by Wayne | Mar 28, 2021 | Boat building, Design, Electrical, Interior, Navigation, Propulsion, Steering, Technology, XPM Family |
Alas, the milestone of moving under our own power has eluded us for another week but next week is looking very promising for Möbius’ first of many sea trials. We continue to experience a series of “installation issues” that have prevented our Kobelt hydraulic steering system and Kobelt Throttle/Pitch controls to work as they should and so without steering and propulsion we haven’t been going too far other than being towed. But the fuel economy has been fabulous!
As with last week, with less progress than usual and not much of it being very visual, I don’t have as much content as usual for this week’s Show & Tell Progress Update, but grab a comfy seat and something tasty to drink and let’s get started with what I can show you about the past week of March 22-28, 2021.
Nazar Boncuğu Keeps Us Safe!
Many of you may already be familiar with Nazar Boncuğu aka “Turkish Evil Eye” as they are the most popular tourist souvenir of all and these captivating cast glass blue eyes have found themselves being transported to homes and boats all over the world, including ours. As is the tradition, we have one right outside the front door of our apartment for the past 3+ years. When Christine and I first came to Turkey back in 2014 so Christine could do her meticulous research for her next book at the time which became Knight’s Cross, we saw these Turkish Eyes warding off evil spirts on the bows almost every fishing boat in the many harbours we visited so of course we had to have them on Möbius’ bow too!
While they can be found in shops almost everywhere, we wanted the Goldilocks Just Right version of Nazar Boncuğu and last week Christine spotted these two beauties in a specialty glass shop in Antalya and knew that these were it!
As you can see in this photo, right now our pair are basking in the sun atop one of our Ro$ewood Galley Garages where they do look resplendent with the light coming off the water, but they are destined to be securely adhered to the bow next week so do stay tuned for those shots.
Do I See Light at the End of this eXtremely Looooong and Winding Tunnel?
In many ways, this whole adventure began back in March 2015 when Christine and I were making the 3000nm passage from Majuro in the Marshall Islands, down to Suva in Fiji.
We had spent almost a year in Majuro which we are very much looking forward to returning to on our previous 52ft steel sailboat Learnativity and we had an awemazing 3 week passage down to …..
. ………. Suva with stops along the way at the island nations of Kiribati and Tuvalu along the way.
I had given Christine a copy of Robert Beebe’s “passagemaking bible” Voyaging Under Power and she was reading it on the passage down to Fiji and we would discuss it a lot as we sailed south. Over the course of that 2+ week passage, we both became more and more aware of just how different passagemaking under power would be compared to sailing which we both knew and loved so much.
By the time we got to Suva we had made the transition from thinking of switching from sail to power as a fun joke to being a real vision of our future. As do most adventures I think, certainly most of mine, they begin when you start following your curiosity and now, six years later, we can see that this was when the adventure of designing and building Project Goldilocks, as we called it at the time,
In those six years we have gone from a very big vision to an eXtremely big reality and the path along the way has been like most of our adventures, one that includes several storms and other challenges along the way but always worth it for the joys at the end as one adventure transitions into the next. We are not quite at the end of this latest adventure as the build continues, but we are now living more and more onboard and we grown increasingly eXcited about bringing this adventure to a close and beginning the next one back out on the ocean, eXperiencing the new storms and joys of what promises to be a very different type of voyaging under power for the first time.
Installation Issues Getting Resolved
The most recent set of “storms” for us has been a series of what I will simply refer to as “installation issues” which we have needed to resolve before we can begin to voyage under power for the first time on our first of what will be many, sea trials to shake as many gremlins out of the brand new Möbius and have as much of what is often referred to as “infant mortality” as possible before we finally leave Antalya in our wake. This less than appealing term “infant mortality” is actually quite accurate in the context of a newly built custom boat as it refers to the several cases we are sure to have where brand new equipment and a brand new boat, will have items that are DoA or have not been installed correctly and fail to work as they should. So far we have had very few new bits of kit that have been DoA on arrival but we have had a number of installation problems that have been keeping us from being able to go on our first voyage under power; our first sea trial!
This past week I have been working closely with our new electrician Ismail and along with some continuing eXemplary technical support from Lance, Keivan and Hicham at Kobelt Canada. I have been working with Lance to design our steering and control systems for about four years now all together, and I can’t say enough about all of them at Kobelt who have been up in the very early morning for them in Vancouver, late evening for me here in Antalya, in order that we can do some live video calls for a techie version of Show & Tell as we went through hydraulic setups, wiring and they could watch what the moving components were doing, hear the sounds when they mattered and really be as close to being here in person with me as is possible. As it turns out, all of the equipment from Kobelt arrived working as designed but the extensive list of items involved from hydraulic pumps, cylinders and valves to electronic controls and autopilot systems have been installed over the past 18 months and we are only now connecting all the parts together and there have been some issues along the way.
Three weeks ago the problem was that we weren’t getting pressure to the hydraulic steering cylinders, then two weeks ago we were having a long lag in time between when the Throttle or Pitch control levers were moved at one of the Helm Stations and when the lever on the Actuator box in the Engine Room moved and hence when the Throttle/Pitch cables and levers moved. This past week we have been having difficulty getting the CPP Pitch Angle Gauges at each helm to communicate the correct Pitch Angle as the Pitch Control Levers were moved Ahead/Astern. It goes as does most problem solving, you trace your way back to where you began, compare the schematics and guidelines from the manufacturers to the actual “as built” installation and you find the differences between those and fix them. Sounds simple, and it is, but it sure can take time and effort to follow these long and winding paths.
Perhaps it has been thanks to those two Turkish Evil Eyes being onboard that we have been on a solution per week schedule and the first two problems had been resolved in the previous two weeks, and I am delighted to report that as of last night (Saturday 27th March here) Ismail and I have the Pitch Angle gauges working and mounted back where they belong at each Helm Station! We have tested all this with here at the dock Mr. Gee thrumming away and our Nogva CPP churning the clear waters underneath making Möbius tug at her dock lines. Once all the other critical jobs have been finished such as finishing the deck hatches so they all close and seal properly, finishing and testing the fire hose and a still rather long punch list of other jobs, we will be *almost* good to go!
Almost, because there remains one last major and eXtremely critical system that needs to be finished before Möbius is seaworthy enough for her first sea trials; Navigation System. This involves getting the key elements of our whole Furuno Navigation system working and configured as this includes things like our Radar, AutoPilots, VHF radio, AIS (Automatic Information System) and all the related screens, computers and black boxes which controls all that navigation equipment. Good on that front is that Captain Christine has been leading her very own team of technicians which Naval has sub-contracted with to assist with getting the eXtremely multi-faceted navigation system of hardware and software all wired, inter-connected and configured.
For those interested in the details of our navigation system and to give the rest of you an idea of what all is involved, here is a quick overview of some of the individual bits of kit Christine and I have pulled together to build our Steering & Navigation system**
** FYI, on the Mobius.World blog site, there is a complete list of all the equipment in all the systems on Möbius available under the tab at the very top ribbon called “The Boat” which you can see by clicking HERE.
Here is the list of the components in our Steering, Navigation and Communications systems which are very intertwined:
STEERING SYSTEM
Primary STEERING x2 Kobelt Designed dual fully redundant hydraulic systems
2x Kobelt Accu-Steer HPU400 pumps
2x Kobelt 7080-B12 Balanced cylinders
STEERING Controls x2 Kobelt NFU jog levers @ Main & Upper Helms
Kobelt 7176 wired “Walk About” handheld remote station @ both Helms
auto pilots x2 Furuno 711C Auto Pilots, 2 independent units for redundancy
Steering Backup………. Kobelt manual hydraulic pump @ Main Helm w/ steering wheel
Emergency Tiller stored in ER, attaches direct to Tiller Arm w/ block & tackle controllers
NAVIGATION EQUIPMENT
main helm monitors… 2x LiteMax NavPixel 19” touchscreen 1600 nits @ 1280 x 1024
1x 43” LiteMax Durapixel sunlight readable 1600 nits @ 3840×2160
1x Samsung 50” SmarTV
upper SkyBridge monitors x2 LiteMax NavPixel 24” touch, 1000 nits @ 1920 x 1080
Navigation software x2 Time Zero Professional w/ Sounder + Radar modules
x1 RosePoint Coastal Explorer
x3 Navionics on Tablets
charts:….. Full set of Navionics World Mega-Wide charts on Furuno/TimeZero
Full set of Navionics/C-Map charts on Coastal Explorer
Main helm PC………. Micro ATX tower
Intel I7-9700, 16GB Ram, 1TB SSD, GTX 1660 6G OC Graphics card
Skybridge PC Kingdell Fanless mini PC, Intel I7-1051 16GB Ram, 512GB SSD
gateways:… RosePoint Nemo, NEMA 0183/2000, TCP/UDP, RS-422, RS-232, RJ45 ethernet
Maretron USB100 USB Gateway
Maretron IPG100 IP ethernet Gateway
AIS x3…………….. Emtrak A-200 Class A
Standard Horizon AIS B Class in GX6000 VHF radio
Tender = Vesper XB-8000 smartAIS Transponder w/ WiFi + NMEA2000 gateway
Weather station ….. Airmar 220 WX
w/ ultrasonic wind, barometer, 3 axis accelerometer, gyro + compass
Infra-red night vision….. FLIR Gyro stabilized camera M332
radar… Furuno FAR 1523 Radar Black Box with 6’ open array
heading compass……… Furuno SC33 Satellite compass
GPS Furuno GP330 GPS head dedicated to Radar
Standard Horizon GPS Head into GX6000 VHF radio
Standard Horizon GPS Smart Antenna SCU-31
Vesper GPS Head into XB-8000 in Tender
remote controllers x2:…… Furuno MCU004 Monitor Controller on Helm Chairs
Kobelt 7018 “WalkAbout” handheld wired remote @ both Main and Upper Helms
depth sounders x2
@Bow = Furuno BBDS1 bottom discriminating Black Box w/ 5205PSD transducer
@Stern = Furuno Ultrasonic UDST800 depth, speed, temp traducer
COMMUNICATIONS/MONITORING EQUIPMENT
- VHF RADIO.. Standard Horizon GX6000 w/ AIS + NMEA2000
- w/ AIS + SART target display & GPS Compass
- RAM 4 remote mic @ Main Helm
- Wireless mic w/access point
- loudhailer….. Standard Horizon Dual Zone 25W PA / Loud Hailer
- with preprogrammed fog signals + Listen Back
- Horn………. Kahlenburg S-330 air horn
- Satellite coms…………. Iridium GO!
- Data logger…. Yacht Devices Voyage Recorder YDVR-04
- Search light………. ACR Artex RCL-95 Pan/Tilt/Zoom 500W Searchlight w/ Remote
- Monitoring….. Maretron monitoring system
- Including All: bilges, tanks, batteries, engine, fuel flow, smoke & heat, etc..
- Viewed on any screen and remotely via Maretron N2K View
- on boat networking… NMEA 2000 N2K dual backbone 2000 network throughout
- Multiplexers for NMEA 0183 + RS432
- Gateways via USB & IPG
- Victron, and Maretron networks for monitoring
- IP Cameras. Forward facing IP camera mounted on Skybridge roof
- Aft Facing camera above swim step
- Reolink Bullet IP camera engine room
- Reolink Dome IP camera engine room
- Video encoder. Axis Camera Encoder
- WiFi Antenna. Microtik Groove 52 AC Wi-fi antenna
- WiFi booster … WeBoost Drive Reach
- Cellular antenna…….. Wilson Wide Band Omni-Directional Marine Antenna for cellular
- ROUTER……. PepWave Max Transit Duo router
- Network Access Storage. Synology NAS Disk Station w/ 2X 8 GB Seagate Barracuda drives
Well, you get the idea, there is a LOT of moving parts to this puzzle.
And as you can see here, some of those moving parts are often crowded around Captain Christine at the Main Helm in this case! Yunus on the far Right is the the manager of this connection and configuration team and Erdal with the toque in the middle is the lead technician and they have been a true treat to work with.
Some of the “moving parts” are blinking lights such as this set on the back of just three of our network switches in one of three “Internet Alcoves” as Christine calls them. Strange though, we have “cut the cord” more than most people ashore and Isn’t it great that we are living in a wireless world!
Zooming out a bit of that alcove to show you that it really is quite small but it does have even more hardware!
Another very “wireless” alcove, this one behind the 50” monitor and home of Boat Computer #1 and the Synology NAS on the Left side of the Main Helm.
Out on the Aft Deck looking up at the Main Arch and the Tender Davit on the Left, to show you yet another very “wireless” area along the Arch where all of our external navigation and communication equipment resides.
One eXciting milestone this week has been seeing that 6ft Open Array antenna spinning around for the first time on our Furuno FAR 1523 Radar!
My favorite Geekette, aka Capn’ Christine aka my Beautiful Bride, is a wee bit shy but I was able to at least get her hand in this shot as she tilts the two 19” LiteMax screens at the Main Helm to show how she now has TimeZero running charts on the Left and an awemazing amount of detail of the seabed below us thanks to our Furuno BBDS “Black Box Bottom Discriminating Sounder” where we can watch individual fish swimming below Möbius’ hull and details of the composition of the sea bead down to about 75 feet below the “top of the bottom”.
I will leave you with this shot of the view at your eye height when sitting in the Captain’s Chair here at the Main Helm. Now, if we can just get past that sea wall …………………..
Thanks for joining us again for another week in the adventure of Project Goldilocks. Please be sure to leave any and all comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below and I hope you will join us again next week for what I hope will be the report of our first sea trials! Wish us luck! We will need it!
-Wayne
by Wayne | Feb 28, 2021 | Anchor + Ground Tackle, Boat building, Cabinetry, Design, Electrical, Electrical Systems, Exterior Decking, Glass work, Hull, Interior, Interior, Launch, Navigation, Plumbing, safety, Steering, Systems |
A VERY busy week here onboard the Good Ship Möbius as everyone on Team Möbius moves into the final stage of the build completing all the installations of equipment and beginning the commissioning of all these systems by their factory representatives and others. Due to a major reconstruction project of the harbour inside the Free Zone * which removed all the previous launching facilities, Naval needed to launch us quite a bit sooner than expected by transporting Möbius overland to the nearby Setur Marina. So in addition to the usual post launch commissioning of systems, we all continue to work our way through the Punch List of jobs needing to be completed in order to get Möbius into seaworthy condition to begin taking her out for sea trials. To say that we are all eXtremely busy would be the understatement of the year! But. for Christine and me, we are even more eXtremely eXcited to be back where we belong, home onboard a boat that floats.
* You can learn all about this huge and fascinating project by watching THIS VIDEO ANIMATION which does a great job of showing how the whole new harbour facility will work.
I hope you will accept my apologies in advance for another hurried weekly Möbius Update as I blast through as much of all the different jobs that we have all worked on this past week. So grab your favorite beverage and chair and join me for this week’s Show & Tell.
Let me start with a quick snapshot leading up to this adventure that began over 5 years ago.
After two years of intense collaborative design work with our AbFab Naval Architect Dennis at Artnautica Yacht Design, the building of XPM78-01 Möbius began at Naval Yachts on April 6, 2018.
1053 days of build time later, as most of you have likely seen in last week’s posting HERE, she finally left that temporary womb last Friday for a watery delivery into her permanent home with Mother Ocean last Saturday.
As I write this blog post from the SkyBridge of our beloved Möbius, we have just finished our first week afloat tied up to the concrete dock wall inside the Antalya Free Zone Harbour.
And I am VERY happy, though not surprised, to report that ALL the sea water has remained where it belongs OUTSIDE of Möbius and our bilges only hold the remnants of construction dust and debris.
DOCKSIDE NEIGHBORS
Looking all the world to me like two tugs that escaped from a children’s animation story, these two almost new tugs are our most immediate neighbors.
Tied up less than a meter in front of Möbius’ Bow.
These two tugs have crew aboard 24/7 as they are responsible for bringing every cargo ship into and out of the commercial side of the Harbour such as this recent little visitor, the 180m 36k Ton Argo B, who left about 04:30 this morning after loading up with several thousand “Big Bags” of industrial dry goods.
These two tugs are also the Fire Boats for the Harbour. And last night, they surprised and delighted us by bringing over a home made pizza just out of their oven! Can’t think of a better example of why we LOVE living with these awemazing people of Turkey.
Tied up almost as closely to our Stern is this first of four Police boats which are being built by Ares Yachts here in the Free Zone for the government of Oman. These are a bit longer than us at about 26m but share many of the same basic attributes as our XPM-78 with all aluminum construction and built like the proverbial tank.
We even have the same jet propulsion system though in our case just with our Tender and a single not these massive twin jet drives driven by two equally massive MAN diesel engines.
One item that we do not share, YET! with these boats is that mount for a 50 cal machine gun. But rest assured that once I get my 3D printer setup one of my first projects will be to create a realistic enough looking plastic replica to produce a silhouette that will add to our “don’t mess with me!” look to any onlookers thinking of approaching us with mal intent!
I took this shot of our neighborhood early this morning after the Argo B had left and the tugs were back in front of us. The weather has been truly spectacular for the past two weeks with daytime highs reaching 24C/77F and gloriously sunny clear blue skies with very little wind. Not a bad place to spend our first week afloat.
For safety of such a new and incomplete boat, Christine and I are sleeping aboard each night and then going back to our apartment for breakfast and dinner and then we will move aboard full time once all the sea trials are done.
ANCHOR AWEIGH!
One of the projects I did not have enough time to show you last week was the completion of our rather unique “Sidewinder” anchor roller assembly that Dennis and I came up with so let me show that to you now.
I decided to make the two anchor rollers out of solid aluminium and didn’t take me long to design a 3D model of this in Autodesk Fusion 360 and create the 2D dimensioned drawings to machine them from.
Aluminium is a dream to work with and the in house machine shop has a very good sized lathe that was easily able to machine the two anchor rollers out of a single blank of 200mm/8” OD aluminium round stock.
I wanted to keep the anchor and the chain electrically isolated from the hull to reduce any corrosion problems and was able to do so with two details. One is this Black Delrin bushing which we press fit into each roller with a nice rolling fit for the 40mm/1.6” SS pin that each roller spins on.
The second isolating detail was to machine these Teflon discs that get separate the sides of the rollers from the inside cheeks of the anchor roller assembly welded into the hull. Then a large SS end cap bolts on either end of the SS pin on the outside.
Here is what that all looks like when assembled.
For safety and quiet when pounding into big seas we very specifically designed the whole roller assembly to exactly match the shape of this 125kg/275lb Rocna anchor by obtaining a 3D model from Rocna to design with. The way our design works is that those flared out bottom edges you see in the photo above have been designed such that they exactly match up with the inside of the flukes of the Rocna when pulled aboard and thus the Rocna becomes one with the hull and will not budge no matter what Mother Nature throws at us. This creates not only a very tough and strong anchor mounting setup but also one that does not make any noise due to movement between the anchor and the roller assembly which is so common on many other boats we have run.
So Nihat, Uğur and I spent quite a few hours with the anchor raised on a chain block that allowed us to get the position of the anchor just right and then layout the centers for each SS roller pin. Front pin and roller have been mounted here and we are laying out the location for the 2nd Aft roller.
Uğur and I came up with this idea of building an extended 40mm carbide hole saw so that he could drill both cheeks in one go and keep the two holes for the SS roller pin on the same centerline. We lucked out finding the head of a 40mm carbide hole saw with its shank broken off and Uğur TIG welded a 200mm/8” long piece of 13mm/ 1/2” OD rod to it that we could chuck in my Milwaukee drill. Worked like a charm!
With the rollers both installed we tested it all out with the 13mm / 1/2” chain and the Maxwell VWC4000 Windlass and did a bit of tweaking of the rollers final shape to capture the chain nicely so it stays aligned as the chain goes Out/In and doesn’t twist.
Did not take us long to get to the Goldilocks Just Right point
and “Rocky” was in his new home as solid as his name.
Uğur and Nihat both gave it their thumbs up and so we knew it was good to go!
BOTTOMS UP!
Another job and details I did not have time to post last week prior to the launch was the finishing of the silicone based International InterSleek 1100SR Foul Release bottom paint and the zinc anodes so let me go back and show you that.
Once the super slick, slippery and shiny silicone InterSleek was fully dry the last few underwater details could be attended to such as mounting the Red plastic prop on the Vetus 220kgf 300mm/12” Extended Run Time Bow Thruster.
Which is capped off with its own Zinc to reduce any problems with corrosion due to the mix of dissimilar metals involved with its construction of Bronze, SS and AL.
In keeping with our Darth Vader, lean & mean look, we decided to make the 100mm/4” Boot Stripe that makes the transition between the top of the Black InterSleek and the bare AL hull, be gloss Black as well and we are eXtremely happy with the result that emerged as the masking tape came off to reveal the final look.
The final detail for the underwater portion of the hull was mounting the ten 125mm / 5” diameter Zinc anodes which keeps all the metal bits that are in contact with seawater all at the same potential voltage and eliminates the battery effect that would eat away at our precious Stainless Steel, AL and Bronze components.
Being near the bottom of the Noble scale of metals, Zinc is what will erode instead and makes it easy to replace the zincs every few years when they get too worn away.
We designed a very simple mounting system for the Zincs and Uğur had previously welded 80mm discs of 20mm / 3/4” thick AL to the hull with an M16 thread in the center for the SS M16 bolt that he is fastening this Zinc on the Rudder with.
To ensure a good electrical connection for many years between the Zinc and the AL mounting disc, we coated those surfaces and the bolt with dielectric grease and then I followed along after Uğur and covered the SS bolt heads with some clear silicone to make it all the easier to remove and replace these zincs in a couple of years. I usually do this while the boat is in the water using my Hookah or Snuba system so these little details all help to make that job go quick and easy.
With all these preparations of the below the waterline areas of the hull and everything removed from underneath, Möbius was ready for the arrival of “Big Bird” the yellow 72 wheel boat mover to arrive the next morning and carry her overland to the marina for launching.
TILLER ARM DETAILS:
Another few details that we needed to look after before Launch Day were for the all important steering system and the Tiller Arm in particular. Similar to the Bow Rollers, last year I had designed this typically over engineered Tiller Arm in Fusion 360 and had it CNC milled out of a single block of aluminum.
Here is a shot from almost a year ago when we first mounted the finished Tiller Arm to the 127mm / 5” OD solid AL Rudder Post.
And here is a more recent shot of what it looks like with the two double acting Kobelt hydraulic steering cylinders in place.
Such a massive Tiller Arm being powered by equally as beefy twin hydraulic cylinders, produces a LOT of force and so there needs to be some eXtremely strong and solid Tiller Arm Stops built in to stop the Tiller Arm when it goes hard over to each side. Fusion 360 to the rescue yet again to help me quickly design these Stops which Uğur and Nihat quickly fabricated and were ready to mount.
After carefully testing out the Just Right position for each stop, they were able to drill the four holes in the AL Rudder Shelf and bolt down one Stop in either side of the Tiller Arm body. The SS bolt and lock nut allow us to adjust the final Stop position of the Tiller Arm once we are in the water and have the steering all working.
I like to practice and live well by what I call “Readiness for the UneXpected” and in the case of our steering system that meant having multiple layers of fault tolerance for the Steering System. This starts with twin independent Kobelt 7080 hydraulic steering cylinders sized so that either one can fully steer the boat in the most adverse sea conditions.
Then two independent Kobelt Accu-Steer HPU400 24V hydraulic Power Pack pumps, two independent Furuno 711C AutoPilots plus two independent Furuno Jog Levers. This gives us eight levels of fault tolerance to go through.
And if ALL of that should uneXpectedly fail, then we have this Kobelt manual hydraulic Steering Pump ……………
……….. that we can slide this Emergency Steering wheel onto and steer the boat the “old fashioned” way.
And if ALL of that should somehow uneXpectedly fail we have THIS final layer of fault tolerance for our steering system; a completely independent and manual Emergency Tiller Arm.
Can’t get too much more KISSS or Keep It Simple Smart & Safe than this; a 2m/6.5ft length of 80mm thick walled AL pipe that slides through the 20mm/ 3/4” thick plate we see Uğur bolting to the Tiller Arm body and then the pipe slides through a matching hole bored through the top of the Rudder Post.
We attach a block and tackle setup on each side of the end of the Emergency Tiller which fasten to shackles mounted on stringers on the adjacent hull sides which allows us to move and lock the Rudder in any position we want.
Yes, I do know that it works and Yes, you can ask me how I know that!
Miscellaneous Work on Deck
Finishing up this blog post is between me and another very late dinner so I’m going to speed through a series of other jobs that got done this first week in the water.
Turkish Turquoise Marble countertops got installed atop both Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck to create our Outdoor Galley.
SS sink plumbed.
And installed in the Starboard/Right side Vent Box.
Plumbing connections all ready to connect to the sink; Red & Blue PEX lines with shut off valves for the Hot/Cold water to the sink faucet, Brass elbow for the sink’s drain and small Blue tube with the Black elbow to drain the water extracted by the Mist Eliminator grills in the Engine Room supply air duct.
Orhan with his home made adaptor for his pneumatic caulking gun ……..
……. to get into some hard to reach spots around the Pilot House windows like these.
Uğur prepping the nylon insert mounts for the Passarella on the Swim Platform and another on the Port side gate.
Ever the ingenious one on Team ,Uğur came up with this brilliant DIY solution for mounting our Fire Hose in the HazMat Locker; an empty plastic spool of MIG welder wire!
Which will rotate on this pipe mounted on the side of the HazMat Locker.
With the Black Fire Nozzle mounted alongside. Any wonder why I just love working with this guy who has been with us from the very first day of the build?!!!
More Uğur Goodness, on Saturday no less, as we designed and built this simple setup for propping the front 3 Solar Panels mounted on this hinged frame up in the horizontal position when we are on anchor.
This horizontal position not only helps out with solar power production but you can see the demister grill across the far end of what now becomes a giant wind tunnel to capture all the fresh breezes blowing over our bow at anchor and funnel them down into the SuperSalon.
Two SS pipes that are hinged to the bottom of the Solar Panel frame and will fit into these Black Delrin collars Uğur machined which were then glued down to the aluminium floor with a SS set screw to lock them in place.
When we are ready to convert to passage making mode and head out to sea, you simply lift the panels up a few inches and the two support rods slide aft as the panel is lowered down and locked into place.
ELECTRIAL WORKS:
Our Sparkie Hilmi always has a long list of electrical jobs that need his attention and this past week was certainly no exception. With almost 150 circuit breakers on XPM78-01 Möbius to safely look after all our 12 & 24 Volt DC circuits and our all our 120V & 240V AC circuits, it was quite the design challenge to figure out where and how to place all these.
We ended up with two primary circuit breaker panels; this one on the angled short wall on the Stbd/Right side of the Main Helm Station.
And this larger one in the Corridor at the bottom of the stairs leading down from the SuperSalon to the Guest Cabin, Ships Office and Workshop/Engine Room.
After months and months of preparation, Hilmi was finally able to bring it all together this past week by attaching these Black AL panel fronts with all the engraved labels onto the hinged access doors into each of these Circuit Breaker panels.
Next week the hinged glass doors are due to arrive which will finish off these critical component of the electrical system on Möbius.
GLASS WORK
The double paned 16mm thick glass window finally got installed in the Engine Room door this week which is a critical component to completely closing in the Engine Room in the case of a fire.
And the gas lift cylinders have now all been installed on the Glass Deck Hatches which I designed and Naval built in house. Now just need to finish installing the rubber edge seals and the AL hatch handles and the deck is totally watertight!
HELM STATIONS:
I can’t possibly do justice to explain the amount of work that Christine has done this past week alone on getting all our navigation and electronics in both Helm Stations all setup and working.
Nor can I articulate how much I LOVE my Captain!
What I can do though is to leave you with this shot from early this morning that does capture for me just how well we have succeeded in designing and building our new home with all of Team Möbius to meet the goal we set out over 5 years ago to blend in perfectly when in a commercial dock as apposed to a ‘yachty’ marina.
And with that I am going to hit the “Publish” button on this latest Möbius Weekly Progress Update and look forward to bringing you more Show & Tell of this coming week’s progress that begins first thing tomorrow morning.
But WAIT!!!
There’s MORE!!!!!
One year ago, Christine and I returned from a brief trip over to the UK for her Birthday (March 15th) just as the whole Corona 19 pandemic was ramping up and caught us squarely in the vortex. Given our ages, let’s just say rapidly approaching 70, every day since we have been playing a kind of Russian Roulette by going into the shipyard to work on Möbius and so we are eXtremely eXcited that tomorrow morning at 11am we are going to get our Covid 19 vaccine shots!
Of course, this doesn’t put an end to anything really but sure will help with our upcoming travel plans, for which we shall be eternally grateful to this country we have called home for almost four years now and that love a wee bit more every day. Thank you Turkey for allowing these two salt water turkies to enjoy your beautiful country and people!
-Wayne
by Wayne | Feb 14, 2021 | Boat building, Cabinetry, Electrical, Electrical Systems, Hull, Interior, Interior, Propulsion, Systems, Tender |
First and most importantly, let me send out a big Happy Valentine’s Day wish to all of you. I hope that you and those you love treat yourselves to an extra special Valentine’s Day Sunday. Christine and I have done our best to do the same though our Valentine Möbius seemed to get the majority of the TLC and attention as you’ll see below.
Before I begin this week’s Progress Update, a brief story (I promise!) that sums up our lives right now.
When I was about 8 years old, my never ending curiosity lead me to read about one of Zeno’s paradoxes that completely dumbfounded me and led to many sleepless nights trying to wrap my head around it. That paradox has been haunting me again as we get closer and closer to finishing and launching XPM78-01 Möbius so I thought you might enjoy the story. I suspect many of you know this particular paradox often referred to as Zeno’s Paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles and you too might have also found it undeniably true but equally hard to accept at first. My eight year old self read it as a simple question;
If you want to get from Point A to Point B and each step you take is exactly 1/2 the distance between you and Point B, how many steps will it take you to get there?
Answer?
An infinite number of steps and you will never get all the way there! Think about it, you’ll see the paradox.
Ahhh, I see those smiles and nods of recognition and you already know why I feel like I am living that paradox every day! Step after step, progress being made as we inch closer and closer but it feels like we’ll never get there. We WILL of course and you can read all about various “solutions” or different takes on this paradox but it does nicely sum up how Christine and I are feeling at this point.
More to the point that YOU care about and why you are reading, let’s jump into this week’s Show & Tell of the many half steps that Team Möbius DID make this past week of Feb. 8-13, 2021 and did move us closer to the finish line. And my apologies in advance for likely rushing you through this week’s Show & Tell, but it has been a very long week and it is now late Sunday evening as I’m typing this up and my vivacious Valentine awaits as does our dinner so I hope you will pardon the rush job this week.
Silicone based Foul Release Bottom Paint
If you were not able to catch up to last week’s Progress Update post “The Captain & Mr. Gee get CRANKY!” it may help to go read that over before continuing as we picked up where we left off last week wtih the preparation for the application of the International InterSleek 1100SR Foul Release paint that will cover all the underwater aluminium surfaces and keep them clean and slick by not allowing any marine growth to stick.
By the end of last week, we left the bottom paint crew having finished applying all the coats of International Epoxy Primer to the freshly sanded bare AL hull surfaces and masking off the 100mm / 4” wide glossy Black Boot Strip that makes the transition between the top of the Black InterSleek and the bare aluminium hull sides above the WL.
With the top and bottom edges of this Boot Stripe all taped off with Blue Painter’s Tape, they did a quick sand of the areas that would be sprayed with the glossy Black International Perfection polyurethane paint.
It was just before 18:30 quitting time when they got to the quick and easy part of spraying on several coats of the Black Boot Stripe. It is getting lighter here as the days get longer but still needed the help of an LED work lamp to do the spraying.
They let that dry for 24 hours and then masked it off for the big job coming next; applying the InterSleek 737 “Pink” primer coats and then the Black InterSleek final coats.
For the application of the InterSleek primer and topcoats, Naval called in the Big Guns from neighboring industrial boat builder Damen as they have a whole team of people who do nothing but InterSleek on the bottoms of the many big ships that they build and launch each year.
Given its thick consistency, InterSleek requires the use of airless spray equipment so they wheeled this bad boy over under Möbius and we brought out all the cans of InterSleek 737 Pink which is a three part A+B+C mix.
Ilyas is the Manager of Damen’s InterSleek team and started mixing this 3 part mix of 737 primer.
As per its name, an airless sprayer does not use compressed air to atomize liquid finishes out the end of a spray gun. Instead it uses hydraulic principles to push liquid paint directly from a big intake pipe set into the can of 737 Pink you see here and then out a spray gun nozzle at the other end. That big black round cylinder at the top of the airless sprayer seen here wrapped in protective plastic, is a giant rubber diaphragm that pumps up and down and pumps the liquid paint out the thing black hose you can see exiting the photo on the far Right edge by the blue pail.
This is the actual spray gun at the other end of that black hose where the highly pressurized paint flows out the small nozzle on the upper Right and ……..
…….. onto the hull like this.
As a former Automotive and Autobody teacher and antique car/motorcycle restorer, I have done my fair share of traditional spray painting but this airless spraying is more like using a very well controlled fire hose!
Möbius is 24m / 78 feet long on each side and yet
…. it took Ilyas less than 15 minutes to spray on two thick coats on all that area!
And that included details such as the Rudder and prop shaft Skeg, and …..
…… the Bow Thruster Tunnel.
The 737 Pink primer was allowed to set up for 24 hours and then it was time for …….
…….. the final 3 topcoats of the Black silicone based InterSleek 1100 SR which is also a 3 part mix. All mixed up and ready to be hydraulically pumped to that big spray gun in Ilyas’ hand.
While Ilyas suited up his team mates were busy rolling the Black InterSleek 1100 on all the edges of things like the Rudder and CPP Prop Skeg.
Depth and sonar transducers……
….. and deep up inside all the 5 Sea Chest tubes.
InterSleek 1100SR all mixed up and suction pipe set inside so it is all systems GO!
Difficult to capture with the camera amongst all the fumes but that gun blasts out a cone of paint that is about 1m / 39” wide
And so once again Ilyas had the first coats of Black InterSleek all sprayed on in under 15 minutes!
It is a fascinating product which looks very wet even when it is fully dry 24 hours later and to the touch it feels “sticky” and it remains that way throughout its 5-8 year expected life. You know this feeling if you have ever handled soft silicone cooking mats or the like as that is just what is now covering all of Möbius’ bottom. Go ahead and try to stick to that you little marine munchkins!
A second coat was applied the next day and once that had dried it was time to reposition all the support stands so that the area underneath them could also receive the full silicone InterSleek treatment.
Uğur was masterful at this tricky task as he positioned a new steel stand to one side of the existing ones and then hammered in new wood wedges to take up the weight of the boat enough to remove the wedges on the other stand and take it out.
And you can see what I mean about this InterSleek stuff being slick!
With the old wedges and stand out of the way we reveal these bare AL patches whose turn it is now to get the full epoxy primer and InterSleek treatment.
These patches are carefully taped off with some special “super tape” that can manage to stick to silicone and then a roller can be used to apply the epoxy primer coats like this.
And this.
Once the epoxy primer coats were fully dry, the 737 Pink silicone primer was rolled on next.
BTW, you can see that special tape quite well here.
Finally, the last 2 coats of Black InterSleek are rolled on and our bottom is done!
The Black discs you see like this one are 25mm / 1” thick AL mounting pads with a blind threaded hole where a circular Zinc anode will eventually be attached before launch.
This is how the very aft end of the hull will look for its underwater portion.
Painting the Nogva CPP Propeller
We got mixed reviews and recommendations for using the same InterSleek 1100SR to keep the CPP propeller equally as clean and slick as the rest of the hull so we opted to go with a single purpose silicone paint propeller paint called “PellerClean” which the Japanese company SeaJet created. If you would like to know more about this product and how to apply it, Matt over on the “MJ Sailing” YouTube channel that he and Jessica maintain so well, has THIS full video on their application of PellerClean on their prop last year. If you are not already subscribed to Matt and Jessica’s MJ Sailing channel we can recommend it highly as it is one of our many favorites for great boat related content.
This propeller treatment wasn’t covered by our agreement with Naval Yachts so Christine and I looked after this application. Do I really need to answer the question about why I am so madly in love with my Valentine and perfect partner for my very imperfect self?!?
The application of these very specialized silicone paint systems is very exacting so we followed them to the letter and prepped all the bronze with a 80 grit wheel to give the upcoming PellerClean Primer a good bit of “bite”.
The 2 part yellow coloured PellerClean comes in premeasured cans which you simply stir together well for about 5 minutes and then brush on.
It is very thick with a consistency similar to mayonnaise so it is a bit challenging to get all the brush marks out in the first coat.
But with each of the successive 3 coats we were able to get it well evenly applied and then let dry for 24 hours.
The clear topcoats go on next and curiously these are a single part product and after my experience with it I suspect it is pretty much pure silicone.
Another late night at the yard for us so this is all shot in the dark with just the LED work lights which really skew the phot colors so it looks very greenish here whereas the real colour is closer to a bronzy yellow but the more important part is that this is goes on smooth and slick!
I finished the 2nd coat of clear PellerClean yesterday and I’ll see what it looks like in the morning and decide whether to add a final 3rd coat.
It was not cheap but a clean propeller and bottom makes SUCH a difference in terms of boat speed and amount of power it takes to propel the boat through the water. This was very evident to us on our previous 52 foot sailboat and so now with our XPM power boat, these super slick easy to keep clean surfaces will make a huge difference in our fuel economy and increase our speed through the water. Stay tuned for those data points once we launch and start logging real world measurements.
More “Big Little Jobs” this past week:
Apologies in advance again for blasting through this but thought you would enjoy seeing some of the “little jobs” that add up to Big things which got done this past week.
Our Super Sewer Sinan, whipped up this “skirt” that wraps around the round Anchor Chain Bin and seals the top to the Hawse Pipe where the Chain comes In/Out and keeps all the muck and mud from the anchor chain, inside the Chain Bin where it is easily rinsed out through the drain in the bottom.
I had originally thought about having Sinan put in a clear plastic window so we could see inside the Chain Bin to see how the chain was moving In/Out but instead we went with this KISSS Velcro slit which you can open up anytime and peer inside.
Sinan attached the Skirt to the outside of the top of the Chain Bin with snap fasteners so it is also quick and easy to do the Full Monty and take the whole skirt off (but you can keep your hat on!)
The cylindrical tops of these Tiller Rudder Stops were back from the machine shop with their M16 threads for the SS bolt and locking nut that provide adjustment so Uğur was able to finish welding these up and we will show you them being mounted next week.
Ramazan was busy much of this past week up in the Master Cabin and here is is fitting the FastMount fasteners for the access panel below the seat in the Master Shower. This provides full access for all the plumbing and water manifolds hidden away inside the base of the Shower Seat.
Which the Captain is particularly looking forward to and testing out here.
Just outside the Shower, Ramazan has now installed the mirrors on this cabinet above the Vanity Sink at the very forward end of the Master Cabin.
As well as these mirrors on the doors of the cabinets above the sink inside the Master Head/Bathroom.
Overhead dropped ceiling above our bed is reflected in the mirror here so you may need to look twice to figure out that this is the full length mirror that Ramazan is mounting to the inside of the Shower/Head door now laying on top of the bed.
From the outside looking in I find Ramzan up at the Main Helm taping off the Rosewood Window Sills as he installs all 21 of the HVAC air vents on all the SuperSalon windows.
We were able to track down these very well made rotating adjustable air diffusers that are made for use in many different makes of cars and trucks and are the Goldilocks solution for bringing the hot or cold air from our AC/Heating system into the SuperSalon.
Same as the ones you would be familiar with in your car, these rotate and can be closed shut as in the photo above or tilted open at different angles. This will give us full adjustment to the air coming in to direct it into the room or up onto the windows for some defroster like function.
The largest front and center window in front of the Main Helm gets 3 of these vents.
And all the other windows have 2 diffusers.
Captain Christine has jumped feet first into the deep end of the electronics systems on Möbius and had a very busy week working with things like our PepWave cellular/WiFi router which I will cover in another post focussed on all of our electronics.
We had just enough of this gorgeous Turkish Turquoise marble from our inside Galley to use in our Outdoor Galley countertops as well and that all got mounted this past week.
We didn’t have quite enough to do all the countertops in single slabs but we are SO in love with this marble that we created the tops out of several pieces.
The system I came up with started with 6mm AL plates that are through bolted to the Vent Boxes underneath and then the marble is permanently adhered to these AL plates with industrial SikaFlex.
This allows me to remove the whole countertop for future access by unbolting these AL plates and provided a super solid backing for all the marble pieces.
First slab with the cut-out for the SS sink all glued in and ready for the 2nd piece.
To be set into the SikaFlex much like how you would lay ceramic tiles.
This will give you a sense of how our Outside Galley is shaping up and next week the marble team will be in to finish sealing and polishing the tops and edges. I can smell the salmon cooking on the BBQ already!
Möbius Goes to the Dogs!
Saving a bit of the best for the last, our two dogs, 14 year old Ruby the Wonderdog in Black and 9 year old Barney The Yorkshire Terror were onboard for the first time with Captain Christine so they could check out what will soon be their new floating home too.
Like us, they have both spent most of their lives as boat dogs and so are awaiting the move onto their new boat/home as anxiously as we are.
Barney is a rather “excitable boy” who can sometimes get a wee bit too excited at the edges of our boats so the bottom Dyneema lifeline that Christine now has all finished is at a custom “Barney height” so he got to measure up to that.
And down in the Master Cabin we have what we refer to as The Barney Bed, where Mr. Actionallnightlong, will be able to sleep and practice is nightly training for the Olympics all by himself!
And THAT folks is going to have to be a wrap for tonight as I am Wayyyyyyyyy past my time limit and bedtime and dinner still awaits.
Thanks SO much for taking the time to join us here again this week and just because it is taking me much longer than I would like to answer them, PLEASE keep adding your questions and comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
See you here again next week as we take yet another of our infinite half steps forward.
-Wayne
by Wayne | Feb 7, 2021 | Boat building, Cabinetry, Electrical, Exterior Decking, Fuel System, Hull, Interior, Plumbing, Systems, The Gardner, XPM Family |
Not as much progress as we would have wanted to report this week as many of Team Möbius were MIA working on other boats at Naval Yachts and also prepping one of the boats beside us for its Owner’s visit tomorrow.
However, that didn’t stop the rest of us from making good progress and we achieved several big milestones that we are very eXcited to share with you now. So get a good beverage and comfy chair of your choice and come along for this week’s Möbius.World Show & Tell.
The Captain & Mr. Gee Get Cranky!
Several years ago, when I was answering some of Christine’s typically probing questions about why Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB was the Goldilocks Just Right, Just for us Choice for the main (and only) engine in XPM78-01 Möbius, Christine likes to say “You had me at Hand Cranked”.
This is in reference to me mentioning that one of the Gardner’s many eXtremely appealing features is that they could be fitted with this Chain Hand Crank option.
As you can see, this kind of “crankiness” makes my Captain eXtremely happy which makes me eXXtremely happy! 
Very KISSS Keep It Simple Smart Safe as you can see with a rod running along the top of of the engine with handles at both ends with an Upper Chainwheel that transfers the crank’s rotation via a Chain down to a Lower Chainwheel keyed onto the engines crankshaft.
Michael and his team at Gardner Marine Diesel or GMD in Canterbury England were able to salvage all these parts off one of the many 6LXB’s they have in their inventory and sent them to me many months ago and I’ve been working on fitting them to Mr. Gee ever since.
You would think it would be a relatively quick and simple process to just clean and paint all these parts and install them on Mr. Gee …………………… but you’d be wrong!
One problem was that Mr. Gee is one of the later models of 6LXB and it had this quite different Hand Crank with just one handle on the front of the engine and a different crankshaft and Chainwheel setup down on the new style crankshaft.
Secondly, as you can see in this shot of the front support and Upper Chainwheel I’ve mounted onto Mr. Gee, there is no room up front for the Hand Crank handle, let alone enough room for me to get in there to crank it. So I needed to come up with a “Hybrid” Hand Crank setup that would allow me to marry the Old style with the Hand Crank Handle at the rear, to the new crankshaft end up front.
And just to put a particularly sharp point on this challenge, I also needed to drive the Jabsco Sea Water pump and one of our monster 250 Amp @24V Electrodyne alternators off the front of the crankshaft as well.
Hmmmmm
Let’s just say that the front of Mr. Gee became a very busy and challenging spot for me to sort out.
When I am doing this kind of problem solving and exploration of new design ideas I have evolved to using pieces of stiff cardboard I cut up from shipping boxes to capture the critical dimensions and sketch out my rough ideas.
It is a surprisingly efficient system as I get to reuse the many cardboard boxes all our hundreds of shipments come in and the stiffness of the cardboard makes is very easy to sketch on when I’m laying under or over an engine for example with my digital Vernier calipers or tape measure in hand and recording all the critical dimensions.
I then use Microsoft Office Lens utility on my Pixel4XL phone to digitize these sketches so I have a more permanent digital copy to keep and one I can print out if needed.
I don’t expect these to make much sense to anyone else but they work eXtremely well for me to record all these details and dimensions as I work my way through the different ways I come up with to solve a particular problem, create 3D models of them and ultimately machine or fabricate the parts I need and finally get them installed.
After much head scratching and sketching, eventually this layout emerged as a way that I could fit both the RED Chain based Hand Crank system and the GREEN cogged timing belt system for driving the Electrodyne “Big Red #1” in the upper Right here and the Jabsco sea water pump on the far Left.
I will show you the Green cogged timing belt drive system next week and show you the Red chain based Hand Crank system now.
With all the dimensions and my ideas roughed out on cardboard I then move over to Autodesk Fusion 360 to create a 3D model of all these parts where I can put my ideas to the test and see if they will actually work out. This is a quick screen grab of the model I came up with from the sketches you saw above.
I won’t bore you with all the details but for orientation Mr. Gee is mostly off the screen on the far Right and the Red disk is the Lower Chainwheel on Mr. Gee’s Crankshaft running horizontally across the bottom of the screen. On the front side of this is the cogged pulley driving the rubber timing belt that goes up to the cogged wheel on the Jabsco sea water pump.
* Note: I didn’t bother to model the actual chain and sprocket teeth so you will have to imagine that being wrapped around the Red Chainwheel.
The Green and Blue disks on either side of the Red Chainwheel are two of several flanged parts I needed to machine for my Hybrid Old/New Gardner Hand Crank system.
Oh, and did I mention that the Old Gardner Hand Crank system used a different pitch of chain than the New style?
So I had GMD send me the Upper and Lower Chainwheels from the New style that would fit nicely on the New style of Crankshaft that Mr. Gee has but the third Idler Chainwheel (part #37 in the Gardner illustration up above) had to the the Old style Chain as it is part of the cast aluminium bracket that supports the Old style cranking shaft.
FYI: Eventually I will design and machine a whole new Idler Chainwheel with the New style Chain pitch but for now I just mounted the Old Idler in my drill press and hand milled the teeth to get the New Chain to fit as you see here.
This is that Blue coloured Flange I pointed out AL in the rendering of the 3D Fusion 360 model above, which was quit easy to machine on a lathe out of solid aluminium round stock and then broach the keyway through the inner hole so it will be locked into the 3/8 x 3/8” key on the front end of the Crankshaft.
Now you can see how this newly machined AL Flange slides into the New style Lower Chainwheel which is now all sand blasted clean and painted Black.
All well and good but I’m sure that most of you are now asking “How the heck does this work to turn Mr. Gee’s Crankshaft Wayne?
That’s the job of the eXtra part you see here that rotates on a pin sticking out of the Chainwheel. This little part is the key to making the Hand Crank work and is called a “Ratcheting Pawl” part #3 in the Gardner Illustration above.
I don’t have a milling machine (yet!), but to badly reuse The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, (for those of you old enough to remember) “We don’t need no stinkin’ milling machine” right?
Nothing that a bit of ingenuity and my handy dandy 45 year old drill press and shiny new vice can’t handle. I machined a short shaft to just fit inside the hole of AL bushing and tightened that in the vice jaws.
This allowed me to slowly rotate the AL bushing into the 4 flute spiral milling cutter in my drill press so I could mill away the four recesses for the Pawl to fit into and ended up looking like this.
So to Hand Crank Mr. Gee you simply reach down and rotate the Pawl counter clockwise so it engages in one of the four recesses like this.
Now when Christine turns that Hand Crank Handle on the Aft end of Mr. Gee as you see her doing in the opening photo, the Upper Chainwheel rotates the Chain CCW, which transfers that force down to the Lower Chainwheel which the Pawl has now locked to the Crankshaft and around goes Mr. Gee!
This takes a good bit of muscle but with the compression relief levers keeping the intake valves open it isn’t too difficult to bring Mr. Gee’s massive flywheel up to speed and then you flip the compression levers back off and Mr. Gee chugs to life and begins to purrrrrr. Doesn’t get too much more KISSS or reliable than that!
Oh, and for those of you following all this, as Mr. Gee starts up you no longer need to turn the Hand Crank Handle and so the Pawl “ratchets” out of the recess back to this disengaged position such that the Chainwheel is now stationary while the AL Flange and Crankshaft spin together.
To finish putting this all together, I machined a groove into the AL bushing for this spring steel circlip to fit into which keeps the Chainwheel aligned and spinning on the AL bushing.
With the Lower Chainwheel assembled onto its new AL Flange, into the Engine Room I go and with a bit of TefGel 45 to help it slides just perfectly onto the keyed portion of the front end of the Crankshaft.
That modified Idler Chainwheel is in the upper Right here and it adjusts sideways in the slot you can see to the right of the Chain which you tighten down to keep the Chain Just Right Tight.
Not much space in here so a bit difficult to photograph but hopefully you can now see how the whole Chain driven Hand Crank system works.
And to come full circle, you now understand what put that great grin on my Beautiful Bride and Captain.
INTERIOR UPDATES:
While we were cranking away on Mr. Gee, Hilmi and Ramazan were cranking away up in the SuperSalon so let’s go see what they have been up to this past week.
Ramazan has finished installing all the Ado LVT vinyl plank flooring and you may recall that Uğur, Nihat and I installed these two SS locking lift handles in the large hatch to access the Basement that is under the whole of the SuperSalon floor.
Most of Ramazan’s masterfully laid down flooring is covered in protective cardboard but you can see how nicely he has fit the edges around the hatch so they are barely visible.
But what’s that I see over on the far Left here?
Aha! Our 50” Samsung 4K SmarTV has arrived and will soon be mounted on a fully adjustable mounting system that fits into the recess in the now opened hinged and slotted Rosewood door.
But who’s that hiding behind that door?
Of course! Hilmi and Christine are busy finishing up all the wiring for AC, DC, Ethernet and N2K that runs inside the large space behind the TV.
This is also where our Boat Computer #1 will reside and Christine is anxious to start connecting it up and getting all our display screens up and running next week.
While she waits for Hilmi to finish the wiring behind the 50” TV, Christine fired up Boat Computer #2 and started setting things up in the SkyBridge Helm Station.
In the midst of all this, Sinan was back this week to start sewing up the Sunbrella covers like this one for that Upper Helm Station. He is also making a similar cover for the Upper Helm Chair and I will show you that next week.
Boot Stripe:
Not a lot of progress on the Bottom Paint this week but they did get started on the 100mm / 4” Black Boot Stripe that makes the transition between the bare aluminium hull sides and the InterSleek 1100SR silicone Foul Release bottom paint which I have marked off for the painters here.
The International Epoxy primer has now been on longer than the maximum recoat time so they needed to do a light sanding so that the International Perfection Polyurethane paint will adhere well.
The laser level makes is SO must faster and easier to mark out perfectly straight and level lines for the masking tape to follow.
Next week the paint crew will hopefully be on site to spray on the Black Boot Stripe and then once it is dry they can mask it off and start applying the InterSleek Foul Release Bottom Paint. Hope to be able to show you all that next week as well.
All Donations Gratefully Received!
Hmmmm……………..
Why is THAT truck parking beside Möbius??
Yup! I’ve saved two of our bigger milestones for the end of this week’s Show & Tell. That’s a diesel fuel truck and Cihan is about to bring the very first drops of diesel fuel into our six integral fuel tanks!
It took a lot of time but I think we came up with an eXtremely effective design for both the Fuel Fills and Vents on Möbius.
With the fully sealed lid removed you have ready access to these three Fill Pipes on the Starboard/Right side and a matching set on the Port/Left side. These each connect to one of the six integral fuel tanks at the bottom of the hull with 40mm / 1 5/8” ID rubber fuel hose.
Just forward of the Fuel Fills, these inverted 40mm U pipes are similarly connected by that same size rubber fuel hose to the vents on each fuel tank. Together these both worked just perfect on this first fueling test with no foaming or “spit back”.
But mistakes can and will happen so we designed these Fuel Fill stations to have a large capacity spill tanks below the Fill Pipes so that any diesel that does overflow will simply run into this spill tank and drain back into the fuel tank. No mess, no fuss, no bother.
When the Fuel Fill cover is in place it completely seals off all the Fill Tubes from the outside air and from any sea water on decks. The Fuel Vent pipes have this slotted cover so they stay well vented and there is a drain pipe inside to remove any seawater that might make its way through the slots.
For this first load of diesel, we only took on enough fuel to do all the commissioning of diesel based equipment such as the Kabola KB45 boiler, all the fuel transfer pumps, Alfa Laval fuel centrifuge, fuel polishing system and Mr. Gee of course and then enough for the first set of sea trials.
Hence, we only took on a “measly” 2150 Liters / 567 USG out of the 14,600 Liters / 3860 USG that we will take on prior to our first passage. However, as per the intro, all donations are still very much welcomed! 
X marks the Spot!
OK, are you ready for the final milestone that Christine and I just completed yesterday?
Does this help you guess what we are up to?
Helpful hint: It took place UP here.
That’s right! Time to apply these CNC cut vinyl letters and numbers to put the XPM78-01 markings big and bold on Möbius’ Bow.
All pretty simple to do. First mark off the top edge of the lettering with a straight edge and pencil.
Give the area a good cleaning with 3M Scotch Brite pads and water, rinse well and then sponge on a coat of clean water with lots of liquid dish soap in it so you can slide the lettering as needed to get it perfectly aligned.
Peel off the inside layer of the peel & stick lettering and press it onto the soapy wet hull and use your fingers and a plastic spreader to squeeze out all the water and get all the letters and numbers perfectly aligned and adhered to the hull.
Then carefully peel off the outer layer and go over each letter with lots of pressure on soapy fingers and plastic scrapers taking special care to ensure that all edges are tightly bonded to the hull and there are no bubbles or wrinkles.
Bring in some cheap labour if you must.
Take your time to go over each letter and number several times.
Then stand back to check out the proportions and placement.
Goldilocks!!
And yes, we would be delighted to be mistaken for a military/coastguard ship in the unlikely event that anyone is considering approaching us with mal intent!
Now THAT is a Bow to be proud of!
And that’s a wrap for the week that was February 01-06, 2021.
Thank you all SO much for taking the time to join us here and we hope you will be back again next week. In the interim please be sure to put your questions and comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Thanks!
-Wayne
by Wayne | Jan 31, 2021 | Boat building, Cabinetry, Cooling, Electrical, Exterior Decking, Hull, Interior, Plumbing, Propulsion, safety, Systems, The Gardner |
As Launch Date looms larger and sooner the theme of checking off all the “little Big” jobs on the punch list continues although we still have a few “Big” jobs such as painting the bottom with foul release paint which continued as well this past week so without any further ado let’s jump right in to see all those jobs both little and BIG that Team Möbius looked after this week of January 25-30, 2021.
We’re Shafted!
One of the “little Big” jobs that we completed this past week is getting the propeller shaft fully aligned with the output flange on the Nogva Gearbox and hence this week’s title.
In this photo the dark Burgundy is the Aft Output end of the Nogva Gearbox and the bright Red is the flange on the propeller shaft which continues through the Tides Marine shaft seal system and out of the boat through the large AL prop shaft tube which is hidden here by the Blue Tides Marine silicone bellows hose.
This dimensioned drawing of the complete Nogva CPP or controlled Pitch Propeller, shaft, seal and flange will help orient things a bit.
Here I have gone below the boat rotate the CPP prop back and forth while pushing it hard forward so that the two flanges meet. A few months back we had spent quite a bit of time getting this alignment close as we installed the anti-vibration mounts on the Gardner and the Nogva and you read about that HERE, so now it was time for the fine and final adjustment to get these two flanges perfectly aligned.
As you may recall from previous posts the two flanges need to be eXtremely closely aligned both concentrically as per the illustration on the Left and also laterally as shown on the Right. Maximum deviation we are allowed is up to 0.005mm / 0.002in (human hair is about 0.05mm diameter) and ideally we are going for zero.
Needing such perfection I called on my Perfect Partner, aka Captain Christine to assist and although she is prone to laying down on the job (sorry, couldn’t resist) she was a huge help and made this task go much faster.
We check the alignment by inserting a thin feeler gauge, which is the silver strip you see here, that is a tight sliding fit into the space between the faces of these two flanges and see what the gap is at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock. Any difference in size of the gap at these locations tells us how far it is out either horizontally at 3 & 6 o’clock or vertically at 12 and 6.
Adding to the challenge the prop shaft needs to be supported in its perfectly centered position which my red hydraulic bottle jack is looking after.
Mr. Gee, our Gardner 6LXB is solidly bolted up to the Nogva Gearbox so they are essentially an eXtremely solid single unit that is supported by six anti-vibration mounts such as the Silver one you can see on the Stbd. side of the Nogva Gearbox on the far Right in this photo. You can see the large vertical threaded part of these mounts with the large supporting hex nut on the bottom and smaller locking nut on the top.
To align the flanges vertically I need to turn the large nuts at the very front of Mr. Gee or these back two on the Nogva, Up/Down to move the Nogva flange until the gap is zero all the way around.
The process then is for me to go around the four Front/Rear mounts and turn those big nuts Up/Down while Christine moved the feeler gauges around the circumference of the flanges and called out the differences in the gap to me.
With Christine laying down in the space behind the Aft end of the ER Enclosure overtop of the Tides Marine seal at the bottom, there wasn’t enough room to take a photo but this previous shot shows what she was doing as she reached in with the feeler gauges to check the gap and call out the differences to me. Doing this all by myself was very time consuming so now you see what I called in the Big Boss to help out!
It still took us almost 2 hours but in the end we got the gap down to zero such that both flanges were touching all the way around.
With these two flanges now fully aligned we could insert the 8 hardened Grade 8 bolts through both flanges and torque them down to 120NM and the alignment was done!
White grease is TefGel 45 to prevent any corrosion and ensure that these nuts are just as easy to undo after many years on the job when we need to remove the prop shaft or the Nogva/Gardner for some reason in the distant future.
Many of these “little Big” jobs are like dominos in that as getting one done lets you do the next. So with the flanges aligned and mounts all torqued down I could now finish installing the Tides Marine SureSeal system. This is an eXtremely critical bit of kit as this is responsible for keeping the prop shaft cutlass bearing lubricated with a flow of fresh sea water AND keeping that sea water OUT of the boat!
Here is what the real deal looks like now fully installed. The Blue silicone “Articulating hose” in the illustration above, is double clamped onto the Stern or Prop Shaft Tube at the bottom and onto the Black SureSeal housing at the top.
The way this works is that inside the SureSeal are two stationary rubber lip seals with the 65mm OD Prop Shaft rotating inside them that keeps the water sea water inside the Prop Shaft Tube from being able to get past and into the boat.
We keep a VERY close eye on that Blue silicone hose over the years as if it were to ever rupture we would have an eXtremely large volume of water flooding into the boat!
FYI,
The Black ring at the top is the very handy holder for a second set of replacement lip seals which you can change out with the boat still in the water as you don’t have to remove the Prop Shaft to replace them; just pry the old ones forward, cut them off and slide the new ones into place.
Last part of installing the SureSeal system is to provide a pressurized flow of fresh sea water into the Prop Shaft Tube which travels down the tube and lubricates the Cutlass bearing which supports the Prop Shaft as it exits the boat.
One of the reasons I chose to locate the Silver Heat Exchanger you see in the Upper Right was to be able to tap into its drain plug on the salt water side and use this as the source of pressurized salt water for the SureSeal. Nice short hose run and Cihan had that all hooked up in no time. The second Red hose on the Left goes up along the Aft wall of the ER with a ball valve on the end of it so that I can check the salt water flow rate when we first start up and from time to time afterwards and ensure that there is at least 4L/min / 1USG/min when the engine is idling.
Both those little Big jobs checked off the list and this is what the finished result looks like when peering down into the space Christine has now vacated on the outside of the Aft wall of the ER. Silver Gardner Coolant Heat Exchanger bottom right, Tides Marine SureSeal middle Left and Red Prop Flange middle Right and the Red Nogva Gearbox Oil Heat Exchanger at the top.
To keep the ER air tight a 6mm AL plate is bolted with a gasket over top and covered wtih the same composite grid floor plates as the rest of the Workshop and ER.
Cihan checked off another Big little job by plumbing the Sea Water and Engine Coolant water lines up at the forward Starboard/Right corner of Mr. Gee and the ER. It is pretty busy up there so I’ve labelled some of this plumbing to help you make sense of it. Can be a bit confusing as there are three fluids running around here; Sea Water that comes in via the Sea Chest just visible on the far middle Right here and through the Strainer and Manifold on its way to the Jabsco Impeller Pump and then out of that Pump and into the Engine Oil Heat Exchanger where it runs Aft exiting out and into that Silver Sea Water Heat Exchanger you saw up above in the SureSeal installation sequence.
Hope you got all that because YES children that WILL be on the Test on Friday!
Driving Big Red #2
Over on the opposite Port/Left side of Mr. Gee I finally have the drive system for our second Electrodyne 250Ah @ 24V alternator all designed and the adapters all machined so time to get them all installed. You may recall this photo from THIS previous blog post about installing what I call Big Red #2 and how I intended to drive it from the PTO or Power Take Off on the Gardner using a Jack Shaft I had from a previous job.
This is a quick screen shot from my Fusion 360 design for the adapters at either end of the Red JackShaft. Green cylinder on the far Left is the Output shaft from the Gardner PTO, Purple is the AL adaptor to couple the Jackshaft to the PTO and at the far Right in Gold is the steel multi V-belt drive pulley that came with the Electrodyne which I will machine with four threaded holes to bolt the other end of the Red Jackshaft to.
Note: Jackshaft simplified here to just a rod with flanges at either end.
This is the PTO from the Gardner with that Purple aluminium adaptor in the rendering above now pushed onto the Green PTO Output shaft and secured with four round hex head through bolts.
The Red Flange on the front U-joint end of the JackShaft barely visible on the Right will bolt to that AL adaptor with four more M6 SS bolts.
This is the Aft end of the JackShaft where this U-joint will be similarly bolted to that steel 8V pulley on Big Red #2.
The day came to an end at this point yesterday so not quite finished but this shot will show you how the whole JackShaft will connect the power from the PTO back to Big Red #2. This monster Electrodyne alternator could absorb as much as 10HP at full 250 amps of output which the gear driven PTO can put out easily and this Cardan or Jack Shaft should be more than up to the task.
Stay tuned for more though folks on the final installation of Big Red #2 next week AND just wait till you see the sweet setup I’ve come up with to drive Big Red #1 using a cogged timing belt setup that is now almost done.
Well Sand My Bottom!
Also not quite done but work continued this past week on getting the bottom underwater portion of the hull all primed and filled in preparation for applying the silicone based Foul Release paint, International InterSleek 1100SR.
The Paint Crew finished applying all the epoxy filler to smooth out all the welds and create a sleek smooth surface for the InterSleek 1000SR Foul Release top coat to come.
You can see some of the filled welds around the Prop Tunnel above and
….. the filleted edges around the AL threaded mounting disk for the Zinc on the Rudder. The circle on the Right is the filled in through hole we put in the Rudder to make it possible to remove the Prop Shaft without having to drop the Rudder. Because we hope to not need to remove the Prop Shaft for many years this hole is filled in to provide a fully flush curved surface on the Rudder sides to maximize a smooth laminar flow of water over the Rudder.
Sanding the first coat of epoxy filler on the Keel and Prop Tunnel into smooth large radius coves.
….. and the Aft Depth Sounder transducer.
…. and one of the 5 Sea Chests.
By end of the week they had the last of the 5 coats of International epoxy primer rolled as you can see around the Bow Thruster Tunnel, another smaller Sea Chest intake and Zinc mounting disk up near the bow.
Final coat of epoxy primer being rolled on Aft and we’ll see the application of the InterSleek 1100SR next week.
Grand Dame of Dyneema!
Lest you should think that The Captain only lays down on the job, this will prove that she sometimes sits!
But Christine has become and expert Dyneema splicer after doing so many as she installs all the Lifelines around the Main Deck. This are the AL Stanchions with their Lifelines now in place on the Aft end of the Port/Left side. The Tender will come On/Off this side so these 3 LifeLines have Pelican Hooks that are easy to release so we can then pull up the Stanchions and roll up the whole setup and stow when the Tender is aboard.
Closer view of how these Pelican Hooks and Thimbles work.
You start to appreciate how Christine’s Dyneema splicing expertise has developed so quickly when you start to count up all the splices required for each LifeLine in the system we’ve come up with. On the far Right is an endless loop that wraps around the AL Stanchion through a small AL D-ring to keep it in place and a SS Thimble captured on the end. Last step of this will be to lash the loop around the SS Thimble closed so that when it is undone the Thimble can’t come out.
Looking down the LifeLines to the Left you can see another splice at the Left end of the Pelican Hook and then further Aft/Left two more around these Black anodized Donuts or Rings you can see further to the Left. Christine leaves a gap of about 80-100mm / 3-4” between these two rings and then wraps multiple lashings between them to tension the life lines. And of course each of these Rings require yet another splice!
INTERIOR UPDATES:
Hilmi and Ramazan continued their work inside Möbius this past week and we also find more of Captain Christine’s fingerprints up here at the Main Helm where she and Hilmi have been working to install and connect Boat Computer #1 you see here on the Port/Left side of the Main Helm Chair.
Its ultimate home will be inside this space behind the 50” Monitor on the outside and this AC/Heating Air Handler inside.
This space is normally covered by this hinged Rosewood back with a recess for the adjustable mounting system for the 50” monitor that doubles as both our movie watching entertainment screen when on anchor and then one of 4 screens for boat data and navigation when underway.
Down in the Guest Cabin Ramazan is completing the last of the Ado LVT vinyl plank flooring.
While the smallest by surface area it has ELEVEN removeable sections above the bolt on tank access hatches below so this area is taking the most time.
Pull out Bed in the Upper Left and Christine’s Office desk on the Right.
Six of those removable floor sections all weighted down while the adhesive dries.
Removable floor sections?
What removable floor sections?
Ramzan then stepped up his game (sorry) by moving up to install the vinyl flooring on the steps leading up from the SuperSalon to the Aft Deck.
Another tricky and time consuming bit of detail as each step has one of these handrail posts he needs to go around.
Which, as you can see, he had no trouble doing eXtremely well!
And that’s a wrap for the week that was January 25-30, 2021. Yikes! The first month of 2021 gone already???
Well at least it puts us another week closer to LAUNCH so as with “being shafted” that is all a very good thing.
Thanks for joining us for yet another episode here at Möbius.World. REALLY appreciate and value you doing so and please feel encouraged to add your comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Hope to see you here again next week.
-Wayne
by Wayne | Jan 24, 2021 | Boat building, Electrical, Electrical Systems, Exhaust, Hull, Interior, Interior, Propulsion, Systems, Tender, The Gardner |
The start of our marine based circumnavigation of this awemazing planet of ours will have to wait for a few more months but yesterday (Saturday Jan 23, 2021) marked the completion of my 68th circumnavigation of the sun and I’ve already got my 69th off to a great start.
I had a marvelous birthday yesterday by being able to do what I love most, build things with my hands, with the person I love most as well as receiving an overwhelming number of B’day best wishes from so many friends and family I am so fortunate to have in my life.
Christine and I spent the day at Naval Yachts working on our Tender and were delighted to be able to fully install our Castoldi 224 DD jet drive and Yanmar 4JH4 TE 110HP diesel inboard engine which was another great milestone for us to hit and she is now well enough done for us to load onto the Aft Deck of Möbius before we Launch. Just as we were finishing putting the Yanmar in place Dincer and Baris showed up with a delicious strawberry B’day cake which was a delightful surprise and made my day all the more special.
Team Möbius also hit several other major milestones this past week so grab your favorite beverage and comfy chair and let’s jump right into this week’s Progress Update Show & Tell.
PAINT MY BOTTOM!
Perhaps the biggest milestone this past week was the start of putting on our “bottom paint” which is the only paint there will be on Möbius as all other aluminium surfaces are being left in their beautiful Silver “raw” aluminium state for minimal maintenance and the “all business” work/commercial/military esthetic we want for the exterior of XPM78-01 Möbius.
However for the same low maintenance reasons, the situation is reversed for all the aluminium surfaces that are below the Waterline WL which will be painted with 5 coats of Epoxy Primers and then some top coasts of International InterSleek 1100SR which is a silicone based Foul Release type of Bottom Paint.
The final bit of preparation of the hull was done by Nihat who finished up with what should be the final bit of aluminium welding when he welded on the threaded attachment discs for the ten zinc anodes that will be bolted onto the hull after it is all painted.
These zinc discs are how we protect all the various dissimilar metals on Möbius which range from Stainless Steel, to Bronze to Aluminium and several others, from Galvanic Corrosion which is what occurs when two or more dissimilar metals are immersed in an electrolyte such as sea water.
Referred to as “sacrificial” anodes Zinc is one of the least “Noble” of metals and so it will ‘sacrifice’ itself by corroding first and thus protecting the other metals. As these Zincs wear away with corrosion they are easy to replace with new ones.
Zincs come in all shapes and sizes and we’ve decided to go with the more streamlined round disc shaped ones so Uğur quickly made up ten of these 80mm/” 3 diameter discs of 20mm / 3/4” thick AL and then welded them along the length of the hull.
This one will help protect the Rudder and its shaft.
BTW, the oval plate you see tacked in place near the leading edge of the Rudder is for the through hole in the Rudder which allows us to much more easily remove the prop shaft should that ever be neccessary by turning the Rudder hard over and letting the prop shaft slide through it so there is no need to remove the Rudder.
The tacked on plates covering this hole on either side allow the paint crew can cover this with Epoxy filler and create a smooth sleek shape to the Rudder for maximum performance.
Two more, one on either side, of the Keel and Prop Shaft Skeg and then six more matched pairs along the length of the hull up to just aft of the Bow Thruster tunnels at the Bow.
First order of business for the Paint Crew was to fully “tent” the bottom of the hull with plastic sheets. This is both to keep dust out from other work going on in the shipyard and keep in any overspray when they are spraying on the Bottom Paint.
![PXL_20210120_152624200[4]](https://i2.wp.com/mobius.world/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/PXL_20210120_1526242004_thumb.jpg?resize=404%2C538&ssl=1 "PXL_20210120_152624200[4]")
The other reason for the tenting is to control the temperature and humidity of the hull which is done by this air heating system that is sealed onto the plastic tent sides.
We have been having a bit of a cold snap the past week here in Antalya with night time temps dipping down to 4C / 38F so we needed to bring the temperature of the AL hull up to < 15C / 60F for painting and filling. Getting warmer, just a few more degrees to go.
Plastic all taped down to the concrete floors to seal everything in/out and it was paint time!
Azad, standing on the Left is Naval’s Master Painter and Ali on the Right and Mehmet kneeling on the Left round out our Paint Crew who where meeting here to go over the painting application process.
You learn the hard way that it is not advisable to mix various different brands of paint so everything from the first coat of etching primer to the filler and the final InterSleek 100SR Topcoat is all from International Paints. I have had excellent success with International paint on our previous boat so I wanted to continue to “go with what you know” for critical things like Bottom Paint.
As you may recall, Ali and Mehmet had spent all last week sanding down all the AL hull surfaces to remove the AL oxide that naturally forms on raw AL and they gave it all a quick light sand, wiped it all down with acetone thinners and clean white rags and Möbius was ready to have her Bottom painted!
I prefer rolling on the primer rather than spraying as I think it improves the critical initial adhesion. All the welds will be filled and sanded so as to create a completely smooth surface for minimal resistance when slithering through the sea.
So these areas received the first coat of White InterPrime 820 which is a high performance, high build epoxy primer specifically formulated for underwater Al surfaces that will have epoxy filler applied on top.
Once all the welds and other areas that will have Epoxy filter applied were covered in the White 820 primer, Ali & Mehmet rolled on the Bronze coloured InterPrime 450 which is optimized for maximum water barrier and long term anticorrosive protection.
And in just a few hours they had all the AL underwater surfaces fully covered with their first coat of Epoxy primer.
Once they had all the AL covered with the initial coat of Epoxy primers, they could start mixing up the epoxy filler and smooth that onto all the welds to create smooth hydrodynamic surfaces for the water to flow over.
Mehmet and Ali have painted and filled a LOT of boats so they are eXtremely fast and efficient at applying this first coat of filler.
This first coat provides the majority of the filler needed to smooth out all the welds and then after it is fully hardened they will take their long boards and orbital sanders to smooth out all the surfaces and add any more filler needed to make each surface perfectly smooth. Having smooth flat and curved surfaces not only makes the hull much more slippery, it also makes it easiest for us to clean when we dive the boat every few months to wipe off any growth that has formed from sitting at anchor for long periods.
In this photo we can see two good examples of this such as the exit from the Bow Thruster tunnel and the nicely coved welds between the thick Keel Bar and the hull plates on the very bottom.
Clean water flow over the CPP propeller and the Rudder are two other eXtremely important areas so all the welds and transitions receive a good coating of filler so they can be sanded into smooth gentle curves for the final paint to go on top.
Be sure to join us here next week when the sanding, filling and primer continues.
EMERGENCY TILLER
With their work done outside the boat, Nihat and Uğur moved inside to build and install the Emergency Tiller. This is another one of those bits of kit that we hope never to use but are always glad to have just in case.
![PXL_20210118_151755877[3]](https://i0.wp.com/mobius.world/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/PXL_20210118_1517558773_thumb.jpg?resize=404%2C304&ssl=1 "PXL_20210118_151755877[3]")
I designed the whole Tiller Arm to be eXtremely simple and eXtremely robust so you can see how the Tiller Arm itself has been machined from a single solid block of aluminium which clamps around the 127mm / 5” OD AL Rudder Shaft. We extended the top of the Rudder Shaft up above the Tiller Arm and milled a large 80mm / 3” hole in it for a 2.3m / 7.5ft thick walled AL pipe to slide into.
To help support this Emergency Tiller pipe, Uğur is bolting this 20mm / 3/4” thick AL plate to the front wings of the Tiller Arm
This provides plenty of leverage to the Emergency Tiller pipe so it can provide more than enough power to turn and hole the Rudder in position in even the most demanding of rough water conditions.
Almost finished here, just need to put some holes in those two AL tabs on the front of the Tiller pipe so that we can fasten two Dyneema block and tackle setups between the end of the Tiller and the side frames of the hull to keep the Rudder in whatever position needed and to be able to steer the boat smoothly by letting one block out and pulling the other in.
We will test it out on sea trials and then stow it hoping to never need to bring it out again, but it does help us SWAN or Sleep Well At Night knowing it is there.
Mr. Gee puts his Jackets On
Mr. Gee got some attention this past week as well when I found the time to install all of the insulation jackets covering all the SS dry stack pipes of his Halyard exhaust system. This is what his dry stack looks like when it is “naked” and with the aft two of the support braces installed.
And this is what it looks like as I started dressing him up with his class Gray insulation jackets.
As they did with the whole exhaust system, Oliver and his talented team at Halyard in the UK did a fabulous job building this set of jackets that wrap the entire dry stack portion of the eXhaust to keep the heat out of the Engine Room until it has the sea water injected into it and cool everything down as it enters that large White Silencer/Water Separator just visible on the far upper Left.
This is a stack of the little mini jackets that wrap around each connection joint of the three main jackets and ensure that no heat escapes out these joints.
The bulk of the insulation value comes from that White fluffy material you can see running the length of these inside surfaces and with a thin SS mesh sewn in to keep it all in place. Then thick canvas like material is sewn into each end of each jacket so that each joint is very tight and no air can flow in or out.
The outer jacket material is very soft and supple to your hand yet fully fireproof and adds another layer of insulation. Cords are sewn into packets along both outer edges so that you can cinch each jacket up tight where it wraps around the jacket underneath.
Double D-Rings on the center straps make it easy to wrap the jacket around the pipe and cinch them down tightly around the circumference of each pipe and pull the straps tight.
I started by wrapping the first long vertical jacket on the far Right here followed by the second short curved jacket that butts up to the vertical one around the elbow to make the transition to the long horizontal jacket I have partly fastened in place here.
With all three of the longer jackets all strapped down I now wrap one of these narrower jackets around each joint where the inner jackets meet to fully seal in all those joints. You can see the first narrow jacket fully cinched down around the end of the vertical jacket and the bottom of the elbow and I’m about to wrap the next one around the joint between the horizontal jacket and the elbow jacket.
Very much a KISSS Keep It Simple Safe & Smart system which I am very pleased with. Keeps most of the heat inside the exhaust system and out of the Engine Room, Safe to be around such hot components with little danger of grabbing or falling against such eXtremely hot parts and easy to remove to check or do maintenance. Well done Halyard!
CPP PITCH GAUGE SENDER
Hilmi also spent some time in the ER this past week installing this bronze Kobelt Pitch sensor on the Nogva CPP Gearbox.
Very similar to a Rudder angle sensor, the Bronze arm with the spacers taped onto will be connected to the lever on the Nogva that changes the Pitch of the CPP prop blades. This data is then sent out that Black cable and up to the CPP Pitch gauges at each Helm station as well as being put onto the boat data network that we can view on any screen from our phones and tablets up to the big boat monitors.
HOUSE BATTERY BANKS FINISHED
Hilmi and I also spent some time in the Basement and were able to finish the four House Battery Banks under the floors down there. Each bank consists of four FireFly Carbon Foam 4V @ 450Ah batteries wired in Series to create a 24V @ 450Ah bank. Each of these four banks are wired directly into the main DC High Amperage Distribution Panel above them.
The bottom six 4V batteries are Bank #1 located in the Aft most battery compartment which is under the floor and goes down to the very bottom of the hull along each side of the 25mm thick Keel Bar that runs the length of the boat. Each compartment is sealed in with 6mm AL floor plates and rubber gaskets.
Starting to tidy up all the wiring in Bank #2 at the bottom and #3 on top. Red/Black cables are the positive and negative cables each 250mm2 which is about 4/0 AWG size to ensure that we have no less than 2% voltage drop in any of these cables.
The Gray wires connect a variety of temperature sensors to each battery bank so we can monitor the temperature of each individual bank as well as the ambient temperature of the Battery Compartments which are vented in/out with thermostatically controlled fans. The temperature data is not only for our eyes but is also fed directly to the Victron BMV 712C Smart Shunt battery monitors which is in turn used to set the charging rates from any of the five MultiPlus Inverter/Chargers so that their battery charging is fully optimized.
Last to be worked on Bank #4 we are about to connect up the large cables and sensors gives you a less obscured view of the thick Copper positive cable take off with the T-Class fuse that the cable bolts to and the Victron battery temperature sensor under the bolt to the positive terminal of the battery.
Back up in Banks @ & 3 the cables are all now fully secured with zip ties and you can see the simple battery hold down system we came up with by cutting those shaped blocks of composite foam that wedge each battery firmly in place when the gasketed lid is bolted down.
After one last check of the BMV battery monitors and double checked all the connections, the penetration in the top center section atop all the battery compartments could be filled with special fireproof filler to fully seal the compartments and firmly hold each wire and cable in place.
Stepping back a bit to show you the lid being bolted down over Banks #2 & 3 and that now sealed penetration with all the big Red/Black cables coming out of the Battery Compartments and directly into the High Amp DC Distribution box on the upper Left. One of two 120V MultiPlus Inverter/Chargers seen on the Right, three more 240V MultiPlus’ are on the opposite side.
Möbius is now all powered up which is yet another big milestone for us.
SHOWER TEAK FLOORS ARE IN
Orkan and Ali finished building the three sections of Teak flooring for both Showers and moved them onto the boat this past week.
This is the Shower in the Guest Cabin showing off its beautiful new Teak floor. If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) you can see how the edges are relieved with a 15mm/5/8” gap away from the walls which is here the water falls down to the shower pan below and then out the drain into the Grey Water tanks.
Each floor section is removable for cleaning and maintenance.
Same design up in the Master Head.
With a second floor panel in the connected Shower.
All coming together very nicely if I do say so myself and the combination of materials and colours are very pleasing to our eyes and seem to be able to keep up with those artfully etched glass walls.
Last bit of Teak is the permanently affixed panel that goes on top of the seat in the Master Shower to help keep you from slipping when sitting so Ali got right to work at that.
Ali and Orkan do all the Teak deck work at Naval so they too have LOTS of practice and make this all happen very quickly.
SUPERSALON SUPERING ALONG
Up in the SuperSalon, Nihat and Uğur finished mounting the Llebroc Main Helm Chair to the now finished Ado LVT vinyl floor.
In eXtreme sea conditions the forces on these pedestal bases can be high in the eXtreme so they are bolted through 60mm / 2.5” thick solid laminated blocking under the flooring and thru the Aluminium floors into 15mm thick AL reinforcement plates in the ceiling of the Basement.
I took this shot while briefly sitting in the fully mounted Helm Chair with the camera lens held at eye height to give you an idea of the view forward from the Main Helm. It is a bit cluttered up there on the Bow right now as Christine is finishing off all the Dyneema lifelines and Uğur is putting in the Dorade Cowls, but you can still see how much visibility we have when conning the boat from this Main Helm Station.
And here is one of the silicone cowls on the four Dorade boxes on the front deck. These ensure that we always have plenty of fresh air circulating in our Master Cabin even in rough breaking seas when we would not be able to have the hatches open. Ventilation on an XMP type of boat is critical for two of our four priorities; Comfort and Safety.
Each White/Red silicone cowl can also be rotated 360 degrees by just loosening that notched Gray ring at the base and then tightening it back down. Any water that gets into the cowl simply flows out those slots in the bottom of the AL Dorade Box and none can get down the 100mm / 4” AL vent pipes going down into the Master Cabin.
Uğur and I worked together to install the locking latches in the large hinged hatch in the SuperSalon that gives you access to the Basement below. Ramazon had finished laying down all the LVT vinyl flooring so we could now cut out the recesses for the two SS locking latches for lifting up and locking down this big hatch.
We were running a bit short handed so we had to call in this foreign help and he worked out so-so.
I just love my little Milwaukee 18V router and it made short work of routing out the recesses in the vinyl flooring and underlying plywood for the SS latches to fit into and be flush with the flooring.
It was a bit tricky as the recesses needed to be multiple depths for the different steps in the base of the SS latches as you can see here.
We cut out little cardboard temples you can see in these photos and used them mark out the floor and then I could carefully sneak the router up to those lines.
On the underside of the Hatch these SS levers turn to engage into slots on the frame and ensure that the hatch stays fully closed and could not fly open if we were to ever roll over.
TENDER is READY to GO ONBOARD Möbius
As I mentioned in the intro, Christine and I spent the day yesterday (Saturday Jan 23, 2021) at the shipyard as we wanted to get the Tender ready to be loaded onto the Aft Deck of Möbius just before the boat mover takes Möbius over to be launched. Uğur and Nihat had finished the hull last month and now we needed to get the jet drive installed and the Yanmar engine in place before lifting the Tender onto the Aft Deck.
Earlier in the week the Fenders we had ordered over a month ago showed up and are great to have so we can install them soon. It took a lot of searching but we finally found a Turkish company making these very industrial grade rubber fenders for bit Pilot Boats, Tugs and docks which were just what we were looking for.
If you look closely in the rendering above you can see how we have designed these fenders to wrap all around the upper edge of the hull which will enable us to easily rub up against rough docks and concrete walls as well as use the Tender as we intend to as a “tug” for moving Möbius around or helping out other boats.
Not sure when I will have time to install these but I’ll show you when it does happen.
I will likely install a row of these on the stern of Möbius as well so we would be able to similarly push up against a rough concrete wall with no damage or concerns.
We started by disassembling my hydraulic hoist up in my workshop at Naval and moved it down to the shipyard so we could use it to lift our Castoldi 224 DD jet drive and Yanmar 4JH4 TE 110HP diesel inboard engine into the Tender.
I designed the hinged lid on top of the Engine Bay in the Tender so it would go well over center when fully raised but we tied it on just to be safe as we had to lift the Tender up quite a bit to be able to get the jet drive in from underneath.
Always great to have a fully rigid and solid aluminium boat hull and so it was a piece of cake to wrap a length of webbing around the Swim Platform and attach the end of the hoist to this to life the whole aft end of the Tender off the floor. This hoist is just SO handy to have and I’ll be taking it with us when we go as it all comes apart and stores very small.
Equally handy and coming with us are these jack stands which I’ve had for probably 30+ years and worked just fine to prop the Tender up above the floor so we could slide the Castoldi jet drive home from underneath.
We had done a dry fit of the Jet Drive into the Tender when we were building the hull and then stored it, upside down here, it the wood crate it had been shipped in. Now it was time to flip him over and get him permanently installed and sealed into the hull.
”Are you SURE you know what you’re doing?!” asked the Captain which is not a new phrase from her as you might imagine.
Yet another super handy tool is my little car floor jack and it worked well to balance the Jet Drive on and then jack up into the Castoldi supplied AL frame that had been welded into the bottom of the hull.
We first did one last dry fit just to make doubly sure that all the holes I had drilled in the thick transom plate and the bottom flange in the hull and then lowered it back down to clean all the mating surfaces with Acetone.
Then squeezed on a good bead of Sikaflex 291i structural adhesive on all the mating surfaces.
Then slide it home one last time and insert the SS bolts
and torque them all down.
With the Jet Drive now all bolted in place we could now install the two cylinders on either side. Port/Left side is the cylinder that moves the jet nozzle and steers the boat.
Starboard/Right cylinder moves this bucket that sits overtop of the flow of water coming out of the jet and redirects in whatever direction you wish to go forward, reverse or sideways.
The whole installation went very smoothly and the Jet Drive was now fully in place.
Next up………….. unboxing and installing our four cylinder Yanmar 4JH4 TE 110HP diesel inboard engine that has never even been out of the box he shipped in.
After some initial concerns that the motor in our Tender would be three times more powerful than the Yanmar in her last 33’ Caliber sailboat, the Captain seems to be warming to the driving force in our Tender.
It took some work to find the model I wanted which s this one with all direct mechanical fuel injection rather than ECU controlled common rail but thanks to the super helpful Yanmar dealer at Denpar Marine here, this is just what I wanted.
I have used this same hoist to lift all of Mr. Gee’s 1200Kg / 2650 lbs many times during his full factory rebuild so lifting the mere 217Kg/ 478lb Yanmar was a piece of cake.
We rolled the Yanmar around to the Stbd side and then under the hull and it dropped right onto the 25mm / 1” thick AL engine beds welded into the hull.
The Yanmar has landed!
With so many other priorities on our plates this will be good enough for now to just have the Yanmar sitting on the Engine Beds and I’ll get back to bolting the motor mounts in properly later.
This engine and jet drive are a matched pair that Castoldi put together so it came as a very complete system that I am very pleased with.
This is a Direct Drive jet drive so there is a short cardon shaft (drive shaft) that connects the output shaft from the Yanmar to the input of the Castoldi which makes alignment and connection all very simple and this is all work that I can do after we launch and have the Tender on the Aft Deck of Möbius.
But for now, this closes the door on our Tender and she is now all ready for the crane to lift it onto the Aft Deck of Möbius just before the boat mover shows up to carry Möbius over to the harbour and LAUNCH!!!
Can’t let myself be distracted by that excitement yet as there is still SO MUCH to do before she is ready to launch but there is definitely light at the end of this looooooong and winding tunnel!
So do stay tuned for the big finale folks, it IS getting closer and closer and we would be delighted to take you along with us over the finish line! I’m sure that many of you are feeling like this journey would never end and we sincerely thank you for sticking with us and for all your contributions of questions and suggestions that have been so helpful along the way and PLEASE do keep them coming by typing them into the “Join the Discussion” box below and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.
-Wayne
While they can be found in shops almost everywhere, we wanted the Goldilocks Just Right version of Nazar Boncuğu and last week Christine spotted these two beauties in a specialty glass shop in Antalya and knew that these were it! 
In many ways, this whole adventure began back in March 2015 when Christine and I were making the 3000nm passage from Majuro in the Marshall Islands, down to Suva in Fiji. 
We had spent almost a year in Majuro which we are very much looking forward to returning to on our previous 52ft steel sailboat Learnativity and we had an awemazing 3 week passage down to …..
. ………. Suva with stops along the way at the island nations of Kiribati and Tuvalu along the way.
I had given Christine a copy of Robert Beebe’s “passagemaking bible” Voyaging Under Power and she was reading it on the passage down to Fiji and we would discuss it a lot as we sailed south. Over the course of that 2+ week passage, we both became more and more aware of just how different passagemaking under power would be compared to sailing which we both knew and loved so much. 
Perhaps it has been thanks to those two Turkish Evil Eyes being onboard that we have been on a solution per week schedule and the first two problems had been resolved in the previous two weeks, and I am delighted to report that as of last night (Saturday 27th March here) Ismail and I have the Pitch Angle gauges working and mounted back where they belong at each Helm Station! We have tested all this with here at the dock Mr. Gee thrumming away and our Nogva CPP churning the clear waters underneath making Möbius tug at her dock lines. Once all the other critical jobs have been finished such as finishing the deck hatches so they all close and seal properly, finishing and testing the fire hose and a still rather long punch list of other jobs, we will be *almost* good to go!
And as you can see here, some of those moving parts are often crowded around Captain Christine at the Main Helm in this case! Yunus on the far Right is the the manager of this connection and configuration team and Erdal with the toque in the middle is the lead technician and they have been a true treat to work with.
Some of the “moving parts” are blinking lights such as this set on the back of just three of our network switches in one of three “Internet Alcoves” as Christine calls them. Strange though, we have “cut the cord” more than most people ashore and Isn’t it great that we are living in a wireless world!
Zooming out a bit of that alcove to show you that it really is quite small but it does have even more hardware!
Another very “wireless” alcove, this one behind the 50” monitor and home of Boat Computer #1 and the Synology NAS on the Left side of the Main Helm.
Out on the Aft Deck looking up at the Main Arch and the Tender Davit on the Left, to show you yet another very “wireless” area along the Arch where all of our external navigation and communication equipment resides.
My favorite Geekette, aka Capn’ Christine aka my Beautiful Bride, is a wee bit shy but I was able to at least get her hand in this shot as she tilts the two 19” LiteMax screens at the Main Helm to show how she now has TimeZero running charts on the Left and an awemazing amount of detail of the seabed below us thanks to our Furuno BBDS “Black Box Bottom Discriminating Sounder” where we can watch individual fish swimming below Möbius’ hull and details of the composition of the sea bead down to about 75 feet below the “top of the bottom”. 
I will leave you with this shot of the view at your eye height when sitting in the Captain’s Chair here at the Main Helm. Now, if we can just get past that sea wall …………………..
![PXL_20210120_152624200[4]](https://i2.wp.com/mobius.world/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/PXL_20210120_1526242004.jpg?ssl=1 "PXL_20210120_152624200[4]")
![PXL_20210118_151755877[3]](https://i0.wp.com/mobius.world/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/PXL_20210118_1517558773.jpg?ssl=1 "PXL_20210118_151755877[3]")
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