Captain Christine, AKA my Beautiful Bride, completed her latest circumnavigation of the sun this past Sunday March 15th and as is our policy, we give experiences for gifts rather than “things” so we flew over to London for a few days as one of her experiential gifts was to fulfill a live long wish to see a play at one of London’s iconic theatres, the Apollo Victoria.
Wish granted.
Wish fulfilled!
Happy Birthday Baby! As usual in London, there are way too many great choices but I decided that Wicked at the Apollo Victoria would be the just right choice for my musical loving Captain and as her smile after the experience seems to indicate that I guessed correct. It was a great play and we both enjoyed it and the whole experience thoroughly. We flew over to London Gatwick on Thursday night so we had the whole day Friday before going to see Wicked at the Apollo and the Spring weather was fabulous so we took advantage and drove the whole SE coastline from Brighton to Whitstable just north of Canterbury. It was cool and windy but very sunny so perfect for a good Birthday drive. The ocean is like a magnet for both of us and it is constantly calling our names so we drove up around the SE corner to the little harbour town of Whitstable where I’d been once before and I treated my Birthday Girl to some of THE best Fish and Chips at Wee Willie Winkles. Why drive all the way around the SE corner to the Canterbury area you ask?
Because that is were Mr. Gee, our Gardner 6LXB engine is from and we can’t be THAT close and not go for a visit to Gardner Marine now can we? Plus Christine had not been yet and of course there were a few “bits and bobs” I needed to pick up for Mr. Gee’s “born again” process.
In this photo I am talking with James who is an walking encyclopedia, as is everyone at Gardner Marine of both the history and the technical details of all things Gardner and he graciously let me pick his brain for several hours as we walked around the expanding Gardner Marine facilities. This is a picture from my first visit to Gardner Marine several years ago to meet Mr. Gee for the first time just after he had been taken out of a tugboat on the River Thames after almost 50 years of non-stop service. Michael Harrison who is the CEO of Gardner Marine spent the better part of that day with me to answer all my questions and take me through the finer points of the 6LXB engines. While we didn’t know it at the time it was a harbinger that was not able to meet with us this visit because he had just returned from a trip looking after some other Gardner engine installations in Spain and France so he was taking the precaution to self isolate himself at home until he could be tested. As we know now, we were all about to be in a similar situation.
Back to the present, James is taking me through just one of three of the side by side two story buildings which hold the treasure trove of “a few” Gardner engines of all ages and sizes as well as all their rebuilding equipment and eXtreme eXtensive spare parts inventory of Gardner Marine. They are about to expand into the fourth building next door as business continues to grow. Can you tell that I’m in one of my “Happy Places”???
My fellow gearheads will appreciate that places like this are akin to the Louvre for the works of art and engineering that Gardner Engines embody. Back to the Birthday Girl, we dashed back to London just in time to check into our lovely little AirBnB there and catch an Uber over to the Apollo Victoria to see Wicked.
Wow, Wee Willie Winkle Fish & Chips, Gardner Marine and Wicked at the Apollo all in the same day!?! Now you know why we call these “experiential adventures” and why we a life so densely packed with them. Next day we continued the adventure by taking advantage of being in London where one of our “god children” and most special people Kate now lives as she attends the London campus of Florida Sate University. While not sunny, the temps were Spring like and the lighting was outstanding for photos of beautiful women as you can see here. We spent the entire day, 22,000 steps Christine’s watch says, strolling throughout “Kate’s downtown London”. It might have been Christine’s birthday but I seemed to get much of the gifts such as chances for more hugs with the phenomenal and powerful women I am so fortunate to get to share this life with. London’s skyline may not be as high as some but it is a marvel to see such a mix of the new architecture ………. ….. and the old. But wait! There’s More!
While we had to fly back to Antalya a day earlier than originally planned we were able to meet up with some very dear friends, Robin and Jayne and go see the new acreage they and their children have just acquired out in the rural countryside not far from Gatwick airport.
This was on Sunday which was Christine’s actual Birthday and Robin’s is next week so we treated the both Birthday Babies to a fabulous Pub Lunch at a nearby 15th century pub. What could be more fittingly delicious and British than roast Beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy with such good friends?
The perfect end to Christine’s 2020 B’day experiential adventure. Or so we thought ……………………….
Turns out that the adventure continued into the next day as our flights from both Gatwick to Istanbul and connecting flight to Antalya were both delayed and we didn’t get home until well after 3am on Monday. But it was GREAT as always come home to the welcoming party of Ruby and Barney. Particularly so in the the context of the current and rapidly evolving situation we all find ourselves in right now.
To Turkey’s credit everyone flying in from out of the country had to fill out new forms with all our personal info, flight and seat numbers and places visited so they can be aware of each person’s travel history. We were also all advised to “self isolate” ourselves at home and do as much “social distancing” as possible for the next 14 days. Naval Yachts to their credit as well has asked that we and any others who have recently traveled outside of Turkey self isolate themselves for the next 14 days.
Christine and I had decided to voluntarily join the new “self isolation Club” in any case so we will be staying home and won’t be going back to the shipyard for the next 14 days. While challenging and disappointing in the eXtreme, this was an easy decision to make as it is simply the smart and right thing to do right now. As my cousin who is also in a similar situation at her home in Qatar reminded me we are now members of a not very exclusive new Club!
As with the storms we encounter out sailing the world, Christine and I know that “this too shall pass” and we continue to count ourselves as most appreciative members of the “most fortunate people in the world Club”. We are both healthy and happy, we have each other and our friends and family and we see this as being the start of but our latest eXtraordinary adventures in this awemazing life we are so privileged to live.
I hope that all of you reading this are finding your own ways to be happy and healthy by doing whatever is best for you to get through this latest “storm”. As for me, I am grateful for this opportunity to be isolated with my best friend, partner, Captain, Bride and beautiful young lady. Could I be any more fortunate or appreciative? Me thinks NOT!!!
Well as you might have noticed time got away from me and I didn’t succeed in getting the Weekly Update posted for last week. But wait, I’ve got some great excuses! The week was not only more densely packed than ever with the ever increasing progress on Möbius but I also received THE best Birthday gift on Thursday evening when my Beautiful Bride and newly minted Captain Christine flew back into my arms from Florida!
But wait! There’s more…………….! After only a few hours sleep, we were up very early Friday morning and drove back out to the airport to catch our flight to Dusseldorf for the big “BOOT” show that is one of the world’s largest where we met up with several fellow boat builders and some soon to be boat builders and had a fabulous weekend get away swimming in a totally different boating pond.
I just wanted to let you know that we are both alive and well and I will do my best to make up this lapse in the weekly Progress Updates by putting together “2 for the price of 1” blog post this weekend that will cover all the progress for these last two weeks of January and some shots from the eXtremely large and fun Dusseldorf Boat Show.
Hope you find the extra wait to be worthwhile and thanks for your patience with me.
First week of the year and we have 2020 off to a great start with all the progress on Möbius this week. I just got back from taking Christine out to the airport this morning as she flies back to Florida to finish her 100 Ton Captains License testing and start her year off right with the gift of some Gramma time as well as seeing family and friends in the Fort Lauderdale area. And of course she left with four empty suitcases to fill up with the latest flurry of parts and equipment to bring back with her when she returns on the 23rd. She’s taken to calling herself Möbius’ Mule with all the bits of kit she has been transporting through airports the past two years.
We have been having spectacular Winter weather here in Antalya. Crystal clear skies make for colder temps in the mornings and evenings, down to 1C/34F at 6am when we left to drive to the airport, but it was 15C/60F by noon with views of our surrounding mountains like this and full moonrises that have been magical.
With that prelude let’s go check up on Team Möbius at Naval Yachts this first week of 2020, Jan 6-10.
ELECTRICAL:
I will have the “Sparkies”, Hilmi and his electrical assistants start us off this week.
You may recall a similar shot last week as Nihat continued to work on getting the integral battery compartments ready for the 18 4V Carbon Foam batteries which will make up our 1350Ah @24V House Battery Bank which is the heart of the whole electric system on Möbius.
Here, Nihat is cutting in the openings where the huge 120mm2 / 4/000 AWG cables that connect the three individual 24V banks to the main DC bus bars and high amp distribution panel. That Distribution Panel will set in the rectangle just above Nihat’s head on the left of this picture and I’ll show and explain more about that once that is being installed.
The in house composite fabrication department whipped up these two containment boxes for the two battery compartments and dropped them off in the Galley. The batteries fit snuggly into these boxes so we subsequently decided to cut them way down so they are only about 100mm/4” high to act as Battery Containment Trays rather than full height battery boxes. We did this to increase the air circulation around all the batteries to be sure that we can keep the heat down if it were to build up with high rates of charge in tropical climates. Even though the probability of these fully sealed Carbon Foam batteries ever allowing any of their internal fluids escape is eXtremely small, containment trays are an AYBC requirement and just a smart thing to do.
These Battery Containment Trays are a snug fit inside the frame on the Battery Compartment floors so their bottoms are held tightly in place and can’t move. You can also see the slot for the connecting cables to pass through that Nihat was cutting in the opening photo. Celal is a new addition to Team Möbius and he has been busy helping Hilmi, barely visible behind, install the Victron MultiPlus inverter/chargers and route all that big 120mm2/ 4/000 red and black cables. For a sense of size of those integral Battery Compartments, Celal is standing in the middle one and you saw Nihat comfortably working inside the forward one in the opening photo. Not the most exciting shot but the arrival of all the cabling for our 14 solar panels arrived this week and that’s very exciting. You can click to enlarge if you’d like to see the specs on this cable which reads:
Photovoltaic Cable H12222-K 1 x 6 mm2 1kV 90C
This is cable specifically designed for transmitting all the Watts of power from each panel with minimum voltage loss and able to take sustained UV and marine exposures.
MC4 connectors are used to join each cable to the solar panel cables and we run on positive and one negative lead from each panel down to the Basement where it connects to its own MPPT controller, Victron’s SmartSolar 100/30 MPPT controller. Hilmi was also busy up on the Forepeak putting in cable trays and running the pair of large 120mm2 / 4/000 Red & Black cables which supply over 700 Amps of 24 volt power to the Distribution Panel in the Forepeak. Over on the far left side you can see the other cables for 220V AC and will also go into the Distribution Panel that will be on the far Right. It will supply power for everything from the Maxwell VWC 4000 Windlass, Lewmar 65EST winch, Vetus Bow Thruster, Black & Gray Water pumps, lights on the Bow Mast and others.
PLUMBING:
Cihan was busy as usual with the many different systems requiring his plumbing skills so let’s check up on his progress.
Up in the Master Cabin you may recall he had previously mounted these two S bends drains for the Shower and the Head/Bathroom floor that feed into the new Whale IC Gulper drain pump system. However upon testing it we found that the height of the floor was going to be a bit too close to the top of the S-bends and we were concerned it would sometimes not flow well as the boat moved. So Cihan quickly swapped them out for these simple elbows and the automatic water sensor in that yellow manifold against the hull on the left worked perfect every time and would pump water out as fast as we could pour it in from the bucket.
There is a one way valve at the diaphragm pump that is in the Forepeak which is on the other side of the WT Bulkhead at the end of the Master Cabin on the far right of these photos and this valve seals off the drain lines you see here so there is no concern about noise or smell.
Down in the Basement Cihan continued plumbing the in-floor heating system. Hot Supply water manifold is up at the top and colder white/blue manifold below. He has finished plumbing the main Supply/Return lines on the right and has them all insulated in black EPDM to reduce heat loss as the water flows to and from the in-floor heating system from the DHW Domestic Hot Water system. Now he needs to mount the three 2 speed Circulation Pumps, one for each Zone/Cabin’s loops of PEX in-floor tubing.
Cihan had previously fabricated the mounts for each pump and bolted them to the vertical frames of this WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin on the other side. Each pump has its own Hot Water line from the Supply manifold so they were plumbed next. Third Supply line going in here. Some of you inquired about the PPR type plumbing being used for all our potable/drinking water onboard and so I grabbed this action shot of Cihan and Celal using the thermal welding tool to join the PPR pipe to its fitting on the right. The aluminium arm extending out of the welding tool has two fittings on the end, the one on the right side slides into the female end of the fitting and the other fitting goes over the male end of the pipe on the left. Wait a few seconds while the PPR melts then pull the tool out and slide the pipe into the fitting. Done! Very different than with PVC piping which uses liquid glue to melt/weld the joints but same idea of welding the plastic parts together and creates a permanent leak free joint.
Close to finished now and ready for the Supply/Return PEX lines to be run from here to and from each in-floor heating zone which we should see happening next week. However, does this drawing that just showed up in the Master Cabin help you figure out what DID happen this week?
Maybe this close up of the drawing will help?
Aha! The drawing is Yiğit’s latest work of coming up with the ideal routing of the continuous loop of 15mm / 5/8” PEX tubing which has to wind its way through all the floor areas while carefully snaking around the tank access lids and furniture foundations. There is also a minimum bending radius of 6X the PEX tube diameter so 6 x 15 = 90mm/3.5” so Yigit used a 180mm circle to layout all each of the bends where the PEX turns around and doubles back.
Adding to the challenge, you also want the beginning Supply end of the PEX loop, which is in the Upper Left corner of the drawing, to go through the areas where you want the most heat and you want to have more tubing per square cm in these areas which in this case is the floor of the Shower and Head/Bathroom in the Upper Right. I had mapped out the basic routes but it was quite the Tetris or Rubik’s Cube like puzzle for Yigit to solve. As you can see he did so brilliantly as usual.
Once he had the route all figured out Yigit then printed out the centerline of this route in full size sheets and Omur and Selim are now carefully laying them out and taping them accurately in place on the rigid foam board floors. With the paper route lines all taped in place they are ready to start cutting the U-shaped grooves in the rigid foam floor boards with a small handheld router. The foam board chips created with the high speed router bit makes quite a mess so Selim follows the router with the vacuum which made for a very clean operation and easy to follow the line with the router. Here is where they left off by end of the day Friday. They will finish the routing next week and line the grooves with aluminium foil tape to increase the radiation of the heat upward into the 10mm/ 3/8” plywood floor which will attach to the white epoxy perimeter foundations.
GALLEY GARAGES & SUPERSALON CABINETRY:
However Selim and Omur where mostly busy this past week with an even more exciting bit of progress as they completed the vacuum bag gluing of the Rosewood veneer to the Galley Garages you saw last week. Here is a stack of our Ro$ewood veneer awaiting their turn to be carefully selected and taped into matching grain patterns for the lower half of the wall panels and other cabinetry throughout the boat. Costly and time consuming in the eXtreme? You bet but in our eyes and souls at least the beauty is even more eXtreme and something we will be looking at for decades to come so an easy to make investment decision for Christine and me.
See what you think as you see the completed results in the coming weeks. As you saw last week, all three sides of these Galley Garages, including their doors are laminated at the same time inside the vacuum bags and then they carefully cut through all the slots around each door. With the doors released they can apply the Beechwood veneer to all the inner surfaces and route around all the solid Rosewood edges and fit them to each of their respective Garage openings. Which is what Selim is doing here as I enlist his help to give you a bit of a preview of what’s to come from the work of these master craftsmen.
As they create works of art like this. And this.
Just wait till you see these swirling waves of grain patterns pop when they come out of the Finishing spray booth! A justifiably proud Omur and Selim finish the final fitting and sanding so they can send this all up to the Finishing Department. It was impossible to capture this whole four sided assembly of all the Galley Garages so I shot this short video scan to share this beauty with you a bit better. Rosewood in Rotation if you will ………………………
GUEST CABIN:
Not to be outdone, Omer was equally as busy singlehandedly doing all the cabinetry in the Guest Cabin and Corridor Workbench areas so let’s go check that out.
Looking forward along the Port/Left hull side where my Office/Workbench resides and the Guest Head/Bathroom on the Right.
** Note: the shower that would normally be in the bottom Right corner has been removed to show this view. Sitting on my Office Workbench looking straight into the Entryway to the Guest Cabin and the pull out couch on the far Starboard/Right side. Stairs up to the SuperSalon on the Left, WT door into the Engine Room & Workshop on the Right. On the Left corner of the Entryway is the Guest Head and Shower on the Right. Back to reality, Omer has the double duty “Swiss Door” all fitted with its surrounding frame for the Guest Head/Bathroom. Continuing the Blue Horizon Line theme that runs throughout all the interior spaces, the top half of this and all other vertical panels will have light Green/Gray leather covered removable panels set into them.
If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) and in the render above you can see where the leather panel will go on the wall to your Right as you go up the stairs to the SuperSalon. Omer had taken that door back to his workbench in the Cabinetry Shop to finish the solid Rosewood edging and finish prepping this door to head over to the Finishing Department. You can see how these doors are made to be very solid yet very light with their foam filled cavity cores. This is an approximation of what the cabinetry inside the Guest Cabin. Christine’s Office on the Right, Pullman Berth on the far Stbd/Right side hull, pull out couch/Queen bed below and L-shaped Bookshelf wrapping around the Left corner. However here’s what it looks like right now! Omer has been taking all the cabinetry back to his workbench to do the final preparation before he sends it up the boys in the Finishing Department. Seen upside down, we are looking in from the end of that Bookshelf which will soon have a panel set into it where the Pullman Berth begins, Omer is finish sanding the solid Rosewood edging that runs around the perimeter. Bookcase has now been flipped right side up and in the foreground you can see that Omer has started to build the dividers and shelves which turn this into a very functional bookcase. These dividers and middle shelf have solid Rosewood outer edges with White interior surfaces. A thin layer of phenolic has been laminated onto all these white surfaces to provide the just right surface for the White lacquer to form a perfect flat and smooth surface.
ALUMINIUM WORKS:
Switching from Rosewood to Aluminium now, Uğur, Okan and Nihat very busy making their typical great progress this past week which for them was mostly all about covering all the interior wall and ceiling surfaces in the Workshop and Engine Room with AlucoBond which you saw them starting to do last week. One of the features of AlucoBond which makes it the ideal choice for all these removable wall and ceiling surfaces is that it can be easily bent to form smooth strong corners with a very safe radiused edge. If you look closely at the bend on the bottom right of the photo above you can see how a small kerf has been cut not quite all the way through the 5mm / 3/16” AlucoBond to allow them to hand form these bends. Which is how they are building these corner transitions between the wall and ceiling panels in the workshop. Stbd/Right side Workshop here. Here is the Port/Left side looking from floor level by the WT door leading into the Corridor and Guest Cabin areas. Facing Aft here along the AL workbenches. HazMat locker on the far Right end. Stepping forward a few steps to look across to the Aft Stbd corner and the WT door out to the Swim Platform. Uğur is kneeling on the Rudder shelf and you can see the Rudder post tube on center behind him. Stepped corner details just inside the Swim Platform door. Webasto BlueCool V-Series chiller has been mounted to the built in AL shelving. All equipment is mounted with appropriate types of vibration reduction soft mounts such as these. Next up on the AlucoBond list is the Engine Room. So Uğur and Nihat have installed the L-bar frames and they have started cutting panels to fasten to them. Well, as you have seen the first week of 2020 has all of us on Team Möbius off to a good start as we all push ourselves for the final leg of this part of the adventure leading up to Launch Day! That is still several months off but will be as soon as we can possibly make it. Be sure to subscribe by putting your Email into the “Subscribe” box on the upper Left corner of every blog page so that you don’t miss any of these weekly updates and you can join us on this leg of the Project Goldilocks adventure.
And please continue to add any and all comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box at the bottom of every blog post. I do apologise for taking longer than I’d like to respond to your comments I assure you that I’m reading every one as it comes in and will respond as quickly as the build allows.
Hope your first week of this first year of the new 2020 decade is off to an equally good start and see you here here next week.
Another busy week here at Naval Yachts for all of Team Möbius as we ramp up for the final push to launch as early in the new year as possible. It remains a labour of love for Christine and I but it certainly is all consuming of our time and attention. This week saw progress in everything from CNC machining the new Tiller Arm now that the Rudder is pretty much finished and ready for installing in the hull to finishing the installation of the prop shaft tube into the hull, plumbing for the in-floor heating system, wiring and of course lots of cabinetry work. It will take me awhile to get through it all for you so grab a beverage and a comfy seat and let’s go aboard Möbius and check it all out.
TILLER ARM
Most of our work with Aluminium to date has been with large plates which are CNC cut to shape and pieced together to form the hull and superstructure. However as you can see in this photo this hunk of aluminium beauty ain’t no plate!
If I tell you that this 152 x 255 x 275mm (6” x 10” x 11”) and 30kg/66lbs block of solid aluminium is just one half of the part, can you guess what this is going to be?
That 150mm/6” long 25.4mm/1” precision ground threaded pin is specially hardened steel to easily withstand the eXtreme forces which can be exerted on it where the Heim Joint ends of the cylinders attach to the Tiller Arm body. I ordered these and 2 spares from McMaster Carr and brought back with me from our recent trip to Florida.
A bit of a no brainer given the title of this section I guess!! A Tiller Arm.
These two quick screen grabs show the design I came up with using Autodesk Fusion 360 which I must say is my all time favorite design and drawing software of all time and in my case that is a LONG time!
You can see how the right side is the second half I mentioned and those four large bolts clamp the Tiller Arm to the 127mm/5” Rudder Post with the 20mm key that goes in the slot on the left side main body.
Turning on some hidden components you can see how the two Kobelt 7080 bi directional hydraulic cylinders with a bore of 76mm/3” ID and stroke of 305mm/12” provide plenty of torque as they push/pull the Tiller Arm which in turn rotates our big rudder up to 45 degrees to each side.
eXcessively massive, time consuming and expensive? Of course, this is an XPM! and the steering system is arguably the most important system on a passage maker so I’m delighted with such eXcess.
Each cylinder is connected to its own dedicated Kobelt/Accu-Steer HPU400 Hydraulic Power Unit. Dennis and I worked extensively with the great engineers at Kobelt to come up with this eXtremely robust steering system. We have designed it such that just one cylinder and one pump significantly exceed the steering requirements to safely steer the boat in even the most severe conditions.
There will be controls at each Helm station to allow us to select either Steering A or Steering B and our SOP Standard Operating Procedures will be to alternate using A and B for a week or so to ensure both systems are fully operable and being used equally. At any time for situations such as close quarter maneuvering we can have both pumps and both cylinders working at the same time which cuts our lock to lock rudder time in half.
In the unlikely event that both pumps and cylinders were to fail we then have a Kobelt 7005 manual hydraulic steering pump with wheel at the Main Helm. And if all of that were to somehow fail we then have an emergency tiller which can manually control the rudder.
Back to real time photos, the CNC machining is all happening in a building 2 blocks over from Naval Yachts here in the Antalya Free Zone at Tasot Waterjet Cutting Technology. They have a small warehouse filled with some of the most advanced metal cutting machines of every description and having the literally next door is one of the great advantages of building here in the Free Zone.
Here is the whole gang responsible for transforming my design into a very real aluminium Tiller Arm. From right to left, Yigit our XPM Project Manager, Hamdi Uysal CNC machinist, Ufuk Bekci Tasot Owner and Tuncay Mutlu Production Engineer
This is the 5 axis CNC machine in the middle of machining the body of the clamp block. Closer view of the Clamp Body with one side finished and ready to be flipped over to machine the other side. Hamdi proudly showing the finished Clamp Body. One half done, now on to the Tiller Arm Body. With one side of the main Tiller Arm body finished, roughing out the second side begins. Easy to see why this is called “subtractive manufacturing”. 3D printing is the opposite “additive manufacturing”. Here is a short little video I’ve put together to show you what this looks like in action.
I was too busy on Friday to get back to see the finished Tiller Arm body so I’ll show you that in next week’s update.
Meanwhile back at Naval Yachts, the Rudder is all finished and patiently waiting to be installed as Nihat and Uğur ae busy getting the 10mm thick walled 200mm ID Rudder Tube tacked in place as they prepare to insert the finished Rudder. Choosing a few relevant layers in the 3D model and using “ghost” mode this quick render will help you see how the various pars such as Rudder, Prop, steering cylinders and Tiller Arm fit together. This is in the aft end of the Workshop with the door out to the Swim Platform in the upper left.
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In reality mode here is the Rudder Post Tube now tacked in place and just sticking up above the Rudder Shelf. Same Workshop to Swim Platform door on the upper left. Next week when the Rudder Post Tube is fully welded in place you’ll see the Rudder post sticking up through this tube with the Jefa self aligning needle bearings top and bottom and the Tiller Arm on top. Looking underneath the Rudder Shelf reveals the 25mm/1” thick AL brackets which tie the Rudder Post Tube to the stringers, frames and prop tunnel of the hull and make this all one integral hull assembly. Limber Holes or ”Mouse Holes” in the corners where these tube braces will be welded to the hull plates ensures that any water which finds its way in here can easily flow to the lowest point and be removed by the bilge pump and not trapped in these compartments.
PROP SHAFT & LOG MOUNTING
You may recall from an update a few weeks ago that the machined Aluminium tube, the one with the holes in it here, which the Nogva CPP prop shaft runs inside of, had been fitted into the larger aluminium prop tube that is part of the hull which you can see running up to the top left corner here.
See something new though?
What’s that Orange stuff in that little stubby bit of pipe? And what might this bit of kit be that is on the floor just below the prop shaft tubes? And what are they mixing up here? Some of you will recognize this quite universally used Chockfast Orange which is a special 2 part compound which is pumped in fill voids between two parts and rather permanently fasten them together once it hardens. After being thoroughly mixed with the hardener the syrupy Chockfast Orange is poured into the red tank you see in the photos above, the lid is bolted down and the tank is filled with compressed air.
Then a tube connects the bottom of the tank to the filler tube which is temporarily welded to the hole in the top of the hull’s prop shaft tube and the Chockfast flows into the 12mm/ 1/2’” space between the outside of the Nogva Prop Log tube and the larger inside diameter of the Hull’s larger welded in prop tube. Up inside the Engine Room, the other end of the prop tubes which have been precisely locked into position with this clamping jig and a tube has been inserted into the pipe that has been temporarily installed where the two tubes have been sealed off to stop the Chockfast from leaking out. A few minutes later the Chockfast has filled the entire void between the two tubes and exits out the tube. Several cupful’s are collected to make sure any entrapped air escapes and then the valve on the Chockfast tank is turned off and we leave this to fully cure in the next 48 hours. Once fully hardened the two tubes become essentially a single part and provides plenty of space for water to surround the spinning prop shaft at its center. With the Chockfast fully hardened the prop shaft was fitted again to double check the position of this red flange which will soon be bolted to the output flange of the Nogva CPP gearbox.
Where the prop shaft exits the prop log tube there will be a “dripless” seal that fits over the end of the prop tube and seals against the spinning prop shaft to keep all water where it belongs; in the sea and outside the boat! A close up view of the threaded push/pull Pitch rod which runs inside of the prop shaft. This rod threads into the Nogva gear box and is moved fore and aft by the Pitch Control lever at each Helm. As the rod moves fore/aft the four prop blades rotate in synch and changes the pitch to anything from neutral, forward or reverse and as more pitch is added the speed of the boat increases. All a very simple and mechanical system which gives us the ultimate prop, one that is perfectly pitched for any condition. At the propeller end of the prop tube, water exits out these holes drilled around the circumference of the machined end of the Nogva prop tube.
Next week the Cutlass Bearing which supports this aft end of the prop shaft will be press fit into place and the CPP prop and shaft assembly can be carefully slid in place for checking of the final fit as we prep for installing the Nogva CPP Servo gearbox. ELECTRICK GRILL One of the many items in that big crate you saw arriving from Florida last week was our Kenyan “Frontier” 220V electric grill that is part of our Outdoor Galley on the Aft Deck. We no sooner took the box out of the crate than Nihat and Uğur whisked it away and cut in the opening for the grill in the Starboard/Right Vent Box. Deciding to go all electric for this BBQ was part of our ability too make Möbius be a single fuel, all diesel boat. The other big part of this was going with an internal diesel engine in our Tender and I’ll have more for you on all of that in the coming weeks.
All the top surfaces of these two Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck will be countertops, probably using some of the left over turquoise granite from the Galley countertops. There will be a SS sink in the open space you see here in front of the grill.
Speaking of electrical, I only managed to catch a few shots of Hilmi and Okan’s progress with some of the wiring this week. Okan was busy in the Basement prepping these cable trays to be mounted on the ceiling which will be used to support those huge 120 mm2 / 5/0000 AWG red and black cables.
PLUMBING
Cihan was also a busy boy this past week installing plumbing pieces for several different systems.
He has masterfully crafted these two manifolds for some of the Cold and Hot water systems for moving water from one of the six tanks to another as needed to adjust ballast as fuel is removed and others for getting water from the watermaker you saw last week, to each of these tanks. He has done a beautiful job of insulating all of these to increase efficiency of the DHW Domestic Hot Water lines and also keep the Cold water lines from absorbing ambient heat in the Workshop when we are in hotter tropical climates. Moving forward to the Basement, more of Cihan’s fine work this week was getting the dedicated Galley Water tank in place. This is probably more “eXcess” as we can hold as much as 7100L/1875USG of potable fresh water in our six integral tanks in the hull and we have the 190L/hr / 50USG/hr Delfin watermaker. However as you’ve read previously and often, we always design with our “Readiness for the Unexpected” in mind and this additional 200L/55 USG polypropylene Potable Water tank is one example. We will treat this similar to the Day Tank for our diesel fuel by keeping it full at all times and it will be plumbed to an independent faucet at the Galley sink.
Wonder what that shiny item sitting atop the Water tank is? Yet another bit of kit out of that crate from Florida, this is the manifolds for the three in-floor heating zones. To my eyes it is a beautiful work of art in its own right and is almost a shame it is down in the Basement where not too many eyes will see it. The top 3 red towers are flow meters which you adjust with the white knobs on the bottom. After some discussion, Yigit, Cihan and I decided this would be the best location for these manifolds, secure against the WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin on the other side. Supply of hot water enters on the top right and goes out to each of the 3 in-floor zones from the bottom of the Red upper manifold and then returns through the three fittings under the White knobs and back to the Domestic Hot Water system on the bottom right. Ball valves on all lines coming in and out and temperature gauges on both supply and return so I can monitor the difference.
Each zone has one of these 3 speed 1/25HP pumps on the supply side to keep the water circulating through the 15mm PEX lines embedded in the floors. In the foreground on the left is a Watts mixing valve plumbed into the floor heating water system to help manage the lower temperature water needed for in-floor heating which wants to run between 30-500C/85-1200 F.
In the background is the Azel I-Link three zone Pump Controller which is controlled by individual temperature sensors embedded in each cabin floor.
I’ll have more to show you as Cihan progresses with the installation.
CABINETRY WORK:
My Beautiful Bride, aka Captain Christine is at the shipyard most days now and here she is going over the details for the cabinetry and fixtures in this Guest Cabin Head/Bathroom. Standing in the Guest Shower for this shot you can see that Omer has been practicing his cabinetmaking craft very well in this Head. With the Guest Cabin serving as her Office the majority of the time and with this Head being so close to the SuperSalon entrance and the aft Workshop, it will likely get more use than the Head in our Master Cabin so worth making sure it has the Goldilocks touch of being “just right, just for us”. Christine spent a LOT of time searching for this just right sink and finally found one and had it shipped to me in Cannes when I was helping out Naval at the boat show there back in October and I brought it back on the plane with me.
Raised platform in the back is where the VacuFlush toilet will rest at the Goldilocks height. Up in the SuperSalon Omur and Selim continue to make great progress. Here Omur is putting in the perimeter framing for the rigid foam insulation on each stair tread leading down into our Master Cabin. All the floors have 40mm/1.6” thick rigid foam board which the 15mm PEX tubing is embedded into and then some of that light weight poplar 10mm marine plywood covers that and the edges of the plywood attach to these epoxy coated solid wood frames. Opposite the stairs where Omur and Selim are working you can see how this white framing also provides the perfectly level foundation for all the cabinetry to mount to. By week’s end the wall boards were being fitted and will give you, and us, a better sense of how this room will look.
The large opening on the far right is for a 50” high def monitor which will serve double duty as both our primary entertainment screen for displaying movies, photos, web browsing, etc. However it is also on a 3 axis mount which enables us to pull it out and rotate it forward where it is perfectly aligned for viewing charts and boat data from the Main Helm chair when underway.
The large vertical openings on the far left will soon house two Vitrifrigo 130L/35USG fridges with doors opening from the center. The center cabinet is for two of Vitrifrigo’ s band new DRW70 70L/19 USG slide out drawer freezers which can double as fridges with a simple change of their thermostats.
Over in the Cabinetry Shop I happened to catch Omer as he was gluing up one of the Galley drawers and shot this sequence of shots for those of you who have been asking how the wood “biscuits” I’ve been mentioning work to align and strengthen the glued up wood joints.
You can see 2 biscuits with freshly applied glue on the right…. One of the drawer sides which has a matching grove for the biscuit is slid in place. Same thing for the opposite side. Two biscuits and some glue for the final drawer side. Thanks to the ingenious biscuit power tool which cuts all these grooves everything lines up just right. The biscuits are made from highly compressed wood fibres so as they soak up the glue they expand and make the joint even tighter and stronger. Rinse and Repeat the process and this collection of glued up drawer carcases starts to form. Once the glue dries plywood drawer bottoms slide into place and are glued and screwed in position to create very stable drawers which slide in and out on their ball bearing self closing slides with just a touch.
POWER!!
Remember that crate we build and filled with all sorts of parts and equipment that we were sourcing out of the US and arrived last Friday? Uğur helped me open it up and unpack it all this week. Literally hundreds of items inside from Milwaukee cordless tools for me to premium Belgium made pots and pans for Christine and then LOTS of parts for Möbius and they all made it on their flights from Miami to Antalya just fine. Two of Möbius’ items whose arrival we are most excited about are these two bright red beauties from Electrodyne. I have been working closely with the fabulous people at Electrodyne Inc. for well over a year to have them build these eXtremely heavy duty 250A 24V alternators for us which combined will put out almost 14kW. So when I say that we don’t have a generator onboard I guess that’s not entirely true?!
** WARNING: mini Tech Talk Ahead! Skip over if not interested
I’d known Electrodyne alternators since I was working as a HD construction mechanic in my youth and Electrodyne alternators were the ultimate choice for large construction and mining diggers, railroads, trucks, busses, emergency vehicles where they often ran 24/7 for weeks or months. They are literally built like tanks and each one weighs 40kg/90 lbs!
I’d initially worked with Pete Zinck until he retired early this year and turned things over to his Production Manager Dale Gould and who could not have been more helpful and responsive to my many Emails and requests.
What you are seeing in the photo above are two identical Electrodyne G250-24 models which are de-rated down to 250Amps @ 27.5V @ 3750RPM which would give each one a maximum output of almost 7kW (6.875) for a combined output of almost 14kW. However I will make the serpentine pulley ratios such that their max speed will be about 3200-3400 RPM for even longer life. Dale stripped these down for safer, and slightly lighter shipping and I have not had time to mount the HD steel wiring boxes which house all the wire connections you see here for the six large external direct AC output cables which then run over to the external rectifiers and regulators which I will mount outside the Engine Room with thermostatically controlled fans to ensure they are always running nice and cool and at maximum efficiency. I’ll cover all that in the coming weeks as I get these alternators installed on Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB and wired into the electrical system.
I had a list of key features I wanted for our dual XPM alternators running off our single main engine and I knew that it was going to be a challenge to find a company that would build these so with my long past experiences with their alternators I turned to Electrodyne and sure enough they were able to built in all the features I wanted, In addition to being rock solid, high output and lasting “forever”, perhaps the most significant features that I wanted were that they be brushless and I wanted them to have everything other than the rotating stator to be external. No built in regulators and no rectifiers. Why go to such extremes? In a work; HEAT, which is the largest factor in shortening an alternators output and lifespan. Rectifiers can produce more than half the total heat within an alternator so by removing these and going with industrial grade 3 phase bridge rectifiers I can reduce the internal head of the alternator by more than half AND control the heat of the rectifier bridges outside the ER and with their own fans. This also creates an alternator with only one moving part, the spinning rotor so MUCH better airflow through the alternator stator windings and rotor. The Goldilocks alternator for an XPM; consistent high output with low heat and low maintenance.
I will cover these Electrodyne beauties in much more detail in future posts here once I get them all assembled and installed but suffice it to say that I am VERY excited about getting these Electrodyne alternators installed and tested. Equally as exciting are the WakeSpeed 500 Advanced Regulators that were also in this same crate of equipment we unpacked this week and will be controlling and managing our two mighty Electrodyne alternators.
If this stuff interests you as much as it does me then please stay tuned and be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss any of the new articles as they go live.
OK, now back to our regular programming.
Mr. Gee Gets Naked!
Captain Christine is now working at the Naval Shipyard with me most days now as we make the final push to finish this build and bet Möbius and ourselves back were we belong; ON THE WATER!!
Amongst her many jobs Christine has literally rolled up her sleeves, donned her HD latex gloves and become Mr. Gee’s personal degreaser! Our Gardner 6LXB serial # is 196071 which means he emerged out of the Gardner and Sons building in Patricroft in Manchester England in February 1975 and was in constant use powering a tugboat in the Thames river everyday thereafter. After 45 years of such use we are giving Mr. Gee a serious bath to start his second life as our main engine in Möbius. To do so we have removed every single part, nut, bolt and cotter pin and have now removed pretty much every bit of grease and guck that has accumulated over his glorious 45 year past.
With all the other duties I’ve unexpectedly taken on here along with the regular demands of building a new boat I’ve not been able to get as much time as I had expected to attend to Mr. Gee’s needs but I am contributing more of late and managed to get this massive chrome molly (chromium molybdenum steel) crankshaft all cleaned up and returned to its original shiny self. This is Michael Harrison, the CEO of Gardner Marine Diesel Engines who continues to keep the Gardner name alive and very well. Michael was also the one who found Mr. Gee for us after a very long search for this completely original unrestored marine version 6LXB.
The Gardner 6LXB, and most Gardner engines for that matter are built with four primary building blocks:
Cast Aluminium Oil Pan
Cast aluminium Crankcase
Cast Iron Cylinder Block with pressed in dry liners
Dual cast iron heads
After one of several strip downs, I had reassembled all these major castings and had the exterior thoroughly sandblasted and then put on several coats of high temp silicone based primer.
Now stripped down naked once again and ready for the bath of his lifetime, Hakan helped me drag the bare cast aluminium crankcase outside. Armed with some super HD degreaser, lots of wire brushes and our newly acquired Bosch pressure washer, it was bath time! I had spent the previous 3 days scrubbing every nook and cranny with the degreaser and wire brushes so this final pressure wash took us back down to virgin raw aluminium throughout. I also wanted to be sure to blast out every oil gallery and hole to remove not only the old grease and grime but also any new particles that had climbed aboard during the sandblasting. And here is the result, a VERY clean Mr. Gee! This is the front end of the crankcase which will soon be filed with lots of sprockets and an eXtremely large double roller timing chain that drives everything from the camshaft to the PTO for one of those Electrodyne alternators to the water pump and fuel pump. Whew!! It is now late on Sunday night and I’m exhausted and so are you probably if you’ve made it this far!
Thanks so much for joining us, makes this adventure all the more exciting and rewarding to know you’re out there and along for the ride.
Do please add your comments, questions and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below. Even though I am WOEFULLY behind in responding to those of you who have done so in the past 3 weeks. Rest assured I DO read them all and think about all you say and I will respond to each one in the next few days so thanks for your patience.
Exciting times here at Naval Yachts as the intensity picks up several notches each week as the launch date gets closer. There were several new components which all involved having things fold up and down, hence this week’s title. So let’s dive in shall we and go find out what all happened this past week.
ALUMINIUM WORK:
Let’s start with the largest folding component that was started this week.
Any guesses what these tacked together pieces are? Does it help if I stand back a bit so you can see all of them? How about if I show you how one end is installed? Yup! These are the two hinged folding posts which we will install whenever we want to put the SkyBridge roof assembly up or down. Once the roof is up there are a series of support posts around the forward perimeter which are bolted in place and keep the roof solidly in place so these two folding posts are only used when raising or lowering the roof and the rest of the time they stow in the Workshop.
If you have not seen this unique feature we have designed into this XPM this short animated model shows how it works.
There are two primary use cases for this fold down SkyBridge roof. One is when we are leaving the boat for a longer time to go visit grandkids and such when it is cyclone season where the boat is and we want to reduce windage and streamline the boat. The other instance would be when this folded down roof puts the boat in “Canal” mode by significantly reducing our bridge clearance or Air Draft to be able to explore things like inland canal systems where there are height restrictions. We don’t expect to do this too often but the ability to do so expands our options tremendously and adds a huge safety factor so this feature is well worth it in our opinion.
This week was the first test run at folding the roof up and down to make sure it all worked, nothing was binding or there were any changes needed and everything worked just as designed.
Kudos to our brilliant designer Dennis for creating this very cool feature with us during the design phase and to Dincer and Yigit here at Naval Yachts who helped me modify the folding posts to make them simpler and stronger.
Looking up from the shop floor to show the whole assembly it is easy to see how this works. Very much in keeping with our KISS or Keep It Simple & Safe approach, these two folding posts are all that is needed to put the roof up and down and as you’ve seen they are very components with just a straight length of 60mm/2 1/2” thick wall pipe with a cylinder machined from solid aluminium on each end with a hole for the SS hinge pin. The means of raising and lowering the roof is the epitome of KISS consisting of just two Dyneema lines, one attached to a lifting eye on the aft end and one on the front which then go down to the Aft and Forward Deck Winches. This could be done by a single person in stages but having two people, one on each winch and line would be faster and this method maintains full control over the roof going up and down.
Christine and I are former single handers before we met and were sailing around the world on our own boats, and while we are now “double handing” our way through life and around the world, we have designed the systems on these XPM boats such that the boat can be fully operated by a single person if needed.
Just to be clear this is NOT based on any lack of confidence in our relationship!
However, for multi week ocean crossing passage maker boats such as these XPM’s we remain cognizant of the possibility that one of us could become incapacitated or worst of all lost at sea and such a scenario would return us to being single handed. So we take this VERY seriously and being to run the boat safely and well is a critical component of our design. All part of how we design with “Readiness for the Unexpected” in mind at all times.
OK, back to the build. This is how the roof looks when it is folded down into “Hunkered Down” or “Canal” modes. Almost fully folded down for the initial testing you can see how the rear hinge point doubles as the primary support for the whole roof assembly. Here is a short video of the first lowering of the roof and you can now see where the Fold-a-Boat reference in the title comes from.
Continuing with the Fold-a-Boat theme Uğur fabricated another new folding component this week.
This one should be easier to guess I think? Here it is folded down for testing and ……… Here is a close up of the tacked up hinge.
Got it figured out?? Correct! This is our Bow Mast as we’ve been calling it where an assortment of components will live such as forward facing LED flood lights, spot light, assorted antennae, one of multiple GPS heads on board, possibly a video cam and so on.
The bottom pipes of the Bow Mast penetrate all the way through the upper surface and the deck plated below to allow the wiring for all those components to be routed directly into the WP junction box in the Forepeak.
Next week Uğur and Nihat will make up two short horizontal stiffeners that will tie the Bow Mast pipe to the nearby Bow Pulpit pipes. These will have flanges to bolt these two components together and still allow the Bow Pulpit to be removed if ever neccessary. If you look closely you will see two other new additions this week, these air vents to help keep the Forepeak well ventilated. Another example of KISS, just a 180 bend of 40mm/1.6” thick wall pipe that runs through the double deck plate into the Forepeak. One side vent will be the intake by extending down all the way to just a bit above the bilge and the other side will be exhaust by staying up in the hotter air up in the ceiling. This will take advantage of some passive convection to help circulate the air in and out and prevent things stored in the Forepeak from getting too damp and moldy. When at anchor the huge Forepeak hatch can be opened up so these vent pipes are only really needed when we are out on passage and can provide some ventilation without allowing any wave water to get into the Forepeak. It doesn’t fold but Uğur finished up the Sampson Post by installing the cross bar and the top cap. With the Bow Pulpits and Dolphin watching seats in, Sampson Post finished, Bow Mast installed and hatch mounted, the Forepeak area is shaping up nicely. More Fold-a-Boat parts ready to be installed. These are the lower half of the hinges for the Paravane A-Frames on each side, each about 50mm/2” thick solid AL. These hinge plates fit down through cut outs in the beefy Rub Rails and run down the hull frames below and are welded throughout to create a hinge that will easily transfer the loads from the Paravanes to the hull. Those massive hinge plates are keeping another new addition to the Möbius family company. That is the 130mm/5” OD aluminium rudder post which has just come off the lathe and is headed to the milling machine next for the angled faces for the tapered sides of the rudder blade. More on that as the rudder is being built. The Engine Room Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck were fully welded to the deck plates so they are now permanently attached and ready for outfitting with doors and counter tops as they also create our outside Galley and BBQ. More on those as they get built.
PROP SHAFT INSTALLATION
More excitement this week as the installation of the propeller shaft and log tube begins. The beautiful big bronze four blade 1 meter diameter CPP Controllable Pitch Propeller is hiding under the clear plastic but you can see the 65mm/2.6” diameter prop shaft extending out with the red flange coupler on the other end. This flange bolts to the matching flange you can see on the end of the red Nogva Servo Gearbox sitting on the pallet.
The aluminium tube in front of the prop shaft is the prop log tube which will be inserted into the aluminium prop shaft tube that is an integral part of the hull framework.
Here is a shot borrowed from the Norwegian Nogva company web site of our CPP prop and you can see that in this case I am not being hyperbolic when I say this is an eXtremely big and beautiful propeller! The other end of the CPP Servo Gearbox bolts to the grey SAE1 aluminium flange which is in turn bolted the aft end of Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB engine. The large black and grey disk you see here is the Centamax flex coupling that provides a safety cushion to transfer the torque output from Mr. Gee’s flywheel to the Nogva prop shaft. The prop log tube you saw in the first photo has now been inserted into the prop tube in the hull so we can measure the exact fore and aft location as this is what will determine the position of the CPP itself when it is inserted into this prop tube. Once we get the position dialed in exactly and the prop tube perfectly centered the 10mm gap between these two aluminium tubes will be pumped full of ChockFast which is a special epoxy like compound explicitly made for this purpose. Looking through the Nogva prop tube we see the light at the end of this tunnel in the Engine Room and you can see the machined surfaces on the inside of the tube for the cutlass bearing to be inserted which supports the spinning prop shaft and keeps it well lubricated with sea water. Yusuf’s head will give you a better sense of size and proportion and the large machined diameter on the end is where the aft end of the bronze CPP prop fits inside with just a small clearance to keep them from touching. The machined end of the bronze prop hub fits inside about half way to leave a 20mm/ 3/4” gap for the seawater to flow through those holes as it exits from being pumped through the length of the tube from the sea water pump in the Engine Room.
This setup is designed to function as a Rope Guard by having no part of the prop shaft exposed which makes it more difficult for any errant line or fish net to get wrapped around it.
Much more on all this fascinating detail in future posts as we show you the whole installation of the entire propulsion system. But now let’s move on to …………………….
GUEST CABIN CABINETRY
I will keep the Fold-a-Boat theme and the guessing game going so what’s your guess on what this is the beginning of? Will this rendering and the clue that you are looking right at it help you guess?
Hint: It was laying down in the first photo above and will be vertical like this when installed in the Guest Cabin. Getting warmer??? Our talented interior designer Yesim will help you see the size. Last clue, this is the beginning of the folding part which sits inside the frame you saw above and will be hinged at the bottom. The triangular gussets are just to hold the four sides square until the 20mm / 3/4” marine plywood bottom is attached. Last chance and clue. The plywood strip at the top is a template with the slots for the AirCon grills sketched on it.
BINGO! This is the Pullman Berth which folds up into this cabinet mounted on the Starboard/Right side which forms the wall you see in the rendering above. The memory foam mattress frame you see above will have a SS hinge pin between it and the bottom sides of the cabinet to allow the bed to fold down. Similar to a Murphy Bed but on boats and trains usually called a Pullman Berth which refers to pull down/out beds that were found in Pullman railroad cars, starting the mid 1800’s.
This is what that strip you see running across the inside of the cabinet above looks like and when I asked Omer, Yesim, and Hakan what this was for they explained that this was their “surprise” for Wayne & Christine. There will be two of these, the lower one you see above and the second half way up from that. There is enough space left between the face of the mattress and the inside of the panel for these and their idea is that this will be a handy little shelf for anyone sleeping here to put their watch, alarm clock, pens, etc. How can you not just LOVE working with creative fun people like this??!!
GALLEY SETTEE
Heading for the home stretch of this week’s lengthy progress update we’ll finish with one last guessing game for you. What do you think Omur and Selim are working on here?? You can see it clearly in this plan view render And as with the previous one you are looking right at “it” here……………………..
Correct! As the close readers will have known since they read the sub title, they are working on the L-shaped settee that wraps around our multi function table. This is the beginning of the seat back wall that sets up against the Starboard/Right hull windows. The cut out is for an access hatch to the large volume behind this wall where the side deck frames sit. Our Master Craftsman and Cabinetry Captain Omur continues to amaze with his execution of the large radius corners we designed into every exposed corner of the cabinetry. And my infamous “blue horizon line” continues to run through this seating area as well, seen here on what will be the top surface of this upside down seat cabinet………….. ……… like this. Even more breathtaking for me in this shot of the longer seat that runs under the windows. The devil and the delight is in the details right? A bit hard to make out but this confluence of transitions is masterful where all the different radius edges meld and merge vertically and horizontally here where the seat bottom, horizon line and end wall all intersect. Many of you have asked about the “biscuit joints” being used to glue two or more pieces of the cabinetry together with a super strong joint with all its pieces perfectly aligned. So here is a short sequence showing how this is done. A special power tool with a circular carbide blade cuts these slots along the faces to be glued together and glue is inserted into them A rugby/football shaped “biscuit” which is made from highly compressed wood is inserted in each slot. Then the second board which has matching slots is set in place with no choice but to be perfectly aligned. While it awaits being clamped tightly while the glue dries. A carpentry version of KISS; simple, smart, quick and accurate. What’s not to like? Selim has built a level platform for test fitting all the settee components and making sure everything fits and measures just right before they are taken for their fitting onboard. He is always reluctant to stop long enough for me to get a shot of him but I succeeded here in having Omur show how the simple access panels in the seats work, no hinges or hardware required. Turning the tables, Omur and Yesim insisted that this other model standing around doing nothing should pose to show how this area will also serve as a bed, either single like this or full size when the pedestal supporting the table is pushed down. All the cabinetry is being build in modules so the can be easily moved onboard so the settee seat bases are on the right here while Omur and Selim prepare the back wall panels, one against the Galley cabinets and the other off to the far left below the SuperSalon windows. All cabinets rest upon the carefully leveled white foundation boards and you can see how this works for these settee cabinets. Last photo for this week, this long view looking aft shows the proportions of the whole Galley and Settee cabinetry. Whew! Like I said at the beginning the intensity picks up several notches each week as the launch date gets closer and this “brief” overview of this week’s progress shows that very clearly.
And thank all of you for your intensity at getting through all these lengthy updates. As with the build itself this blog is very much a labour of love and I’m humbled and delighted that you have once again take the time and energy to make it to the end of yet another Weekly Progress Update from Mobius.World.
Thanks! And please keep sending in your comments, questions and ideas in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
It is late Sunday night over here in Antalya so I’m off to get a wee bit of sleep before it is time to head back to the shipyard. I will be back with next week’s update so do stay tuned.
For this past week, work on our XPM78-01 at Naval Yachts was focussed on the Cabinetry in the Galley and Guest Cabin and aluminium work on the rudder, chain bin, Dolphin watching seats and more. Here is a Show & Tell summary so you can see for yourself.
Let’s begin with these beauties. Can you guess what this is? Will it help if I show you where it is going to go?
Correct!
These are the eXtremely strong padeyes on each of the aft corners for attaching a drogue or perhaps a stern anchor line.
The hole has a 316 SS bushing pressed into it to reduce the wear from the shackle used to attach the drogue.
A drogue is one of the ways of helping control a boat in eXtremely large seas and is the opposite of a sea anchor as this illustration shows.
John over on the Attainable Adventures blog, which is a treasure trove of great information for blue water sailors, has this well done sketch showing the basic operation of a drogue and how it can help control a boat that is roaring down huge breaking waves by slowing it down and reducing the likelihood of the bow digging into the wave ahead at the bottom of the trough and pitch poling over itself. NOT a good thing or an experience we ever hope to have! But having this kind of emergency equipment aboard is one of the ways we implement our strategy of “readiness for the unexpected”. As you might guess from looking at that sketch, trying to slow down almost 45 tons of boat racing down mountainous waves in these kinds of conditions puts an unimaginable amount of force on these systems and requires an equally eXtreme attachment point to attach the boat to the drogue. Hence this design we came up with for the padeye we would use if we ever needed to deploy our drogue.
Peering inside the hull you can see the substantial amount of the padeye that sits inside and will be heavily welded to the frames on this aft corner of the hull. Standing back you can see how this fits into the Aft Deck and Swim Platform layout.
And this is the matching padeye on the other side.
AFT PORT SIDE STANCHIONS:
Uğur also finished off the last of the stanchions to be installed, these ones on the Aft Port side which will be removable as they only go in when the Tender is off the deck.
Uğur has had LOTS of practice with all the other stanchions and their pipe sockets which are welded through the beefy Rub Rails so he soon has these last three stanchion sockets welded into the Rub Rails……. …… and presses the black Delrin sleeves into each one. He has finished fabricating the stanchion posts and they are now test fitted into their respective sockets.
DOLPHIN WATCHING SEATS:
Moving up to the bow, Uğur ticked off another job there with the mounting of the two Dolphin watching seats on either side of the bow pulpit railings. We came up with this hinged arrangement so they can be easily flipped up and out of the way when anchoring. Like this. I am still sketching up different ways of securing the seats when they are folded up. Perhaps in this position where I would need to have a way to secure the hinged vertical leg. Which wouldn’t be neccessary in this position where the leg sits tight against the seat rail but it presents an unattractive safety hazard with the part sticking up above the top rail.
Or I may just use some quick release pins to be able to remove the leg entirely and then come up with a nearby spot to hold it.
Stay tuned to see what emerges as the solution and by all means send in your ideas too.
GUEST CABIN:
Omer continues to apply his craftsmanship to the Guest Cabin and has now finished the slide out couch/bed assembly and moved on to building the headboard of the bed and the bookshelf unit that wraps around the forward Starboard corner of the cabin.
He has fitted this little angled cupboard between the bed and Christine’s desk which will be handy for both Guests and Christine to use. It will have a door on it next. Next he test fit the back of the couch. The space below is to allow the large bottom cushion/mattress to slide all the way inside when it is folded up in couch mode and keep the depth of the bottom of the couch a good size. Then he installed the framing for the top shelf and there is similar framing hidden down at the bottom. The tape indicates that there will be removable access panels there so I can easily access the water manifolds and other systems that are back there if ever needed. The carefully laminated top surface goes in next and spans the whole distance from the desk over to the forward wall that is the WT Bulkhead with the Basement on the other side. Which will look like this. This recess is where the back cushion will fit partially inside and held in place with in couch mode. Half the thickness of the cushion will be inside this recess and have extending out.
With a matching arrangement on the other side. With the couch/bed all fitted in place Omer turned his attention to the L shaped bookshelf unit that wraps around the forward corner of the Cabin. It all starts out being very simple with the cutting of these top and bottom boards after they have been laminated with their Rosewood surfaces. Renderings are so useful in helping with that phantasmagoria I mentioned in the previous posting where the virtual reality blends with the real reality and for those of us doing this every day you see the finished whole all the time no mater if you are looking at a largely empty space or those two L shaped boards in the photo above or this rendering on the left. This helps to visualise both the relative size and shape of this bookshelf. This is the bottom side of the bookshelf with Rosewood on the top and bottom surfaces and then there will be a white shelf in between which you can see in the rendering above.
GALLEY CABINETRY:
Not to be outdone Omur and Selim have been eXtremely busy working up in the Galley on the somewhat complex set of cabinets with over 18 drawers so let’s check that out next. Yigit is aboard frequently monitoring the progress and helping me keep the thousands of little details all straight. Yigit also looks after much of the ordering of all the materials and equipment from our many suppliers so his phone is his constant companion. The cabinet in the upper area is the six drawer unit that goes in where Yigit is standing.
Quick jump to the virtual world of renderings to refresh the layout of the overall Super Salon with the Galley in the upper right corner.
Selim on the far left is standing inside what will be the forward corner of the Galley cabinets as he and Omur start getting this cabinet perfectly aligned with the others and precisely leveled.
Notice how the white epoxy painted boards under the bases of each cabinet have been painstakingly leveled using all those little wood wedges. These foundation boards also raise the cabinets up to the same height as the 40mm/ 1.6” rigid foam insulation which will eventually cover the entire floor and have the PEX tubing running through it for the in-floor heating. Here we are looking down inside the cabinet that will have the double sink installed in the far right side. The cut out on the back is to provide me access to the quite large volume area that is underneath the side decks. In addition to all the tank vent and fill hoses you can see we will have other equipment in this area such as the air handlers for the AirCon system so having access all along this large volume area goes towards our goal of low and easy maintenance. Next piece of this jigsaw puzzle is the cabinet on the left here for the induction cooktop and Smart Oven (combo microwave, convection, grill ovens). Fits perfect! For those of you who have been following for some time this will now help you visualise and understand why there is that white-stepped connector framing between the upper corner of the Guest Cabin down below and this far end of the Galley where the stove and oven fit in.
The cupboard in the middle here is sized for a standard dishwasher or a two drawer dishwasher to slide into but we prefer hand washing so this will instead be filled with two large drawers for pots and pans and the like. Looking across that dishwasher cabinet to the “peninsula” cupboard opposite shows the 7 drawers it contains. The tall skinny one in the middle will be like a drawer with no sides and pull out to reveal a set of shelving racks to provide easy access from either side to containers of things like spices. Maybe something like this for example. OK, Galley cabinets are all in place, time to move on to the adjoining L-shaped settee and dining area so they get started putting down the foundation frames and shimming them to be on eXactly the same level as the other cabinetry.
This is about how this area will look when standing over on the far Port/Left side looking across. The table is on a pedestal which has some very cool hardware I found that allows it to move in all three axis: Z up/down, X fore/aft and Y left/right. This gives us total flexibility to have this table at just the right height and position to use as a dining table, coffee table or additional Queen Bed. But WAIT! There’s more!
Look what showed up late Friday evening as I was leaving the shipyard!
Without cheating by zooming in, can you guess what this sturdy crate contains?
It arrived via air freight direct from Vancouver if that helps?
Yup, all of the many components that make out our rock solid steering system along with the controls for the Gardner engine and the Nogva CPP servo gearbox. As per the label here this all comes from Kobelt which is based in one of my old home towns of Vancouver not far from where I did some of my teacher training at BCIT many decades ago. I worked closely with our designer Dennis and Lance and his team at Kobelt for over two years to design the Goldilocks just right steering for our XPM78-01 so you can imagine how happy I was to see this big beautiful crate full of steering goodness finally arrive.
Even though it was very late and Yigit and I were the only ones still in the yard, I just couldn’t resist taking a peek inside a few of the boxes so I’ll share two with you.
This is one of the pair of double acting 75mm/3” ID hydraulic cylinders that will move the rudder and steer the boat. Each one is sized to be able to fully steer the boat in all conditions so a double redundant system. And then check out one of the pair of Accu-Steer HPU400 hydraulic pumps which will provide all the hydraulic pressure to run those cylinders. These are massively strong and weigh in at 44kg/95 lbs each and are an integral part of what I’m sure is going to be an awemazing steering system in our XPM78-01 Möbius.
Much more to follow on the whole steering system in upcoming Weekly Updates as the installation begins and I will also be posting some Tech Talk articles where we can dive into all the details of the whole steering system design.
And th-th-th-that’s all for this week that was October 7 to 11 2019.
We really do enjoy sharing this whole adventure with you and want to thank all of you who take the time to read these. Special thanks to those of you who contribute comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box down below and hope that more of you will do the same.
Captain Christine, AKA my Beautiful Bride, completed her latest circumnavigation of the sun this past Sunday March 15th and as is our policy, we give experiences for gifts rather than “things” so we flew over to London for a few days as one of her experiential gifts was to fulfill a live long wish to see a play at one of London’s iconic theatres, the Apollo Victoria.
As usual in London, there are way too many great choices but I decided that Wicked at the Apollo Victoria would be the just right choice for my musical loving Captain and as her smile after the experience seems to indicate that I guessed correct. It was a great play and we both enjoyed it and the whole experience thoroughly.
We flew over to London Gatwick on Thursday night so we had the whole day Friday before going to see Wicked at the Apollo and the Spring weather was fabulous so we took advantage and drove the whole SE coastline from Brighton to Whitstable just north of Canterbury. It was cool and windy but very sunny so perfect for a good Birthday drive.
The ocean is like a magnet for both of us and it is constantly calling our names so we drove up around the SE corner to the little harbour town of Whitstable where I’d been once before and I treated my Birthday Girl to some of THE best Fish and Chips at Wee Willie Winkles. 
Why drive all the way around the SE corner to the Canterbury area you ask? 
This is a picture from my first visit to Gardner Marine several years ago to meet Mr. Gee for the first time just after he had been taken out of a tugboat on the River Thames after almost 50 years of non-stop service. Michael Harrison who is the CEO of Gardner Marine spent the better part of that day with me to answer all my questions and take me through the finer points of the 6LXB engines.
Back to the present, James is taking me through just one of three of the side by side two story buildings which hold the treasure trove of “a few” Gardner engines of all ages and sizes as well as all their rebuilding equipment and eXtreme eXtensive spare parts inventory of Gardner Marine. They are about to expand into the fourth building next door as business continues to grow.
Can you tell that I’m in one of my “Happy Places”???
Back to the Birthday Girl, we dashed back to London just in time to check into our lovely little AirBnB there and catch an Uber over to the Apollo Victoria to see Wicked.
Next day we continued the adventure by taking advantage of being in London where one of our “god children” and most special people Kate now lives as she attends the London campus of Florida Sate University.
While not sunny, the temps were Spring like and the lighting was outstanding for photos of beautiful women as you can see here. 
We spent the entire day, 22,000 steps Christine’s watch says, strolling throughout “Kate’s downtown London”.
It might have been Christine’s birthday but I seemed to get much of the gifts such as chances for more hugs with the phenomenal and powerful women I am so fortunate to get to share this life with.
London’s skyline may not be as high as some but it is a marvel to see such a mix of the new architecture ……….
….. and the old.
While we had to fly back to Antalya a day earlier than originally planned we were able to meet up with some very dear friends, Robin and Jayne and go see the new acreage they and their children have just acquired out in the rural countryside not far from Gatwick airport.
This was on Sunday which was Christine’s actual Birthday and Robin’s is next week so we treated the both Birthday Babies to a fabulous Pub Lunch at a nearby 15th century pub. 
What could be more fittingly delicious and British than roast Beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy with such good friends? 
Turns out that the adventure continued into the next day as our flights from both Gatwick to Istanbul and connecting flight to Antalya were both delayed and we didn’t get home until well after 3am on Monday. But it was GREAT as always come home to the welcoming party of Ruby and Barney. Particularly so in the the context of the current and rapidly evolving situation we all find ourselves in right now.
Each cylinder is connected to its own dedicated 
In the unlikely event that both pumps and cylinders were to fail we then have a 
![doc_379_7[1]](https://i1.wp.com/mobius.world/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/doc_379_71.jpg?ssl=1 "doc_379_7[1]")
John over on the 
Maybe something like this for example.
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