Well, as the saying goes, it has “been a minute” since my last post and update, Dec 14th 2025 to be precise, so I’ll try to catch up with some of the key things that have happened since then in the next few posts here.
I’ll start with this post that will provide you with a quick summary of the phenomenal time we had eXploring the Baja peninsula of Mexico from end of December to beginning of March. Sure helped us get 2026 off to a GREAT start.
and yes, I can see those eyes rolling when those who know me hear Wayne saying “a quick summary” BUT in this case it is actually true because my awemazing wife, travel partner and best selling author (pen name Christine Kling) wrote it! Christine regularly writes an article on her Substack called “SailingWriter” and she did her typically awemazing job of summarized our two months in Baja in an article there she titled “Curiouser and Curiouser in Baja” Click on this link to read the whole article and see all her phots. And trust me, you will want to be sure to stay to the end to see the abfab video she took while we were out on the whale watching tour that she had gifted me with for Xmas this year.
While I will plead guilty as charged to being “narratively generous” and Captain of the Good Ship sv LongWinded, when you read Christine’s article you will learn that I am not being my typical grandiloquent self when I tell you that she is an awemazing woman, writer and person and has been from a VERY early age. For example, the last time she was traveling the Baja highway was just after it opened in 1974 when she rode her bicycle from Tijuana to La Paz to at the age of 19. As you’ll read she not only pedaled her way to La Paz, she “… had this crazy idea that you had to do something extraordinary and write about it in order to get published. It was crazy, but it worked and my very first publication was in Bicycling Magazine in July, 1975.”
NOW go ahead and tell me that I’m hyperbolic embellisher!
Hope you enjoy this all too brief detour to well written articles and that you’ll still bravely continue to read mine such as the next update on my latest progress this year converting “Lance” our 2016 Kenworth T270 ex Medium Duty ambulance, into an eXtreme RV. I’m writing that newest update now and should have it published later today. (10 May, 2026)
Thanks so much for joining Christine and me on our adventures and be sure to add any comments and questions you have in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Zoe & Razz have been enjoying their winter coats during the recent cold spell here. All things relative of course so that has been temperatures down to as low as 2C/36F at night and not getting much above 10C/50F in the daytime. But it is always sunny here so that makes it pretty easy to take and feels much warmer as long as you stay in the sun. However with Christine’s return they are now just back from their day at the Puppy Spa so thought you’d enjoy these before and after pics. As for this week’s update I’m going to bring you up to present time with the latest project I’ve just completed; installing the new Fiama awning! I’ll get back to catching up with all the progress on Lance since we got back from our summer maiden voyage out to the East Coast and back but I thought you’d enjoy seeing the latest project. To be honest I’m doing this in part because it will be a bit shorter update as I’ve been taken down a peg or two with my first experience with Shingles. Ouch! As those of you who have had them will know this is eXtremely painful and not something I’ wish on my worst enemy. However I’m recovering well and not looking quite so much like an escapee from a Leper Colony but fighting this off has definitely zapped my energy a bit for the past two weeks and hence this shorter blog post today. When the weather is nice we like to spend most of our days camping enjoying the sunny outdoors, such as this spot in Dinosaur Provincial Park just east of Calgary in Alberta this past July. But we’re heading for Baja in a few weeks and we do like the hotter weather when some shelter from the sun and at times the rain allows us to stay outside longer. So we’ve been researching what retractable awning would be the Goldilocks, just right, just for us. We wanted an awning that would extend out from the Passenger Side PS as that’s where we tend to set up our table and chairs when camping and one that would be very quick and easy to extend and retract so that we’d use it frequently. After some research we settled on the Italian made Fiama 14’ F45S awning with a “Titanium” colour housing. It took a few weeks to get to us but I was able to get a good price with free shipping from Vanlife Outfitters and I picked it up from a freight terminal in Las Vegas which is less than an hour’s drive from our place here on Road Runner Ranch. The box it shipped in was just a bit over 14’/4.3M long so that roll down rear window in Totu (our 2006 Toyota Tundra) comes in very handy for extending the length of items I pick up without sticking out the rear too much. It was very well packaged for shipping with lots of very tough angled cardboard corners on all sides so it arrived in perfect condition. The awning comes with three of these extruded Aluminium brackets which hook into the extruded Aluminium on the back of the awning body itself so I just needed to come up with a way of securely fastening these brackets to the top PS roof corner on Lance’s Hab. (Habitat/Box)
The awning housing needed to clear the top of the doors on the PS which extend almost all the way to the top of Lance’s Hab so I set out to design some strong brackets that would be eXtremely strong and secure to mount the awning housing at the front, middle and rear. I keep all the cut offs from the XAL or eXtruded Aluminium that I used to build all the cabinet framing inside Lance and just love working with this stuff so I was particularly delighted to find that the T-slot in the 10 Series 1 inch square XAL wedged itself perfectly into the L shaped aluminium gutter rails that runs down the top sides of Lance’s Hab. Sometimes you luck out!
This is the design I came up with. Solid and Simple; four small lengths of XAL with four corner gussets to bolt them all together. You’ll see that I’ve built these such that the top edge of these XAL brackets ends up at the same height as the top of the steel Super Strut rails you saw me affix to Lance’s rooftop for mounting the solar panels. This allowed me to bolt a short length of 2” wide 3/16” AL bar stock to the top of the XAL squares and then bolt through the Super Strut into the captured nuts that slide into these rails. These captured nuts twist lock in place using the blue plastic flanges to hold them right where you want them before tightening the 1/4” through bolt. In the middle bracket you see here as well as the rear one, the flat bar supports fit nicely into the 40mm/1.5” space I left between the bottom of the solar panel frames and the Super Strut. Here is what the finished installation looks like with the Fiama bracket now bolted into the top T-slot of the XAL bracket. This closeup shows how perfectly the bottom T-slot fits into the L shaped AL rain gutter that is part of the top corner extrusions on Lance’s roof. After I had them all dry fitted and checked that the three brackets were where Fiama wants them, I put in a bead of that same 8X Loctite industrial adhesive I used to affix the Super Strut to the roof top so these brackets are definitely on there for good! Being all aluminium construction whole awning only weighs 27Kg/60lbs so it wasn’t too much of a lift for Christine and I on two ladders to lift it up and slide the awning into the brackets. Once the awning is in place the final step is to drill through these holes you see on the bottom lip of the Fiama brackets and bolt the awning securely to the brackets. We like to keep things simple whenever we can so we went with the fully manual style that uses the little crank you see here to roll the awning in and out. If we ever wanted to Fiama makes an electric motor that bolts to the end and let’s you roll the awning in/out with the touch of a switch but we think this simple crank method will suit us best.
To help secure the outer edge of the awning these two extendable legs clip into brackets I mounted on the bottom edge of Lance’s Hab.
I have Lance parked too close to the 40 foot shipping container that is my workshop and on the far left here so I couldn’t get a picture for you of the awning fully extended to the 2.5M/8.2 ft that it goes but I’ll be sure to grab a photo when we hit the road down to Baja in a few weeks. And that’s the wrap for this week and likely this year folks! We leave in Lance next week to drive down to spend Xmas week with our Granddaughters in the LA area and then we’ll hit the road and point ourselves South to spend the first few months of the new year exploring the beautiful Baha peninsula.
My sincere thanks to YOU for taking the time to join us on these adventures and send us your questions and comments. Adds SO much to our experiences to have so many others to share it all with. Hope you too have a fabulous holiday and I’ll be back early in the New Year with more updates on both our travels and the ongoing work to transform our beloved Lance into the XRV of our dreams!
You might say that my world has gone to the dogs as Christine is back in Florida getting in some much needed Gramma time with our Grandson Liam, who somehow just turned TEN last week. Yikes! How did THAT happen?!?!?!? So here on Road Runner Ranch it is down to us Three Pupsketeers, Razz, Zoe and me, but we’re doing well and enjoying being surrounded by the beauty here in Southern Nevada.
Some of you may remember that the last post I did with updates on the work on Lance’s transformation was called “Mini-Split = Major Step Up: XRV Lance Update 4 May, 2025” May was a Looooooong time ago now so you may want to click on that link if you’d like a refresher.
Quite a lot of progress has happened with Lance’s transformation during the six months since that last post and I’ll do my best to cover as much as I can here in the coming weeks. To get started I’ll pick up where that update left off and catch you up on what happened between then and June 10 when we took left our place here in Nevada in Lance bound for Portland Maine for the June 21st wedding of my niece Julia to her beau Ben.
In the weeks to follow I will try to post once a week, usually on Sundays, providing updates on the work I’ve done on the different systems such as cabinetry, all the dovetail drawers, the Electrical Cabinet, rooftop solar panels and so on.
So grab a tasty beverage and a comfy seat and let’s get back to where we left off with that air conditioner/heater Mini-Split system you last saw in May.
Mini-Split is Fully Functional!
As per the title of that May 4th post, I had just finished quite literally shoehorning the exterior half of the Mini-Split unit up into the barely big enough space between Lance’s ambo box and the Kenworth frame.
And I’m very happy that I can start this week’s update with the news that I have since finished installing the Mini-Split and it is working even better than we had hoped. For those interested in the details, this is the make and model Mini-Split we decided on. It is a 9k BTU capacity “Pioneer Diamante Ultra” that is one of the most efficient models they make rated at 23.5 SEER for those who know that system. These type of two part aircon/heating systems are referred to as Mini-Splits because they consist of two parts; the outside condenser/compressor and the inside air handler evaporator. If you check out the basic features here this model provides both cooling in up to 131F/55C outside temps as well as heating when it gets down to from –13F/-25C. 9000 BTU is more than we need but the smallest model I could find so just means it won’t take much run time to keep the inside of the “Hab” as we have come to call the Habitat or Box or living quarters in Lance, just the right temperature in both hot and cold climates.
I will cover this in a later blog post but just FYI, in addition to the Mini-Split we will also have a diesel fired boiler that will heats the Glycol solution that flows through a network of PEX tubing in the floor as well as heat for two floor mounted air/glycol heat exchangers (mini radiators) so that when we head up to the Arctic, possibly this summer, we’ll stay nice and toasty. And this boiler also provides all our domestic hot water DHW for sinks and showers so stay tuned for that update in a few weeks. Back to the Mini-Split install, this is the wall mounted interior evaporator half of the system and I mounted this Air Handler above the entry door on the front passenger side of the Hab. Works out well as you can see being almost the same width as the door. There are moving louvers with one large one running across the bottom that you can see partially open here that distributes the cold/hot air up/down vertically and then inside are a set of other smaller louvers that move back and forth sideways and help move the air left and right. So this location works out very well for the heating/cooling of the interior air and yet keeps it from blowing directly on us when we are at the Settee or in bed. As you might have noticed in the earlier photos, I had to cut away part of the upper stair in the entry to fit this top right corner of the exterior half or condenser/compressor. Once I had this all solidly bolted in place to the frame of the Hab underneath (see that May post for details if you’re curious) I finished it off by building a little “cage” using extruded aluminium and some aluminium diamond plate that I had left over from cutting out some of the original ambulance cabinetry. Also added some insulation to keep the other heat/cold from getting into the Hab. The 6mm diamond plate slid nicely into the T-slot grooves of the extruded Aluminium or XAL as you can see here. All these interlocked plates and XAL turned this into somewhat of an Origami project as I needed to be able to slide some of those plates out to get inside to connect the wiring and refrigerant lines but I was quite pleased with the way it turned out in the end and still functioned well as our entry stairs. I chose the 240V model as it is a wee bit more efficient than the 120V versions and I designed our AC system that I’ll cover in more detail in a future post, to be a Split Phase system so it provides both 120 and 240 Volt power. I’m going to break the time sequence a bit here as I actually finished off this l the install of the Mini-Split when we got back from our summer marathon in Lance and was working on him at our place on Saturna Island. Next part of the install was to make up some custom copper line sets that connect the two parts and transfer the refrigerant between the exterior condenser and the interior evaporator. These copper tubes are well insulated to help with efficiency and that’s the white covering you see here.
I could do this because Lance’s ambulance box is 8 feet wide and allowed me to design both really deep drawers and countertops and still have lots of room for working in the Galley between the two countertops. I’m mentioning this because designing this space behind the drawers gives me the perfect place to run electrical cables, PEX water lines and now Mini-Split copper line sets all out of the way and hidden from view and yet easy to access for installing and maintenance. Looking inside the entry door, the drawers on both sides of the Galley are 24” deep but the countertops are 32” so there is a nice space behind the drawers when they are closed. I could do this because Lance’s ambulance box is 8 feet/243cm wide on the outside and the finished inside width is about 7 1/2 ft/2.3m which allowed me to design both really deep drawers and countertops and still have lots of room for working in the Galley between the two countertops. I’m mentioning this because designing this space behind the drawers gives me the perfect place to run electrical cables, PEX water lines and now Mini-Split copper line sets all out of the way and hidden from view and yet easy to access for installing and maintenance. This is the space behind the bottom drawer on the Left side of the stairs as you enter and I drilled a 2” hole through the vinyl flooring, insulation and aluminium floor of the box. The Pioneer unit came with the white PVC insert to protect the copper line set and the white cable is the 240VAC power and the black is the communication cable between the two halves of the Mini-Split. Up above I drilled two overlapping holes in the solid Acrylic countertop, which is fabulous stuff to work with BTW, and ran the electric cables and copper line sets through this. The copper lines in the interior evaporator unit come permanently fitted and they ended up just above the countertop height so I cut the new copper lines and installed new flare nuts that allowed me to connect them here and then run down into the compressor/condenser unit under the floor. The upper parts of the line sets gets covered with this black EPDM insulation and the corrugated clear hose is where the condensation produced by the evaporator drains out and down through the floor onto the road below. To protect and hide all these lines and cords I built a small vertical connector between the countertop and the overhead cabinet you can just see at the very top of this photo. The sides will soon be fitted with Cherry panels same as all the fronts of the doors and drawers that will be the topic of several other future posts. I will maybe guild some small shelves into this space to make it otherwise useful but for now it plays its primary role of protecting all these electrical cords and copper lines. Most importantly, Razz and Zoe use this new little upper step for their water bowl and so they give this new addition two paws up!
It’s been a bit cold the past few days with highs in the day around 10C/50F and brrrrrrrr as low as 4C/40F at night so we Three Pupsketeers have been really appreciating how well the heating function of the Mini-Split has kept us keeping us nice and comfy.
Well, that’s going to do it for this week but at least I’ve started to catch up with all those months of no updates on the progress with Lance and hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks for joining the journey here and don’t hesitate to leave your comments and questions in the Join the Discussion box below.
See you next week which will be Thanksgiving weekend for all my American friends and family.
The newest update to Möbius is that our all new House Bank batteries are now fully installed and up and running!
As you may recall from THIS post almost a year ago, our original FireFly Carbon Foam batteries had sadly lost most o f their “fire” aka capacity and repeated efforts using the FireFly prescribed “Restoration Charge” was not able to bring the capacity back. Fortunately the combination of having a total capacity of 1800Ah @ 24V and our large solar capacity from 14 320W solar panels allowed us to go for almost a year of full time live aboard cruising running all systems other than extended AC use, without needing to ever plug into Shore Power. So we did pretty well I think!? But about a month ago while docked here in Norfolk, one of the four FF banks started to overheat and so their time was up.
With our new situation (details if interested here) I had hoped that the FF batteries would last until we find the new owners and they take over so they could chose the new replacement batteries that were just right for them But the “fire” had sadly gone out on the FireFly batteries and so I needed to make that call and have all new House batteries installed.
For those interested, this post will give you an overview of how that progressed.
CHOOSING the GOLDILOCKS NEW BATTERIES
The quick summary of my requirements and priorities to determine the just right Goldilocks batteries for Möbius’ and our use case is as follows: (in no particular order)
WEIGHT: Somewhat unique to us perhaps, weight is not a factor for choosing the batteries. In fact we actually want/need as much weight as possible as we had designed the boat around the batteries to some extent and treated the 1022Kg/2250 lbs of FF batteries as part of the lead ballast of the boat.
SIZE: Battery size is also not a factor as we had to some extent designed the hull around the battery compartments which ended up being three large watertight and positively vented compartments which spanned and were centered on the 1″ thick x 18″ keel bar that runs from the transom all the way up to the top of the bow. See the GA drawing below to see this layout.
WIDE TEMPERATURE RANGE: Working well and safely within in as wide a range of operating temperatures as as possible. Our intended use case for Möbius was to go everywhere from the Arctic/Antarctic and high latitude cccccccold climates to scorching hot locations. (which seems to be more and more locations in our world these days!)
FAULT TOLERANT: In addition to temperature it was also important that the new House batteries were as robust as possible in that they would be able to deal with the typical “accidents” that happen over the years with the battery systems on boats. Things like full discharges when the boat has been left for long periods of time and the charging system fails for some reason.
SAFETY: Always a top priority of course but in the end I had no concerns with safety of either Lithium or AGM as I’m of the opinion that battery safety is all a matter of good design and installation of the electrical system and battery management, as well as sticking to top quality manufacturers. So I did not consider any of the “off brand” batteries and companies.
VALUE: Cost is an ever present factor for most of us but I think in terms of overall value rather than price alone. I will gladly pay for quality and other features listed above to get the best match of batteries and our use case criteria. I think this is well evidenced by all the equipment we have installed on Möbius. So I did not consider any batteries or companies that were not IMO offering high quality batteries.
EXTENDED 100% SOC + FLOAT TIMES: This is a relatively new factor I have come to appreciate and which I believe may have contributed to the early demise of the Carbon Foam FF batteries. Most of us have experienced how leaving things like laptops and phones plugged into their chargers and kept at 100% fully charged for most of the time leads to them loosing more and more of their capacity and shortening their lifespan. I don’t have the expertise to prove this but my first hand experience over the years and my research into that of others has led me to suspect that there is a similar situation with LiFePO4 and Carbon Foam batteries.
Due to our large almost 5KW solar power the batteries on Möbius sit at 100% fully charged state almost all the time. With the large overall available capacity we typically only take the House batteries down to about 85% SoC or less between the end and start of each solar day and most days the solar charging brings them back to 100% fully charged by 10 to noon depending on solar conditions, time of year, geo location, etc. You would think that this would be ideal for battery health. However, I am finding increased evidence and examples that not only do LiiFePO4 and Carbon Foam type batteries deal very well with being in PSoC or Partial State of Charge for extended periods of time, they actually PREFER to be in a PSoC condition the majority of time. Being kept in Float mode at 100% SoC can lesson their capacity over time. It is possible to deal with this by carefully customizing the charging profiles of all the charging sources on the boat and our WS500 regulators for the alternators, MPPT controllers for the solar panels, and MultiPlus chargers all have this ability. However based on my experience to date I think that AGM type batteries actually prefer to be kept at 100% fully charged SoC which is the situation as I’ve outlined above on Möbius. I’m sure this factored to some degree in my final decision.
I should add that the rest of the equipment that forms the overall House Battery system would work well with any of the LiFePO4 or AGM batteries I considered. Things such as the twin 250A 24V Electrodyne alternators with external rectifiers, WakeSpeed 500 Smart Regulators and Victron BMV712 battery monitors, would all work for any of the batteries I was looking at be they Lithium or AGM so this was a non factor in my decision making. Lithium batteries would of course require equally high quality BMS either internal or external so I only considered LiFePO4 batteries with dedicated BMS from their manufacturer.
Click to enlarge and see the location of the three battery compartments on Möbius
BATTERY CHOICES:
I’ve written about this topic of batteries for Mobius multiple postings here on the blog and I spent a LOT of hours discussing this with experts and other boat owners and researching the latest offerings of high quality batteries. This lead me to narrow it down to a choice between Lithium (LiFePO4) and AGM batteries from the likes of Victron, Battleborn/DragonFly, Lithionics, etc. all of whom had some very high quality options. For example, this new form factor of “12V 270Ah GameChanger 3.0” LiFePO4 batteries from DragonFly had some very attractive features.
I also went back to the original batteries that I had considered for Möbius during the initial design phase which were these type of OPZv Gel type “traction batteries” and they were in the running again in this most recent search. I paid close attention to how “bullet proof” the batteries were in terms of being able to deal with such factors as the likelihood of a few times in their long lifespan where they would end up being completely discharged for some reason or another. Never planned of course but always possible and when we start talking about lifespans of 10+ years the probability of such “accidents” becomes quite high.
These intriguing 24V 275Ah LiFePO4 “modules” with external BMS from Lithionics ticked off a lot of boxes were also recommended by OPE though came with a deservedly high price as well. There were several other batteries and companies which I researched and made it onto my short list but the ones above cover the top contenders.
and the WINNER IS …………..
I’m well aware that many of you would make a different choice for YOUR boat, but I do my best with all equipment decisions to find the “Goldilocks” just right choice that best matches with Möbius’ use case.
In the end, this is what I chose; (drum roll please …………………….)
………….. After a LOT of deliberation I decided to go with Victron and chose their “Super Cycle” AGM batteries. We chose Victron equipment for the entire electrical system on Möbius including their Isolation Transformer, MultiPlus Inverter/Chargers, MPPT controllers, Octo and Cerbo GX monitoring, etc. so they are a company that we have come to know well and not doubt have a bias for and I’m sure this did influence my final choice and Victron offered multiple batteries in both LiFePO4 and AGM to chose from. These Victron SC AGM battery model are 12V @ 230Ah C20 and one of their more interesting qualities that caught my attention was their stated ability to withstand 300 complete 100% discharges without any damage to them although it certainly would shorten their lifespan if you were to do that. Having gone with Victron for almost all of the equipment that makes up the overall electrical system on Möbius, I have come to trust and respect them as a company but I still wanted to verify these claims and was fortunate to find that Bruce Schwab at Ocean Planet Energy OPE, was able to personally verify Victron’s claims of these Super Cycle batteries based on OPE’s direct testing and he wrote:
Being a Victron distributor, we have tested the Victron Super Cycle AGM 125Ah (G31 size) in our PSOC regime. Nearly all Pb batteries suffer permanent capacity loss when run through this 30-cycle PSOC test. We’re happy to say that the Super Cycle AGM passed with flying colors, with no discernable loss of capacity.
I was therefore delighted to be able to work directly with Bruce and his tech Kevin at Ocean Planet Energy and can not recommend them more highly. Bruce was incredibly responsive throughout the whole process, answering all my barrage of questions leading up to the choice of these Victron batteries and then getting the new batteries along with some additional Victron equipment ordered and delivered to the marina here in Norfolk VA.
Bruce and Kevin worked with me very closely during the entire installation and configuration of the whole new electrical system to get it dialed in “just right”. It is all too rare in my experience that you find such high degree of expertise along with truly exemplary service and so my hat off to Bruce and Kevin, can’t thank you both enough. If any of you have any electrical needs for your boat I’m sure you will thank me later for contacting Bruce and his staff at OPE and similarly benefiting from their expertise and incredible customer service.
* NOTE: Just to be clear and transparent, I am not sponsored by OPE or Victron or any other manufacturer, just a very satisfied customer wanting to share my first hand experiences with these high quality companies and people.
OUT WITH THE OLD;
Here is the schematic showing how the original House Bank of 24 FireFly L15+ Carbon Foam batteries was setup.
(click to enlarge this or any other photo)
This is one of the three sealed battery compartments that are built into the hull with the batteries stradling the 1″ thick center keel bar so that all their weight acts as nicely centered “lead ballast”. As per the schematic above, each of the four banks of FireFly batteries were wired directly to the positive and negative main bus bars inside the Grey DC Distribution box you see here. All cables are of equal gauge and length, hence the looped Red & Black cables, Positive cables from each bank have their own Off/On Battery Switch (Grey switches top left corner) and the negative cables each connect to the Neg bus bar through their own shunt for the Victron BMV712 battery monitors. Fortunately I was able to reuse all these cables and battery monitors for the new batteries. This is the forwardmost battery compartment with the lid removed to start disconnecting all the batteries. With all the interconnecting battery cables and copper bars removed these 8 batteries are ready to leave the building. Each FireFly battery weighs 43Kg/94lbs but fortunately they had very good handles on both sides so lifting them up and out went well. This is the first eight of 24 batteries out on the dock beside the boat.
OUT OUT OUT with the OLD!
A bit of a sad end to what should have been a much happier relationship with these FireFly batteries, but it is what it is. Enlisting the generously offered assistance of the marina staff and their golf cart to make the looooooooong trek along the maze of docks to get from the boat to the shore, we were able to transfer the batteries from boat to shore to pickup truck to take them to the battery salvage yard.
A forklift sure makes life easier once I got the batteries to the salvage yard! At least I was able to offset the cost of the new batteries with the money for the 2317 lbs of lead contained within the 24 FF batteries. (less weight of case, gel, etc.)
Bye bye FireFly; Hello Victron!
IN with the NEW
The new batteries were delivered a few days later and with some help from the marina staff and their golf cart, we were able to bring the new batteries out to the dock beside Möbius. .With the old FF batteries removed I could take out the fiberglass pans and modify them to fit the new batteries. Not actually required by ABYC for these sealed batteries but a smart “belt & suspender” safety feature I think. Each of the three pans needed to be extended in length so I just cut them in half with my circular saw ………. and then glassed in the space between with new cloth and resin.
Just visible on the far left end of this pan you can see the new SS tie down D rings I installed for the ratchet webbing used to secure the batteries in place.
Now all that was needed was to lift each of the 125lb new batteries from the dock down into the Basement and then lower them into their new home inside each battery compartment.
IN WITH THE NEW:
This schematic illustration will show you how the new House Bank is wired up. Over the many years of boat ownership I have come to appreciate how important it is to keep ALL batteries very well balanced as they are being charged and discharged.
NOTE: this is a schematic diagram only, cable sizes and lengths not shown to scale
This boils down to ensuring that each battery has the exact same resistance as their electrons flow in and out which is mostly determined by having the exact same size and length of cable connecting them to each other in the parallel and series arrangement required for such a multi battery bank setup. It is similarly important that each individual battery bank also has the exact same cable gauge and length for their connections to the main positive and negative bus bars.
Also worth noting that all battery cables are oversized to 120mm2 (two sizes larger than AWG 4/0) to have less than 1% voltage drop.
I have also come to appreciate how much it helps to go the “extra mile” with the interconnecting cables to make all the series and parallel connections between each of the four batteries that make up each bank. I first learned this method many years ago from Nigel Calder’s invaluable “Boatowners Mechanical & Electrical Manual” which you can see in Fig 1.21 page 22 if interested.
This is the wiring I used for each of the four batteries in each battery bank.
You can see this in the schematic above and here in the actual cables installed on the new Victron SC AGM batteries.
Small gauge wires you see here are for the various temperature and voltage sensors for monitoring these batteries with both Victron and Maretron. Christine’s son Tim flew up for a visit during all of this and being a very good certified electrician he generously worked with me for the whole installation process. Here seen crimping the lugs onto the new interconnecting cables that needed to be made up. Tim does very high quality work which I certainly value highly and is also great to see in this new generation of electricians and workforce. Good example here of affixing the SS ratchets and straps to this battery bank. Tim also took on the finicky mounting and then wiring of the three Victron Battery Balancers that we added to the installation.
Thanks Tim, couldn’t have done it without you!! For those interested, these battery balancers work as follows:
The Battery Balancer equalizes the state of charge of two series connected 12V batteries, or of several parallel strings of series connected batteries. When the charge voltage of a 24V battery system increases to more than 27V, the Battery Balancer will turn on and compare the voltage over the two series connected batteries. The Battery Balancer will draw a current of up to 1A from the battery (or parallel connected batteries) with the highest voltage. The resulting charge current differential will ensure that all batteries will converge to the same state of charge.
With the kind of $$ we boat owners invest in our battery banks, every bit that we can extend their lifespan helps and is well worth doing in my experience. Not quite finished, still need to tidy up the cables and small wire sensor cables with zip ties but here is what House Bank #1 looks like. And this is the aft most Bank #3 just about ready to have the lid bolted on to finish this installation.
It took a few days working with Bruce and Kevin at OPE to get all the settings setup just right in the MPPT controllers, WakeSpeed regulators, MultiPlus chargers and BMV sensors and they went the extra mile and then some to help configure and finish up the installation. We have been running the new Victron House Battery setup for about three weeks now and it is performing flawlessly. I’ve tested it both with and without shore power and the each battery and each battery bank has stayed perfectly balanced and performing just as hoped.
A very good feeling after nursing the original House Battery along for the past year but we now have a great setup that should continue to meet all the significant electrical demands aboard Möbius. This is very much a “battery based” boat with all DC and AC power coming from these batteries so this really adds to the SWAN or Sleep Well At Night factor on our beloved Möbius.
Congratulations if you’ve made it this far in this all too typical “brevity challenged” update. With any luck there won’t be any more big jobs like this to report on but I will post updates from time to time as things evolve aboard and soon hopefully off of the Good Ship Möbius.
Christine and I are still working our way through our recent “difficult but clear” decision to send our beloved dog Ruby off on her final passage which you may have read about in my last update Iposted here. We both want to say thanks to all of you who sent such kind thoughts in your comments, text messages, Emails and calls. All much appreciated and we are most grateful for bringing us even more memories of all our adventures and travels with Ruby the Wonderdog.
As the randomness of life would have it, it turns out this was just the warmup for us as we now find ourselves confronted with an even more “difficult but clear” decision to make which I will explain as best I can below.
I won’t bore you with too many of the details, but I have recently received confirmation that I have a rare condition called Ménière’s Disease that affects my inner ear and balance. In my case, the primary symptoms are sudden onset Vertigo which makes me dizzy and disoriented without any warning when I am moving around and increased tinnitus that has been ringing in my ears for many years. Currently, there is no cure or treatment for Ménière’s disease, and the symptoms are predicted to increase in frequency and severity over the coming years. We will just have to wait and see.
Right now, these random bouts of vertigo are not too frequent and only occur when I am moving around. The bigger problem is when I am unable to grab onto something, and I lose my balance and fall. In several instances over the past months while we have been underway on Möbius, I’ve hit my head badly and worse, I’ve aggravated the four cracked disks in my back from a serious motorcycle accident I survived many years ago. This has triggered severely painful spasms that incapacitate me for several days. I’m no stranger to pain and can deal with that, but as you might imagine, with this all happening on a moving boat while underway, it has been very stressful for poor Christine. She has often reminded me that her worst fear is waking up for her night watch and finding herself alone on the boat. With this news, and her first-hand observation of a fall or two, she tells me her anxiety level has skyrocketed.
After much discussion of our options and processing through stages of denial, anger and frustration we have both come to accept the painful but clear conclusion that it is no longer safe or sensible for us to continue our nomadic adventures exploring the world by sea aboard the good ship Möbius. After investing and immersing ourselves so completely for the past five years to bring our Goldilocks “just right, just for us” dreams to the reality that is Möbius, ending our voyages just as we were getting started is sad and disappointing to say the least. Yet for us, this does not diminish in the least the incredible experiences we’ve had joining forces with SO many eXtremely talented people to collaboratively design and build this boat of our dreams. We remain eternally grateful to each one of you. In the short time since setting off to eXplore the world on her, we have already had so many truly awemazing adventures together visiting places we had never seen before and making the transition from sail to power. Mirroring our recent experience with losing Ruby, it will be painful to let Möbius go, but it is equally clear to us that this is the smart and right thing to do. She is an amazing boat, and we adore her, but she deserves and needs owners who can take her on the ocean-crossing voyages she has proven to be so capable of and is currently tugging at her dock lines to continue.
I’m not sure that it has fully sunk in for either of us yet, but we are going to be “swallowing the anchor” as the saying goes. However, we have accepted the eXciting new challenge of dreaming up a whole new home for us and new way of equally eXtreme eXploration of the world by land. At this point in time, we have no idea just what that will look like, but we’ll figure that out over the next few months and are anxious to get started on this as soon as possible. We love these kinds of challenges, and we think we have been quite successful so far. Why would we change now?! Heck, we made the transition from voyaging by sail to power and transformed our aquatic Goldilocks dreams into reality by designing and building Möbius, and we have just covered over 8200 nautical smiles since leaving Turkey at the end of October. How hard can the next transition from sea to land be? Maybe we’ll end up following that natural progression with age I’ve heard some mention: Sailboat –> Powerboat –> RV –> Hearse. hehehe
So, what’s next for us? Our immediate plans are to stay living aboard Möbius safely docked here at Tidewater Marina in Norfolk VA where we recently enjoyed having our son Skyler here for a week long visit and our two Granddaughters and their parents aboard for the July 4th week. Now that we have been able to spend time with our thee children and grandchildren and discuss our big decision with them, our top priorities are to get our personal gear down to the bare minimum on Möbius and get her spick and span and shipshape as we seek out her new owners. As most of you know, Möbius is our full-time home and everything we own is onboard so it will take a good bit of time and work to transfer all our personal gear from the boat to shore.
Trust me when I say that I know this is a LOT to take in and process! We are feeling more than a bit overwhelmed by this sudden and complete change in plans, but we both wanted to deliver this news to you as directly and transparently as possible as we work our way through it all. It won’t be fast or easy to find the new owners for Möbius, but now that we have made the decision we are highly motivated to find them so she will be the deal of a lifetime for someone out there such that we and they can both begin our new adventures right away.
And of course, if YOU have been dreaming about exploring the world by sea sooner than later on a boat that has proven herself an eXtremely capable exploration passagemaker, here is your chance to fulfill those dreams NOWl! So, if this boat is calling your name or you know anyone else who might like to become the new owner of Möbius, please email us at wayne.christine@mobius.world. It will take us a few weeks at least to get Möbius decluttered and ready to put on the market and we will create a “Möbius for Sale” blog post with videos, photos and details of all her equipment and systems and publish that as soon as we can.
I realize that this is likely as unexpected and surprising to you as it has been to us, and I apologize for veering off onto this personal tangent on the Mobius.World blog. Having each of you choose to join us on this grand “Project Goldilocks” adventure has been a huge part of what has made the journey so far so special and meaningful for both me and Christine, and we are grateful for your encouragement and companionship throughout. Therefore, it seemed only appropriate to share this unexpected new development with you directly today.
That’s more than enough from me for now. Please don’t fret or worry, as this is NOT a life-threatening condition, just a lifestyle-threatening one. I’m still very appreciative and grateful for everything I am so fortunate to have in life. At 70 years young, I still lead a very charmed, adventurous and eXciting life. Despite this new wrinkle, I’m otherwise very fit, healthy, and energetic. I have the best partner in life and love, my Captain Christine at my side. And I have more love and care from more family and friends like you than I deserve. So, could I be any more fortunate? Methinks not!
I appreciate that you may be feeling the urge to respond to this update, and I thank you for that, but no response is needed nor expected. For us it is onward and upward, as we close out one set of adventures and begin the next.
So don’t worry, we’re not done yet! We’ll keep you posted here on our next steps as we continue our newest round of awemazing adventures in life.
I don’t recall just when or how she acquired the moniker of Ruby the Wonderdog, but it was very early on as a pup and my First Mate aboard the Good Ship Learnativity as we sailed out of San Francisco back in 2007 and set out to explore the world together. This is my very first photo of her the day I picked her up on the 12th of October, 2007 when she was about six weeks old.
Today, almost 16 years later, Ruby weighed her last anchor and headed off on her final passage. As you might imagine, Christine and I are riding life’s rollercoaster of emotions today which includes a lot of sadness but if you chose to continue reading, I hope you will indulge me this personal detour. I’d like to remind myself just how much Ruby was THE Wonderdog as we celebrate and appreciate the profound joy she brought into our lives and that of countless others she met along the way. Like most of the awemazing events in my life, Ruby came into my life when the forces of serendipity and synchronicity combined to have us meet and be bonded forever after.
As I was preparing to head off sailing around the world singlehanded, I had thought I might get a cat at some point but my dear friend Grace happened to mention that her two dogs had just had a litter and she was looking for a good home for the last one. It was the classic love at first sight ,and we’ve been together ever since. Ruby was a “Spoodle”, cross between Poodle and Cocker Spaniel and both her parents, Grace’s dogs, were Spoodles. And when I say she was small I’m not exaggerating as you can see here in this picture with my daughter Lia’s little Papillion “Piglet”. And Oh, the places we did go! We started by sailing down the West coast of North, Central and South America to Rapa Nue aka Easter Island where we turned right and headed West to Pitcairn, Gambier and on through most of the Polynesian islands. Westward to more islands such as American Samoa, Niue, Tonga, Fiji, Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Vanuatu with multiple passages between all of these for about the next five years. Aboard Möbius this past year, the Wonderdog sailed with Christine, myself and her buddy Barney, along the coasts of Turkey, Greece and Sicily then across the Med and North Africa, across the Atlantic to Martinique in the Caribbean and up through the Bahamas to Florida and now her final port here in Portsmouth Virginia. Being all Black other than a small White blaze on her chest, Ruby was typically difficult to see in photos but if you look closely or click to enlarge, you’ll see her on the other side of me as we crossed the equator in 2009. This would be our first of seven times we crossed the equator together. In 2013 when serendipity and synchronicity again combined to have the awemazing Christine and I meet for the first time in Fiji, Ruby was there too as seen in this first photo ever taken of us a few hours after we met. That first photo above was taken on our dear friends Ian & Coleen’s boat Summer Spirit in Vuda Point Marina. Ruby fell in love with both of them, and vice versa, probably spending more time aboard Summer Spirit than Learnativity in all the years we were back and forth to Fiji and Vuda Point. Ruby loved running up and down beaches and this one in Majuro in the Marshall Islands was one of her favorites. In multiple passages up to Majuro from Fiji, we probably spent over a year’s time there, the last two with Christine aboard as well. The Wonderdog was always a marvel of balance that would make any gymnast or circus act envious and perched herself at the bow every dinghy ride no matter the conditions and never fell off once. Though she jumped off as soon as we got near the beach as she just couldn’t wait to swim ashore and hit the beach running. Another of her many skills, she became and expert and sniffing out and then digging out crabs no matter how deep down under the sand they went, and then eat with great gusto and lips carefully bared so as not to get bit by their claws. On rare occasion she would take a back seat to her best buddy Barney as long as it meant another trip to the beach. We soon became a family of four when Christine’s dog at the time Barney joined us, and he and Ruby became best buddies immediately almost more than did Christine and I. However it quickly became apparent that Barney was “my” dog and Ruby was velcro’d to Christine from the very first day they met. In any case, we were now a family of four. Both Ruby and Barney were great snuggle buddies, sometimes along side us sometimes alongside each other. Always at the ready for the next adventure, or the next meal. Can’t say that it was her favorite thing to do but Ruby was no stranger to dressing up for special occasions such as being Bridesmaid along with Barney as Groom at our wedding in 2015. And celebrating each Christmas with us as Santa’s little helpers. Along for the ride with all our family and friends such as one of Lia and Brian’s many times aboard starting with this first one in Puntarenas Costa Rico along with their little dog Piglet. Son Skyler on one of our many visits to Vancouver BC. And my apologies to SO many other friends and family I’m leaving out here.
If you believe in dog years, Ruby would be about 110 years old now and Christine and I have known for the past few months that age was beginning to catch up with her. She had lost most of her hearing the past year and was developing cataracts in both eyes, but she was still as frisky as a pup at times racing up and down the side decks, eating, drinking, pooping and sleeping well and seemed to continue to enjoy life together with us. So we’ve been keeping a close eye on her, and this past week she started to go downhill down rapidly. Barney noticed the change as well this past week and in an apparent common scenario, for the first time he began to give her some very serious grooming sessions licking her head to toe for half an hour or more multiple times a day. Ruby seemed to signal us as well as her appetite diminished as did her weight this past week, and she ate and drank very little the last 24 hours.
The decision was not easy but it was clear to all four of us that this fateful time had arrived. So a few hours ago, we snuggled together with our dearest friend and crewmember for one last time, shed more than a few tears and kissed Ruby the Wonderdog Bon Voyage for her final passage in this life, with us by her side.
Over our years together the boats Ruby and I have lived and sailed upon have changed, but I’d like to think that we have both stayed largely the same and as bonded together as ever.
This was us in Fiji in 2009 and ….. …… this is us this morning in Portsmouth Virginia, fourteen years later.
FYI, totally unintended coincidence but yes of course I’m still wearing the same shirt!
We have seen a lot of the world together and watched a lot of sunsets over the years, my dearest Ruby. My rough guesstimates are that together we’ve checked into more than 33 countries, flown almost one hundred thousand air miles, tens of thousand road miles in cars, trucks, RV’s and motorcycles, countless more miles on trains, taxis and busses and sailed over 60 thousand nautical miles.
Ruby, words can not possibly articulate how rich and charmed my life has been since you first entered it. I will never be able to thank you enough for all the many gifts and profound joy you have given me during our almost sixteen years together. I think I may be ready for a world without The Wonderdog in it, but I’m not at all sure if I will ever be ready for a world without my partner Ruby.
Lucky for me, there really is no such world as I will always have and cherish the treasure trove of memories from all our shared experiences in life together.
Thank you my friend, my partner, my beloved Ruby. Fair winds and following seas as you weigh anchor and set out upon your latest voyage with me at your side as always!
I’ll start with this post that will provide you with a quick summary of the phenomenal time we had eXploring the Baja peninsula of Mexico from end of December to beginning of March. 
and yes, I can see those eyes rolling when those who know me hear Wayne saying “a quick summary” BUT in this case it is actually true because my awemazing wife, travel partner and best selling author (pen name Christine Kling) wrote it! 
We wanted an awning that would extend out from the Passenger Side PS as that’s where we tend to set up our table and chairs when camping and one that would be very quick and easy to extend and retract so that we’d use it frequently. After some research we settled on the Italian made 
It was very well packaged for shipping with lots of very tough angled cardboard corners on all sides so it arrived in perfect condition. 
The awning comes with three of these extruded Aluminium brackets which hook into the extruded Aluminium on the back of the awning body itself so I just needed to come up with a way of securely fastening these brackets to the top PS roof corner on Lance’s Hab. (Habitat/Box)
I keep all the cut offs from the XAL or eXtruded Aluminium that I used to build all the cabinet framing inside Lance and just love working with this stuff so I was particularly delighted to find that the T-slot in the 10 Series 1 inch square XAL wedged itself perfectly into the L shaped aluminium gutter rails that runs down the top sides of Lance’s Hab. Sometimes you luck out!
Here is what the finished installation looks like with the Fiama bracket now bolted into the top T-slot of the XAL bracket. 
Being all aluminium construction whole awning only weighs 27Kg/60lbs so it wasn’t too much of a lift for Christine and I on two ladders to lift it up and slide the awning into the brackets. 
We
For those interested in the details, this is the make and model Mini-Split we decided on. It is a 9k BTU capacity “Pioneer Diamante Ultra” that is one of the most efficient models they make rated at 23.5 SEER for those who know that system. These type of two part aircon/heating systems are referred to as Mini-Splits because they consist of two parts; the outside condenser/compressor and the inside air handler evaporator. 
Back to the Mini-Split install, this is the wall mounted interior evaporator half of the system and I mounted this Air Handler above the entry door on the front passenger side of the Hab. Works out well as you can see being almost the same width as the door. There are moving louvers with one large one running across the bottom that you can see partially open here that distributes the cold/hot air up/down vertically and then inside are a set of other smaller louvers that move back and forth sideways and help move the air left and right. So this location works out very well for the heating/cooling of the interior air and yet keeps it from blowing directly on us when we are at the Settee or in bed. 
As you might have noticed in the earlier photos, I had to cut away part of the upper stair in the entry to fit this top right corner of the exterior half or condenser/compressor. Once I had this all solidly bolted in place to the frame of the Hab underneath (see that May post for details if you’re curious) I finished it off by building a little “cage” using extruded aluminium and some aluminium diamond plate that I had left over from cutting out some of the original ambulance cabinetry. Also added some insulation to keep the other heat/cold from getting into the Hab. 
The 6mm diamond plate slid nicely into the T-slot grooves of the extruded Aluminium or XAL as you can see here. 
All these interlocked plates and XAL turned this into somewhat of an Origami project as I needed to be able to slide some of those plates out to get inside to connect the wiring and refrigerant lines but I was quite pleased with the way it turned out in the end and still functioned well as our entry stairs. 
I chose the 240V model as it is a wee bit more efficient than the 120V versions and I designed our AC system that I’ll cover in more detail in a future post, to be a Split Phase system so it provides both 120 and 240 Volt power. 
Looking inside the entry door, the drawers on both sides of the Galley are 24” deep but the countertops are 32” so there is a nice space behind the drawers when they are closed. 
This is the space behind the bottom drawer on the Left side of the stairs as you enter and I drilled a 2” hole through the vinyl flooring, insulation and aluminium floor of the box. The Pioneer unit came with the white PVC insert to protect the copper line set and the white cable is the 240VAC power and the black is the communication cable between the two halves of the Mini-Split. 
Up above I drilled two overlapping holes in the solid Acrylic countertop, which is fabulous stuff to work with BTW, and ran the electric cables and copper line sets through this. The copper lines in the interior evaporator unit come permanently fitted and they ended up just above the countertop height so I cut the new copper lines and installed new flare nuts that allowed me to connect them here and then run down into the compressor/condenser unit under the floor. 
The upper parts of the line sets gets covered with this black EPDM insulation and the corrugated clear hose is where the condensation produced by the evaporator drains out and down through the floor onto the road below. 
To protect and hide all these lines and cords I built a small vertical connector between the countertop and the overhead cabinet you can just see at the very top of this photo. The sides will soon be fitted with Cherry panels same as all the fronts of the doors and drawers that will be the topic of several other future posts. 
I
Most importantly, Razz and Zoe use this new little upper step for their water bowl and so they give this new addition two paws up!
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