output air duct from rectangular to round.
And then quickly has it fully installed on the insulate floor prior to the Dinette Settee being installed.
Directly across the SuperSalon just in front of the twin Freezer Drawer cabinet he has similarly mounted the Port side Air Handler.  As with all equipment, we use boded rubber flexible anti-vibration mounts which you can see an example of on the far Right mount here.  These help insure that none of the vibration or noise is transmitted to the hull or the room.  I’m a bit maniacal about having an eXtremely quiet boat interior so we are going to great expense and lengths to ensure that the XPM’s are going to be acoustic sanctuaries.  Can’t wait to do some testing with a sound meter while underway!
Remember those shots in the Guest Head up above?  Well here you can see that Cihan has been busy there too installing the SS threaded PPR elbows for hot and cold water PEX tubing up top and the drain pipe from the sink down to the Grey Water tank or Sea Chest below.
Continuing Aft to the forward end of the Stbd side of the Workshop where the diesel Day Tank resides, we find more of Cihan’s many skills on display.  He is eXtremely adept at building and installing all the many mounting plates and WT penetrations where he needs to run pipes and hoses.  In this case he has made up that oval tube you see in the center of this shot that provides the penetration in the ER wall on the Left for some water hoses he needs to run.
Peeking way in the back corner under the Day Tank you can see one of these penetrations already welded in place and filled with water hoses coming out of the Engine Room and the second penetration tube ready to be installed below for more.
A bit more aft along that same ER wall there is one more penetration now welded in place.  This one will soon have the six big cables from the two huge 6kW Electrodyne alternators coming through on their way the their external rectifiers what are mounted up on the Stbd hull side wall.  I’ll go into more of those details when we start installing those cables and alternators.

SUPER SALON:

Finishing up our alphabetical cabin tour for this week with the always Super Salon, let’s go check out what Omur has been up to there.

The flow of cabinets coming out of the Finishing Shop continues into the SuperSalon as we see here with these freshly varnished Galley cabinets that are now being secured to their foundations.
Opposite angle of the Galley standing up in the doorway coming in from the Aft Deck.

Induction cooktop goes atop that unfinished plywood to on the Right here with the Speed Oven below.  A deep SS double sink will be installed in the marble countertops in the upper Right corner and the rest as you can see is all drawers. 

There is one more length of cabinet to go in the bottom corner of this photo.
A great shot of how beautiful the contrast is between the rich dark hues of the Rosewood and the bright inner Beech surfaces of all cabinets and drawers.
Dinette Settee going in next.

You can see that Air Handler we saw Cihan installing earlier inside the large opening so that I can easily access that cavernous space below the outer side decks.
This wider angle gives a fuller view of the whole aft area of the SuperSalon and our Master Cabinetmaker Omur.  Settee on the far Left, Galley in the upper Left corner, stairs up to the Aft Deck in the background and the double Fridge cabinet on the Right.
The angled mini wall on the Stbd/Right side of the Main Helm is being mounted here and some of the cables coming up from the Basement into this Forward Electrical Panel are brought up for the final time.
Yesim, our brilliant interior designer is pointing out the location of the light switches that are so conveniently positioned as you go up or down the stairs to the Master Cabin.
Similarly , the three digital thermostats are being mounted in this short wall at the top of the stairs where the Settee ends.  The two Black screens control the two Webasto AirCon/Heater Air Handlers and the White one controls the In-Floor heating in the SuperSalon.
Finally, perhaps saving the most exciting new progress for last, most of you can probably guess what Yesim is showing us here?

Correct!  This is our infamous “Blue Line” as the team here tends to call it and what Christine and I refer to as our Blue Horizon Line.  For those of you who have not read about this previously, this is a design theme and feature we came up with that is based on our most typical situation of being anchored off some little island or on long passages where our world is surrounded by 360 degrees of a blue horizon line where the blues of the sea transition into the blues of the sky.

We decided to bring this outdoor feature indoors and have designed the interior spaces and materials such that everything below the Blue Horizon Line matches up with materials, textures and colours that are below the horizon such as wood, stone and the aqua marine blues and greens of the seas.  Everything above the Blue Horizon Line similarly match up wtih the colours and textures of the sky with softer materials and shades of white and grey.
Our interior Blue Horizon Line, let’s shorten that to BHL for now, is made up a an aqua marine swirl we created with Yesim and had printed on thin strips of clear acrylic.  It’s absolutely amazing the range of materials you can print things on these days and it is neither very difficult or expensive. 

As you’ve been seeing as the cabinetry has been built, we incorporated this BHL as the back surface of the smooth flowing continuous hand rails that flow around all the furniture and walls at about waist height.  With the cabinetry now coming out of the Finishing Shop Omur and team are now starting to glue these strips of BHL onto the back of all these recessed handholds.
This is the BHL as it flows around the Galley cabinets and just wait for a few weeks until they start installing the aquamarine marble countertops to see how this ends up bringing the outside in.
Here is a look at a more fully finished BHL around the top of the cabinet for the two Freezer drawers.
Zooming in a bit to show how this all comes together both visually and functionally as a continuous handhold for everyone no matter their height.

Lots more of this to show you in the coming weeks as more cabinets, walls and BHL are installed.

NEW ARRIVALS:

This week had a LOT of new arrivals as what we hope will be the last big shipment of equipment from the US has arrived here at Naval Yachts.  Too many items to show you all  of them but here are a few highlights to give you an idea.

As you can see the majority of our equipment comes from Defender Industries and I want to first give an eXtremely big shoutout to Wendy Pandolfe <wpandolfe@defender.com> who has been absolutely awemazing to work with throughout the past year or more as we put together multiple sets of orders for hundreds of items from screws and fittings to our whole Furuno navigation system and pretty much everything in between.  Wendy is a fabulous problem solver with that great “can do” and “get ‘er done” attitude that is all too rare and is SO much appreciated. 

*** Just to be clear we have NO form of sponsorship or other relationship with Defender and simply and seriously recommend that you consider Defender for your next marine outfitting supplies and equipment.  I have put Wendy’s Email above and if you contact her just say Wayne & Christine sent you and I’m sure you will soon share our enthusiasm and appreciation.

Why would I be happy that my Beautiful Bride and Captain is kissing anything but ME??

That’s easy when the recipient of her affection is the #1 bit of kit on our boat that lets us Sleep Well At Night or SWAN as we call it. 

Meet our 110 Kilo ‘/ 242 Lb Rocna anchor.
We spend hundreds of nights at anchor every year on every kind of bottom,  through every kind of sea condition and weather and our lives very literally depend upon our anchor and chain to hold us in place.  One of THE worst feelings for anyone at anchor is to feel your boat dragging anchor which of course would most likely occur at O’Dark Thirty in the worst conditions and with a lee shore rapidly approaching you.  So we go to perhaps the most eXtreme lengths in over engineering and designing our complete anchoring system from anchor through chain and windlass.

Anchor selection borders on a religious argument amongst cruisers and the good news is that there have never been more great choices available.  Christine and I certainly spent a LOT of time discussing and researching which anchor to chose for Möbius and in the end decided to do as we have with many other critical components and gone with what has worked eXtremely well for us on  our previous boats and experiences. 

Both of us have had oversized Rocna anchors on our previous boats and boats we have delivered for others and in the thousands of sets we have done over more than ten years, we have never had our Rocna drag once. 

As with all my comments on this blog please be clear that I am NOT saying that this is the “best” anchor for you, simply that this is the anchor we are willing to bet our lives on and the Goldilocks choice that is just right, just for us.
Almost as important as having the anchor solidly holding us to the bottom is being able to bring it and up to 100m/330ft of anchor chain all back aboard quickly and safely.  With several hundred kilos of anchor and chain to bring aboard this takes some equally robust equipment and again we have gone with what we know to work best for us and this Maxwell VWC 4000 windlass was also in this last shipment from Defender.
One of the most critical aspects of the windlass is that the “gypsy” matches the chain size and fits the chain like a glove.  Gypsy is the name for this wheel driven by the big 24V motor on the windlass that pulls the chain aboard.
Hence each Gypsy needs to be ordered to exactly match the specific chain link size you have.  In our case this is 13mm G40 DIN766 chain and as you can see the Maxwell Gypsy does indeed fit like a glove.  Whew!

With literally hundreds of individual items in this shipment alone, the next task was to go through every box and check them against the order invoices to make sure that everything had arrived, none of them were damaged and that they were all the correct models.  Hilmi and Yigit kindly pitched in to help unpack everything and Christine and I spent the rest of the day going through the lists and sorting everything into boxes and containers by family and type.
Here for example is one of three boxes of electrical system components that Hilmi will soon be installing throughout the boat.  The majority of these are for our primary 24 Volt DC system which is what the whole boat is based upon.  All our other electrical systems for 12V DC and 120V and 230V AC are built on top of our 24V 1350Ah House Battery Bank.
This is one of three boxes full of the components for our Maretron monitoring and N2K system you saw being installed above.  This box just has some of the N2K cables and the other boxes were filled with sensors and all the Black Box combiners.
Sorting through the many, many meters of Dyneema and rigging.  As with the anchor decision, we have used Dyneema line on our previous boats with great success so we have gone with all Dyneema for pretty much every line on the boat from Lifelines to Tender Lift tackle lines and Paravane rigging. 

I will be showing you much more of the details of our use of Dyneema as we install these systems as well as all the other gear that arrived in this week’s shipment.
And that’s the week that was March 9-15, 2020. 

As you may have read in my previous post all about it, Christine and I landed back in Antalya late Sunday night returning from our long weekend trip to London for her birthday to find a very different world than the one at the start of this week.  Upon landing we became willing members of the not so exclusive Self Isolation Club and our membership lasts through March 30th so we are not able to be back at Naval Yachts until then.  However thanks to all the efforts of the rest of Team Möbius and all the photos Yigit, Yesim, Uğur and Hakan so kindly send me every day, I will be back shortly with next week’s XPM78-01 Progress Update so stay tuned!

– Wayne