by Wayne | Mar 22, 2020 | Boat building, Cabinetry, Electrical, Electrical Systems, Fuel System, Interior, Interior, Navigation, Plumbing, Steering, Systems, The Gardner |
Last Sunday, the 15th, upon our return from London for Christine’s B’day weekend we very willingly joined many of you I suspect as members of the Self Isolation Club or SIC as I’ve been calling it. As my cousin Donna who is also a member of SIC in their home over in Doha pointed out, this is not a very exclusive club anymore unfortunately. Christine and I are very grateful to be together through all this and to be in our wonderful apartment here in Antalya which so far seems to be one of the better spots to be in the world. Antalya has an extremely large and modern medical infrastructure in part because this is a “medical tourism” destination and in part because Turkey has a very good medical infrastructure staffed by world class health professionals.
While not being able to be at Naval Yachts and working on Möbius is a challenge, it is a very minor one compared to our challenges with being so far from our family, children and grandchildren who do not appear to be in as good a location in Florida, California and British Columbia. Christine and I are both feeling very good, are fit and in good health and most appreciative of our situation. We sincerely hope that all of you reading this are finding your ways to be safe, happy and healthy as we all weather this latest storm in our lives and remind ourselves, as we do when in severe storms on passages that “This too
shall pass”.
Here in Turkey closures of schools, restaurants and the like happened early this week and those who can are being encouraged to work from home. However the rest of the work force continued to go to work this past week and we will have to wait and see what next week brings. With thanks again to Yigit, Uğur and Hakan for sending me all their photos each day this week, I am also fortunate to be able to bring you this week’s Progress Update and as usual Team Möbius has been very productive so let’s go for a virtual tour of their hard work.
Mr. Gee Gardner 6LXB
Mr. Gee, which is what we call our Gardner 6LXB diesel engine, usually appears near the end of previous Weekly Progress Updates so let’s check in on him first this week. Actually these photos are from the week previous when I had time to give all the large cast aluminium parts their first finish coats of high them aluminium paint.
The ribbed oil pan is in the bottom right, crankcase in the center and the two flywheel housings hanging in the background.
I had been thinking of just leaving the aluminium parts bare after sandblasting them thoroughly but I like a very clean engine and the cast aluminium can be a bit porous so I decided to cover all the aluminium with more aluminum in the form of powdered aluminium based paint.
This is a silicone based paint that is specially formulated to withstand temps up to 300 C/ 572 F. I’m very pleased with the results and next week when I can hopefully go back to Naval I will give these all one more coat of aluminium paint and then finish it off with a clear coat to seal it all fully.
This is the Port/Left side of the crankcase casting that is the “service side” of the Gardner as the factory photo below shows ……………
………. how this is the side that has most of the engines parts that you access when servicing such as the fuel injection pump which is mounted with those two circular clamps you see above, fuel and oil filters, alternator, etc.
Click to enlarge if you’d like to read the basic technical specs on the Gardner 6LXB.
These two castings enclose the huge heavy flywheel and that flat surface on the Left one facing this photos is where it bolts to the aft end of the crankcase. The housing on the Right has a SAE bolt pattern flange which matches the one on the Nogva CPP Controllable Pitch Propeller gearbox.
More on Mr. Gee as soon as my SIC membership expires and I can get back to work.
Even though he is one of the most efficient diesel engines ever to be mass produced, Mr. Gee needs a good steady supply of clean diesel fuel so we are building an extensive set of fuel filtering systems that include a pair of 2 stage Fleetguard filters, water separators, a fuel transfer and polishing system and a full Alfa Laval centrifuge that can convert even the dirtiest fuel into crystal clear diesel.
This requires a series of manifolds and ball valves such as this pair in the Basement for transferring fuel from any one tank to any other. Now we need about four more manifolds for the fuel transfer system, fuel polishing and Day Tank.
So the Machine Shop has been busy making these out of blocks of solid 75mm/3” square aluminium which they drill out and tap with NPT pipe threads for the SS ball valves. You’ll see more of these as Cihan starts installing them in the Workshop.
PLUMBING:
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In the meantime though, Cihan is busy plumbing in all the fuel and water lines in the Workshop and Engine Room. This is looking forward at the Day Tank on the Stbd/Right side of the Workshop with the ER wall on the Left. You can see the water and fuel lines in the vertical trays on the Right and running across the ceiling and down to the ball valves atop the Day Tank.
The area between the Day Tank and the Stbd hull is starting to be well populated as the various “highways” of support trays for fuel, water and electrical cables intersect. The horizontal trays here are carrying electrical cables through the penetrations in the WT Bulkhead you can see at the far end.
Vertical hoses are fuel and water hoses.
When all the hoses or cables are in, these penetrations are sealed to be fully watertight with a White special certified caulking compound you can see in this penetration under the workbench you see in the photo above.
Down below the Day Tank we can see more of Cihan’s handiwork with these water hoses which make the turn into the penetration through the ER Enclosure wall on the Left.
The clear hoses are bringing sea water from the intake Sea Chest in the ER back to the Watermaker low pressure Feed Pump and the Circulation Pump for the Webasto BlueCool Chiller.
Those water hoses run aft into these ball valves which direct sea water supply and return lines from the Watermaker Low Pressure Feed Pump and the AirCon Chiller Circulation Pump.
With the ball valves installed Cihan mounts that SW Circulation Pump to the mount he has previously welded in place.
As with all pumps and motors, this is mounted with these vulcanized vibration absorbing mounts.
Cihan also has both Deck Wash pumps mounted and plumbed. This is the pump for the Sea Water Deck Wash with its clear filter covered with the white latex glove. The Fresh Water Deck Wash pump is on the far Left of this shot.
EXHAUST SYSTEM:
Yigit has been extremely busy managing all this work as well as designing and modeling all our systems and this past week we worked with the engineers at Halyard to finalise the design of our wet exhaust system and have them build and ship that to us ASAP.
We have refined it a bit more but the earlier rendering below is close to the final design that Halyard is now starting to build.
Gardner engine is shown in the blue silhouette with the Red Nogva CPP gearbox in the bottom Right. Exhaust gases exit vertically out of the Gardner and then run across the horizontal pipe to the blue mixing elbow where seawater is injected to cool and quiet as they collect in the large Silencer/separator on the Left.
Water is then separated and exits out the bottom into the Sea Chest while the cooled gases flow through the rubber S-shaped exhaust hose running down and out through the ER wall and over to the exhaust pipe exiting the hull above the WL
I will show more once we start installing the exhaust system.
ELECTRICAL:
I don’t have too many pictures of Hilmi’s progress this week but we have been frequently connected via WhatsApp and he’s been continuing to install more and more of the Maretron BB’s Black Boxes and N2K cables.
For example, he and Cihan installed this new AL panel to mount the multiple Maretron BB’s in the Basement and is now busy wiring them up with their N2K cables and wiring from sensors for Bilge High Water and fuel tank levels.
One of the many networks on the boat is the one for all the Victron equipment which is the base of our AC and DC electrical systems. Victron is another one of those tried and true solutions for us so we went all Victron for things like inverters, chargers, isolation transformer, MPPT solar panel controllers, DC-DC converters, etc..
This is our Victron OctoGX, which we may swap out for the just released CerboGX and these both serve as a central communications device to bring all the inputs and outputs together and enable us to closely monitor all aspects of our electrical system.
If you’re interested in more details, click HERE to see the new video from Victron that does a nice job of explaining the many functions of these devices.
On the XPM’s or any long range passage maker boat, this level of monitoring is critical as we literally live off of our electrical system and the consequences of losing any part of it can have eXtremely severe consequences for us. So these comm centers put pool all the data from all the devices and allow us to know right away when anything changes.
In addition to the high dependency on the electrical system components, they also tend to be high initial cost items which we expect to work continuously for at least ten years so just as with human health, keeping our electrical system and all its many components all in top shape and catching any changes and problems early is key to long life spans for these devices.
Hilmi has also been installing other electric components such as these 12V and 24V DC distribution blocks. We have these spread throughout the boat wherever we might want to power 12V and 24V devices.
In addition to the 8 port model above, these also come in round 2 port models where fewer such DC connections are needed so we use a mix of both.
We tend to hide this inside cupboards and drawers or below countertops or desk tops to make cable management easier and keep them out of the way.
These blocks are very well made and require a single 12 of 24V DC power input which is then distributed to each of the Anderson Powerpole plug in sockets which are individually fused with an standard ATC blade fuse. The block can handle up to 40 Amps which is more than enough for the various chargers, LED lights, fans, radios, and other DC powered devices. Also super handy to have near my workbenches in the Workshop and my Boat’s Office.
ALUMINIUM TEAM:
Uğur, standing, Nihat, kneeling, and Okan had a very busy week with their typically varied set of jobs such as continuing to install the many doors in the two Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck.
This is the Stbd/Right side Vent Box which looks after all the Extraction air venting and ducting.
Door on the far Left and Right access storage areas. Upper Middle frame is for the Extraction air from the Engine Room and Lower Middle frame is for the Extraction Air from the workshop, both with large axial fans built in.
Both tops will soon have their AL plates welded on and a bit later these will be covered with some of the Aquamarine Marble countertop surfaces. Taller countertop on the Left will be left as is and the electric BBQ Grille mounts into the lower counter surface on the Right.
The opposite Port Vent Box will be a single level marble countertop with a built in sink. Should make for a great Outdoor Galley.
They also whipped up this bracket for the Manual Hydraulic Steering Pump that will be installed inside the Main Helm.
This will secure the Kobelt 7012 Helm Pump which is connected via hydraulic hoses to the Kobelt 7080 steering cylinders. We will keep a traditional steering wheel stored nearby that can slide onto the 7012’s keyed shaft and enable us to steer the boat manually.
However this wheel will rarely be in place as this is only a last resort backup steering in case either of other two independent 24V steering systems, AutoPilots and cylinders should ever fail completely.
The small gray hole in the center of this rough rendering of the Main Helm Area is where this steering wheel will be inserted if ever needed.
SOLAR PANELS!
However what stole the show excitement wise this week is this!
The first three of our 14 solar panels are now being fitted. These three 295W panels will be mounted to the frame you’ve seen being built in past weeks. The frame is hinged on its aft end just in front of the center window of the SkyBridge giving it two modes:
1. Locked down in about the position you see here when we are on passage.
2. Tilted up to be horizontal when at anchorage for both maximum solar gain AND to act as a giant wind funnel directing the breezes over the Bow to the big vertical vent Green Mist Eliminator grill you can see in this rough render.
The three panels are fastened into the hinged AL frame.
Once in place each panel butts up tight against each other to form a single continuous solar surface.
Front two panels in place.
and then there were three!
In addition to these three 295W hinged panels, there are 8 more 320W fixed panels atop the SkyBridge Roof and then three more 320W panels on the Aft Roof which cantilevers overtop the Outdoor Galley on the Aft Deck.
The combined output of all 14 panels gives us a theoretical total of 4405Wp. We won’t know the actual output until we get out and can do some real world testing but being very conservative if we have the upper 8 panels working at 85% capacity and the three front and back working at 30% capacity a 5 hour solar day would generate about 13.6 kWh and a 7 hour solar day would generate about 19.1kWh
Each of our 14 solar panels have their own dedicated Victron 100/20 SmartSolar MPPT controller to maximize their output and give us the most control over losses from any shading of any one panel from nearby structures such as the SkyBridge Roof, Arch, Radar, etc. If multiple solar panels are connected in series to a single MPPT controller then the shading of any one panel reduces the output of all the others as well.
Here’s the “powerful” view from the SkyBridge.
Meanwhile down below all our “chippies” on the Cabinetmaking Teams have had another very productive week so let’s go check that out.
MASTER CABIN:
Şevki and Selim continue to build out the Master Cabin. All the Green/Gray leather wall panels on the Port/Left side are now snapped in place.
All the ceiling panels are removable with FastMount clips holding them in place. The ceiling grid has now been installed and they are installing the White FastMount female sockets you can see in the foreground and then two of the rough cut ceiling panels have been snapped in place behind.
View from the entrance into the Master Cabin looking forward to see that the rest of the rough cut ceiling panels have now been fitted and snapped in place.
Hmmmmm, what do you think we are witnessing here?
Aha! The Bosch Washing Machine has arrived and is now setting on the Master Bed frame awaiting installation in its cabinet on the front Stbd/Right side.
It took quite some time but Buse persevered and was able to source a British version of this Bosch Washing machine Christine had picked out so that the engraved text is in English rather than Turkish. (click to enlarge)
We are now quite used to the Turkish terms that are on the washing machine in our apartment for over 2 years now but still nice to have this all in English for our aging brains and others who might be using this.
Thanks Buse!!
Oh, and yes, of course the washer has to have WiFi for my Gorgeous Geekette!
We received this exciting photo on Friday as they put in the Rosewood stair risers for the first time. This is the spiraling stairwell leading up from the Master Cabin to the SuperSalon which we will go look at next.
Before we leave the Master Cabin though let’s go look at what Faruk and Osma have been up to in the Master Head & Shower.
They picked up where the left off last week with filling all the joints between the fiberglass panels that form all the surfaces of the floor, ceiling and walls. As you may recall from last week, they tape off each joint with two different layers of tape so they can put on two layers of grout to create a nicely radiused corner.
This past week they put in the 2nd layer with the final radiused corner and once dry they carefully wet sanded and polished the gel coat filled resin compound they use for the grout which creates a polished and seamless interior.
With the joints all filled and sanded they could now install the lower sink cabinet and the base for the VacuFlush toilet you see on the Right with the patch of blue painters tape to protect the surface as they cut the hole for the toilet base.
SUPER SALON:
Continuing up the stairs from the Master Cabin, Omur and Selim are now installing the rest of the Main Helm cabinetry with this section overtop of the Master Cabin door. There will be a Black leather covered triangular lid atop the space to the right of Ömür’s hand which will lift up to access the surprisingly large storage space underneath.
That allows Selim to start fitting the side panel which makes the corner transition from the panel above the door and caries on below the windowsill on the far Stbd/Right side of the stairway.
Stepping back towards the centerline of the boat, let’s turn clockwise for a series of shots to see the layout of all the areas that make up the Super Salon.
Looking directly towards the Port/Left side of the SuperSalon shows the Main Helm on the far Left, Master Cabin stairs to the right of that, then the Dinette Settee and the front half of the Galley Cabinets on the Right.
Turning to look at the Aft Port/Left corner of the SuperSalon shows the whole wrap around set of connected Galley cupboards.
Which you can see much better if I zoom in on the Galley at bit more.
Continuing to turn clockwise you can see the stairs leading up to the Aft Deck in the background on the Right.
The taller cabinet on the far Right side where the two 130L Vitrifrigo SS upright fridges will soon be installed and to the Right of that is the shorter more recessed cabinets where the twin Vitrifrigo 70L drawer Freezers will soon be parked.
Rotating a bit more reveals the opening for the 50” SmarTV/monitor cabinet.
One more twist to the Right lets us see the Main Helm cabinetry.
And one final twist to complete the full 360 photo tour we are back to the stairwell down to the Master Cabin with the Settee on the Right.
Here’s a different perspective of the SuperSalon looking straight ahead at the Main Helm while standing at the base of the stairs down from the Aft Deck.
The large open hatch in the center provides access into the huge Basement area which is under the entire area of the SuperSalon floor.
Off to the far Right of the photo above here is a sneak peek at the first of the Galley Garages which sit atop the marble countertops and I look forward to showing you the rest of these Garages as they are installed next week.
And of course, the Blue Horizon Line or BHL you first saw being installed last week, continues to go in all around the circumference of the SuperSalon.
More BHL running along the upper edge of the Settee.
BHL on the Port side along the upper edges of the Fridge and Freezer cabinets.
and starting to make its way around the Main Helm.
Whew! Even though our 14 day self isolation prevented me from being there at all this week, I’m exhausted just taking you on this photo tour! A big thanks again to Yigit, Yesim, Uğur, Hilmi and Hakan for keeping me so well connected to the build via WhatsApp text, video and photos all week and for providing me with all these photos so I can share it all with you.
With luck my membership in the Self Isolation Club hopefully expires next Sunday the 29th so I only have one more week until I can join Team Möbius at Naval Yachts. But in any case I will be back with here next weekend to bring you the latest Weekly Progress Update of XPM78-01 Möbius.
We sincerely hope that all of you joining us here are finding your own ways to be safe, healthy and happy and that perhaps we can assist a wee bit with your entertainment during these crazy times.
-Wayne
by Wayne | Mar 21, 2020 | Boat building, Cabinetry, Electrical, Electrical Systems, Interior, Interior, Navigation, Plumbing, Systems, The Gardner |
Sorry to keep you waiting so long for last week’s Progress Update as it is already time for me to be posting this week’s! I did manage to get one post up last weekend all about Captain Christine’s 2020 B’day Adventure so if you have not read that you might like to and it will help explain why I’m late getting this week’s update written and posted.
However just because we were away doesn’t mean that anyone else on Team Möbius at Naval Yachts were any less productive and perhaps even more so with no pesky owners to get in the way. And thanks to Yigit, Hakan and Uğur all taking pictures throughout my absence I have LOTS for this week’s Möbius Show & Tell, so let’s dive right in.
ALUMINIUM TEAM:
For no good reason I will go through the different teams in alphabetical order this week so let’s start wtih the Aluminium Works team of Uğur, Nihat and Okan,
Any guesses as to what Nihat is working on so happily?
Will it help to know that this is all 15mm/5/8” thick AL plate?
How about if I give you a sneak peek at one of last week’s New Arrivals?
For those who might not recognize it, this is a Lewmar EST65 EVO ELS 24V self tailing electric winch.
And it needs a very solid home up on the bow deck, hence the 15mm plate
This is where it will go, right alongside the big Forepeak Hatch with a rectangular cut-out in the underlying Anchor Deck plate for access to the motor.
Crescent shaped gussets on the Left ……..
……….. will be welded inside to tie the sides of this housing into the underlying frames like this.
The 15mm top plate will be flush with the upper deck surface and tied into both decks and the Forepeak Hatch so this will provide the eXtremely strong and rigid base for the huge forces this winch needs to withstand.
Pretty quick job for Uğur to run the first pass of welds.
Climbing down into the Forepeak and looking up through that rectangular cut-out you can see how this winch housing has been welded on the inside with the additional gussets welded in as well.
This winch will be quite the workhorse for us with multiple uses such as helping to raise and lower the SkyBridge folding roof, pulling in shore lines when docking in high winds, emergency retrieval of the anchor if the Windlass fails and general use to handle large loads on lines at the Bow.
With the Bow Winch housing all built they moved Aft and started fabricating all the doors and mist eliminator frames in the two Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck which you can see in this rendering.
These vent boxes provide the waterproof ducting for all the air going in/out of the Engine Room and Workshop and have been carefully designed such that they cannot downflood with seawater during a 360 degree roll over.
This is the Port/Left side Vent Box which is for all the intake air.
Stbd/Right side Vent box is for all extraction air.
The tops of these Vent Boxes will have marble countertops on them with a sink you can see here and a BBQ on the other side to create our outdoor Galley.
Nihat soon has the frame for this doorway tacked into the lower Port intake opening. You can see the intake pipe on the inside lower Right corner in this and the photo above.
This provides air for the Corridor and the Guest Shower so doesn’t need to be very large and we can use some of this area for storage if needed.
Fitting the vented door.
Over on the Stbd/Right side Vent Box, Nihat gets busy fabricating the frames for the doors and Extraction Air vents.
The electric BBQ Grill will be mounted on that lower surface on the Right side and a marble countertop on the Left.
More to follow next week as they finish off these Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck.
ELECTRICAL & NETWORKING:
Christine has added “Network Engineer & Designer” to her long list of titles and this is the current version of her overall network diagram.
It may look a bit confusing but the colours make it easy to see the different network types and having this overview is very helpful to see all the interconnections.
As per the legend at the bottom Blue is for the NMEA 2000 or N2K network, Red is the Ethernet network and Black is for “other” such as communications networks such as VHF radios, AIS and other proprietary wiring for things like cellular and WiFi networks.
This week Hilmi was focussed on installing all the Maretron “Black Boxes” and the multi-port blocks for the N2K backbone.
The N2K network is mostly used by our extensive Maretron monitoring system and as you can see in this diagram Christine has created with the very powerful Maretron N2K Builder app.
It is relatively straightforward conceptually with a continuous large blue “Backbone” cable that runs the length of the boat with all the Maretron devices and Black Boxes or BB, connected to it via T’s and Drop Cables.
Here in the Master Cabin for example, you can see how Hilmi has started to bring the Blue Backbone cable across the ceiling to bring it over from the Stbd to Port side.
Saying that we have an “eXtensive Maretron monitoring system” might be a wee bit of an understatement as this is just some of the Maretron N2K cables alone.
Here is what he is working on in the photo above which is in the cabinetry which is marked as “Master Cabin Stbd” in the Maretron diagram above if you want to follow along.
The upper Maretron BB is a Switch Indicator Module or SIM100 which will soon have six Bilge High Water sensors attached to it and the lower BB is a Fluid Pressure Monitor or FPM100 which will soon have six tank level sensors connected to it.
The bottom block is a Multi-Port which is basically a series of T’s all put together in this one block.
Mounting the BB Black Boxes and Multi-Ports is very quick and easy but it takes a bit longer to do all the cabling, especially when you take the care and attention which Hilmi does to run every wire “just right”, support them throughout their length and label each one.
The Red/Black wires going into each BB have the tank or bilge water sensors on the other end and bring their individual outputs to the BB which is then connected via a Grey Drop Cable into the Multi-Port which in turn is plugged into the Blue Backbone cable to carry all this data back and forth through the system.
With that done, Hilmi moves over to the Port side of the Master Bed labeled “Master Stateroom Port” on the Maretron diagram above and installs two more Maretron BB’s.
These are the same type BB’s as on the previous Stbd cupboard; one SIM100 for Bilge High Water sensors and one FPM100 for more tank level sensors and they start out like this …..
……. and then Hilmi works his magic and they are soon all wired up and look like this.
This is the home of our Aft Electrical Distribution Center which is starting to call Hilmi’s name as well so you will soon see him working his magic on these “plain” old AC and DC electrical wires and all their respective DIN rail circuit breakers so stay tuned for more from our Sparkies.
GUEST CABIN & SHIPS/WAYNE’s OFFICE:
Continuing our alphabetic run through, let’s to check out what Omer and Muhammed have been up to in the Guest Cabin area.
Omer has turned his attention to the Guest Shower and is busy prepping the foundation for the ceiling panel. Nice big hatch to bring in lots of light and fresh air when you are showering.
And remember that vent pipe you saw inside the Port Vent Box that Nihat was working on in the photos above? Well here you see the other end of it where it will connect to the ceiling with a diffuser.
Ceiling installed and the back wall will be next.
Once these have all been covered with 10mm marine plywood the Fiberglass Team will come in and glass all the walls, ceiling and floor into a seamless and fully sealed space the same as you’ve been seeing them do in the Master Cabin Head & Shower.
As you’ve seen elsewhere, where there are access ports to the integral fuel and water tanks below the floors, there will be a removable floor panel to provide access to these ports on the rare occasions when you need to get into a tank area for things like annual inspections.
Opposite the Shower is the Guest Head and Omer and Muhammed are now installing the Ro$ewood cabinetry that has just come back from the Finishing Shop gleaming with their fresh coats of hand rubbed PU varnish.
The sink sets atop the counter area on the far Right with the hole for the drain pipe visible here.
But that is quickly covered up with cardboard covers and blue tape to keep those surfaces clean and protected with the build goes on around them.
Cihan will soon be in here installing all the plumbing for hot and cold water, drains and toilet.
Outside of the Guest Shower & Head is “my” or the Ships Office and Corridor leading Aft to the Workshop on the Let here. Omer and Muhammed are now installing the desk and drawers that span this whole 2.5m/8’ long length.
Turning to look forward towards the stairs leading up to the SuperSalon and that Electrical Distribution Panel we saw earlier, you can see more drawers and “cubbies” on the Right side of the desk.
MASTER CABIN:
Moving forward into the Master Cabin we find Selim (Left) and Şevki busy working on the cabinetry in there. This is looking Aft at the stairs coming down from the SuperSalon with the Bureau of Drawers on the Left, King bed in the middle (covered with tools) and the floor area on the far Right side of this photo.
They too have been installing the cabinetry that is now flowing out of the Finishing Room as you can see with that beautiful long Rosewood panel along this Port side of the bed.
Wall panels are also now out of the Upholstery Shop and have been snapped in place with their FastMount clips.
This is what the back side of each panel looks like. The Black male FastMounts press into the White female sockets you can see in the far wall grid. This is a bit expensive but pays for itself many times over by providing very long lasting solidly mounted panels which don’t move or creak and yet clip out in seconds to provide access to systems behind.
The AirCon and Heating Air Handler will soon be installed in this bedside cabinet and the forward one will be more storage. Spiraling stairs leading up to the bed provide spots for the intake air vents for the Air Handler.
We are particularly delighted with the way this “floating” bedside table has worked out and gives Christine (this is her side of the bed) the perfect spot to set her phone, Kindle, books etc.
Note too the juxtaposition of those Blonde patches of the Rosewood grain! And yes, still worth every one of the many thousands of pennies this costs.
Up overhead the ceiling grid is being installed quickly and it too will soon have lots of FastMount clips for the removable White leather ceiling panels to snap into.
Backsides of all the Stbd/Right hull side cabinets are having their frames installed for the similarly removable panels on the back of each cabinet.
Stepping back into the Shower area to get this overall shot of just the forward section of cabinets and wardrobes that now have their back panels in place.
Bureau of Drawers on the Right, Vanity sink on the Left.
COMPOSITE/FIBERGLASS TEAM:
Faruk and Osma continued their eXcellent work in the Master Shower and Head.
They now have the one piece floor pan installed and the Shower seat has also been glassed in place. Drain holes, bottom for the Shower and Top for the Head area are ready to be routed out for their respective SS drain plates.
As you’ve been seeing in previous weeks, they lay up all the individual pieces over in their Composite Shop using templates they have made up in the Shower & Head and then bring them back to be glassed in place.
Here Osma is setting upper panel that goes above the glass wall in place after he lathered the back of it with some thickened resin.
When all the panels have been glassed in place all the corners and seams are taped off so they can be filled with thickened resin and gel coat colouring. After the first round of filler has been carefully applied as it has here, the innermost brown tape is peeled off. This leaves a wider area for the second and final round of filler to be applied with a nice radius.
Up above, Faruk trims the ceiling panel to be perfectly flush with the inside surfaces of the big 700mm/28” hatch which will flood both the Shower and the Head with lots of fresh air and light.
Because the two corner walls of the Shower are glass, it will also bring all that beautiful natural light into the rest of the Master Cabin and really make Sherry’s artistic patterns etched into the glass even more stunning.
More Maretron sensors everywhere you look. This cable is for the proximity sensor in each door and hatch to remind us if any hatch or door has not been fully closed before we head to sea. Same idea as the lights on the dash of most cars that alert you if a door is not fully closed.
Hole in the background is for one of the LED ceiling lights.
Down on the floor, the one tank access port has been framed for its removable panel and the Head floor drain on the Left has been recessed for …………
……… its flush fitting SS drain grate.
The sink countertop and cabinet will soon be glassed into the lower area here with matching and mirrored Medicine cabinets above. But you can see that there will be plenty of easy access to all the systems behind such as these water manifold ball valves.
PLUMBING:
The ever jovial Cihan has been his usual productive self of course so let’s go see some of his latest handiwork.
This is the Aft Stbd/Right side of the SuperSalon where the Galley cabinetry is about to be installed, but just before it arrives from the Finishing Shop Cihan has done a masterful job of squeezing in this 100mm/4” PVC ducting. On the far Left side it goes through a waterproof penetration in the floor to extract air out of the Basement and then …..
……… on the far Right upper end is a T, closed off with blue tape here, where the exhaust from the induction cooktop vent enters.
Looking closely on the far Right (click to enlarge any photo) you can see how this pipe continues straight aft and up into the Stbd Wing Box where a large axial extraction fan pulls all the air to the outside.
Directly forward from the PVC ducting Cihan has been working on the Stbd side Webasto Air Handler to change the output air duct from rectangular to round.
And then quickly has it fully installed on the insulate floor prior to the Dinette Settee being installed.
Directly across the SuperSalon just in front of the twin Freezer Drawer cabinet he has similarly mounted the Port side Air Handler. As with all equipment, we use boded rubber flexible anti-vibration mounts which you can see an example of on the far Right mount here. These help insure that none of the vibration or noise is transmitted to the hull or the room. I’m a bit maniacal about having an eXtremely quiet boat interior so we are going to great expense and lengths to ensure that the XPM’s are going to be acoustic sanctuaries. Can’t wait to do some testing with a sound meter while underway!
Remember those shots in the Guest Head up above? Well here you can see that Cihan has been busy there too installing the SS threaded PPR elbows for hot and cold water PEX tubing up top and the drain pipe from the sink down to the Grey Water tank or Sea Chest below.
Continuing Aft to the forward end of the Stbd side of the Workshop where the diesel Day Tank resides, we find more of Cihan’s many skills on display. He is eXtremely adept at building and installing all the many mounting plates and WT penetrations where he needs to run pipes and hoses. In this case he has made up that oval tube you see in the center of this shot that provides the penetration in the ER wall on the Left for some water hoses he needs to run.
Peeking way in the back corner under the Day Tank you can see one of these penetrations already welded in place and filled with water hoses coming out of the Engine Room and the second penetration tube ready to be installed below for more.
A bit more aft along that same ER wall there is one more penetration now welded in place. This one will soon have the six big cables from the two huge 6kW Electrodyne alternators coming through on their way the their external rectifiers what are mounted up on the Stbd hull side wall. I’ll go into more of those details when we start installing those cables and alternators.
SUPER SALON:
Finishing up our alphabetical cabin tour for this week with the always Super Salon, let’s go check out what Omur has been up to there.
The flow of cabinets coming out of the Finishing Shop continues into the SuperSalon as we see here with these freshly varnished Galley cabinets that are now being secured to their foundations.
Opposite angle of the Galley standing up in the doorway coming in from the Aft Deck.
Induction cooktop goes atop that unfinished plywood to on the Right here with the Speed Oven below. A deep SS double sink will be installed in the marble countertops in the upper Right corner and the rest as you can see is all drawers.
There is one more length of cabinet to go in the bottom corner of this photo.
A great shot of how beautiful the contrast is between the rich dark hues of the Rosewood and the bright inner Beech surfaces of all cabinets and drawers.
Dinette Settee going in next.
You can see that Air Handler we saw Cihan installing earlier inside the large opening so that I can easily access that cavernous space below the outer side decks.
This wider angle gives a fuller view of the whole aft area of the SuperSalon and our Master Cabinetmaker Omur. Settee on the far Left, Galley in the upper Left corner, stairs up to the Aft Deck in the background and the double Fridge cabinet on the Right.
The angled mini wall on the Stbd/Right side of the Main Helm is being mounted here and some of the cables coming up from the Basement into this Forward Electrical Panel are brought up for the final time.
Yesim, our brilliant interior designer is pointing out the location of the light switches that are so conveniently positioned as you go up or down the stairs to the Master Cabin.
Similarly , the three digital thermostats are being mounted in this short wall at the top of the stairs where the Settee ends. The two Black screens control the two Webasto AirCon/Heater Air Handlers and the White one controls the In-Floor heating in the SuperSalon.
Finally, perhaps saving the most exciting new progress for last, most of you can probably guess what Yesim is showing us here?
Correct! This is our infamous “Blue Line” as the team here tends to call it and what Christine and I refer to as our Blue Horizon Line. For those of you who have not read about this previously, this is a design theme and feature we came up with that is based on our most typical situation of being anchored off some little island or on long passages where our world is surrounded by 360 degrees of a blue horizon line where the blues of the sea transition into the blues of the sky.
We decided to bring this outdoor feature indoors and have designed the interior spaces and materials such that everything below the Blue Horizon Line matches up with materials, textures and colours that are below the horizon such as wood, stone and the aqua marine blues and greens of the seas. Everything above the Blue Horizon Line similarly match up wtih the colours and textures of the sky with softer materials and shades of white and grey.
Our interior Blue Horizon Line, let’s shorten that to BHL for now, is made up a an aqua marine swirl we created with Yesim and had printed on thin strips of clear acrylic. It’s absolutely amazing the range of materials you can print things on these days and it is neither very difficult or expensive.
As you’ve been seeing as the cabinetry has been built, we incorporated this BHL as the back surface of the smooth flowing continuous hand rails that flow around all the furniture and walls at about waist height. With the cabinetry now coming out of the Finishing Shop Omur and team are now starting to glue these strips of BHL onto the back of all these recessed handholds.
This is the BHL as it flows around the Galley cabinets and just wait for a few weeks until they start installing the aquamarine marble countertops to see how this ends up bringing the outside in.
Here is a look at a more fully finished BHL around the top of the cabinet for the two Freezer drawers.
Zooming in a bit to show how this all comes together both visually and functionally as a continuous handhold for everyone no matter their height.
Lots more of this to show you in the coming weeks as more cabinets, walls and BHL are installed.
NEW ARRIVALS:
This week had a LOT of new arrivals as what we hope will be the last big shipment of equipment from the US has arrived here at Naval Yachts. Too many items to show you all of them but here are a few highlights to give you an idea.
As you can see the majority of our equipment comes from Defender Industries and I want to first give an eXtremely big shoutout to Wendy Pandolfe <wpandolfe@defender.com> who has been absolutely awemazing to work with throughout the past year or more as we put together multiple sets of orders for hundreds of items from screws and fittings to our whole Furuno navigation system and pretty much everything in between. Wendy is a fabulous problem solver with that great “can do” and “get ‘er done” attitude that is all too rare and is SO much appreciated.
*** Just to be clear we have NO form of sponsorship or other relationship with Defender and simply and seriously recommend that you consider Defender for your next marine outfitting supplies and equipment. I have put Wendy’s Email above and if you contact her just say Wayne & Christine sent you and I’m sure you will soon share our enthusiasm and appreciation.
Why would I be happy that my Beautiful Bride and Captain is kissing anything but ME??
That’s easy when the recipient of her affection is the #1 bit of kit on our boat that lets us Sleep Well At Night or SWAN as we call it.
Meet our 110 Kilo ‘/ 242 Lb Rocna anchor.
We spend hundreds of nights at anchor every year on every kind of bottom, through every kind of sea condition and weather and our lives very literally depend upon our anchor and chain to hold us in place. One of THE worst feelings for anyone at anchor is to feel your boat dragging anchor which of course would most likely occur at O’Dark Thirty in the worst conditions and with a lee shore rapidly approaching you. So we go to perhaps the most eXtreme lengths in over engineering and designing our complete anchoring system from anchor through chain and windlass.
Anchor selection borders on a religious argument amongst cruisers and the good news is that there have never been more great choices available. Christine and I certainly spent a LOT of time discussing and researching which anchor to chose for Möbius and in the end decided to do as we have with many other critical components and gone with what has worked eXtremely well for us on our previous boats and experiences.
Both of us have had oversized Rocna anchors on our previous boats and boats we have delivered for others and in the thousands of sets we have done over more than ten years, we have never had our Rocna drag once.
As with all my comments on this blog please be clear that I am NOT saying that this is the “best” anchor for you, simply that this is the anchor we are willing to bet our lives on and the Goldilocks choice that is just right, just for us.
Almost as important as having the anchor solidly holding us to the bottom is being able to bring it and up to 100m/330ft of anchor chain all back aboard quickly and safely. With several hundred kilos of anchor and chain to bring aboard this takes some equally robust equipment and again we have gone with what we know to work best for us and this Maxwell VWC 4000 windlass was also in this last shipment from Defender.
One of the most critical aspects of the windlass is that the “gypsy” matches the chain size and fits the chain like a glove. Gypsy is the name for this wheel driven by the big 24V motor on the windlass that pulls the chain aboard.
Hence each Gypsy needs to be ordered to exactly match the specific chain link size you have. In our case this is 13mm G40 DIN766 chain and as you can see the Maxwell Gypsy does indeed fit like a glove. Whew!
With literally hundreds of individual items in this shipment alone, the next task was to go through every box and check them against the order invoices to make sure that everything had arrived, none of them were damaged and that they were all the correct models. Hilmi and Yigit kindly pitched in to help unpack everything and Christine and I spent the rest of the day going through the lists and sorting everything into boxes and containers by family and type.
Here for example is one of three boxes of electrical system components that Hilmi will soon be installing throughout the boat. The majority of these are for our primary 24 Volt DC system which is what the whole boat is based upon. All our other electrical systems for 12V DC and 120V and 230V AC are built on top of our 24V 1350Ah House Battery Bank.
This is one of three boxes full of the components for our Maretron monitoring and N2K system you saw being installed above. This box just has some of the N2K cables and the other boxes were filled with sensors and all the Black Box combiners.
Sorting through the many, many meters of Dyneema and rigging. As with the anchor decision, we have used Dyneema line on our previous boats with great success so we have gone with all Dyneema for pretty much every line on the boat from Lifelines to Tender Lift tackle lines and Paravane rigging.
I will be showing you much more of the details of our use of Dyneema as we install these systems as well as all the other gear that arrived in this week’s shipment.
And that’s the week that was March 9-15, 2020.
As you may have read in my previous post all about it, Christine and I landed back in Antalya late Sunday night returning from our long weekend trip to London for her birthday to find a very different world than the one at the start of this week. Upon landing we became willing members of the not so exclusive Self Isolation Club and our membership lasts through March 30th so we are not able to be back at Naval Yachts until then. However thanks to all the efforts of the rest of Team Möbius and all the photos Yigit, Yesim, Uğur and Hakan so kindly send me every day, I will be back shortly with next week’s XPM78-01 Progress Update so stay tuned!
– Wayne
by Wayne | Mar 8, 2020 | Boat building, Cabinetry, Electrical, Electrical Systems, Hull, Interior, Interior, Plumbing, Systems, The Gardner |
As this photo attests the weather here in Antalya the past few weeks has been spectacular and very Spring like. Last Sunday Christine and I took a break to go for a nice Sunday drive along what is apparently called the “Gulf of Antalya” which is a crescent shaped coastline that runs approximately East/West with the majority of the city of Antalya stretched in thin strip along this coastline for over 30km.
We were not the only ones out enjoying this sunny Sunday and one of the parks we walked through had lots of colourful kites for sale with grinning children at the ends of balls of string and their kites flying high above us.
I’m writing this a week later on another equally as brilliant of a sunny Sunday and hopefully I can get this posted in time to go out and enjoy it more.
The warmer and sunnier weather seems to have a Spring in the step of everyone else on Team Möbius as well and as a result there is lots of progress to show you so let’s get started.
ALUMINIUM TEAM
Uğur, Nihat and Okan had a very productive week applying their significant skills with aluminium to several projects and one of the most gratifying to see was the completion of the four Dorade Vent boxes on the Forepeak.
The simple concept of Dorade Box Vents have been used on boats for a very long time as they provide a way to bring fresh air inside the boat in rainy weather or high seas while keeping all the water OUT side where it belongs.
The work this week was to mount the new Vetus Cowls on the AL Dorade Boxes, finish installing the shut off lids in the Standpipes and then weld the Dorade Boxes to the ForeDeck.
You may recall previous posts showing the construction of the Dorade Boxes and here Nihat is creating the slots or “Scuppers” along the bottom edge that ensures any water that enters the Dorade Box flows out onto the deck and overboard.
Uğur then takes over to mount the White/Red silicone Cowls to the tops of each Dorade Vent. The Cowls act as big air scoops to grab all the breezes blowing over the bow and direct them down into the Dorade Box and then down the Standpipe into the interior below.
Nice simple mounting system with these silicone Vetus cowls which use the Grey plastic threaded ring in the foreground which is bolted and sealed to the top of the Dorade Vent Box to provide the attachment for Grey threaded collar you see at the base of the Cowl.
A slight loosening of the collar allows the Cowl to be rotated to any angle you want or turned 180 degrees to face aft if there are larger waves bringing water onto the decks.
Before welding the Dorade Boxes to the Foredeck, they needed to finish installing these threaded Standpipe Storm Lids. This drawing I created shows how these work by having a center threaded rod with a knob on the bottom you can turn by hand to lift or lower the round lid to open or completely seal off the Standpipe.
The Standpipes and the internal radial support were welded in place several months ago and so this week they worked on building these Lid assemblies.
For a bit of added sealing, there is a groove cut half way through the thick Black rubber gasket.
We applied our KISS approach and just used double SS nuts with Loctite to attach the AL Lids and Knobs to the threaded SS rods rather than welding them just in case they ever needed to be removed.
This is the end result with the Lid fully raised to let in the maximum amount of fresh air.
Or fully closed and sealed off. The vast majority of the time we will leave these Lids fully open and only close them when heading into eXtremely severe seas when there might be the possibility of waves breaking over the bow and overwhelming the Dorade Boxes draining capacity.
The Vetus Cowls have the option to be fully removed and replaced with solid discs that would seal them off but this would still leave the Standpipes open so we took the “belts & suspenders” approach and added these adjustable lids to enable us to fully seal off these vents.
Looking up inside one of the Standpipes from inside the Master Cabin you can see it is easy to reach up and turn the knob. This ability to close these Standpipes while you are INSIDE the boat was a big safety factor in our decision to go to the time and expense of adding this additional shut off capability.
As with so many aspects of building the boat, all the time goes into the preparation leading up to the final installation so after several months of working on the various parts of these Dorade Boxes,
Nihat and Uğur can at last weld them to the deck.
A quick hit with the brass wire wheel cleans up the welds and work surfaces and the Dorade Boxes are all done. We’ll leave the Cowls off until we Launch to keep them out of the way as work continues on the ForeDeck and Bow areas.
We used the same system of fully sealable lids on all the vent pipes coming into the interior in other places such as this plate which bolts to the ceiling above the Main Helm area.
There is a large box or air plenum behind the Red slots in the Pilot House Roof overhang you see here
This plate, standing on its end here, then bolts to the ceiling to form the bottom surface with these five vent pipes to direct fresh air into the Main Helm area.
Work on Vent Boxes continued with Uğur and Nihat welding up these side covers which bolt in place on the inside vertical surfaces of ……
……. the two Extraction Air Wing Boxes on either side of the very Aft end of the Pilot House on the Aft Deck. You can see one off to the Right of the spiral staircase and the other on the far Left.
The Vertical Milling machine made quick work of cutting all the slots and holes in these eXtraction vent cover plates and then …..
Uğur welded these boxes to the inside. A large axial fan will bolt to the top surface you see on top here and when turned on this fan pulls air out of the extraction pipes inside the Wing Box which run into the Corridor, and Guest Head/Bathroom below.
Switching from venting to wiring, Uğur and Nihat also installed the penetrations through the Engine Room Enclosure walls for electrical cables to run through.
The two in the upper Right in the photo above and center here, are for the AC wiring for lights and switches inside the ER. Once the wiring is all run these will be filled with special watertight caulking to keep the ER and the Workshop fully separated and WT.
Diagonally opposite on the ER they welded in this similar penetration down on the aft Stbd/Right corner of the ER where all the high amp DC cables from the two 250A @ 28V alternators and carry up to 14kW over to the DC distribution box that will be mounted up above the Workbench on the Stbd/Right side of the hull walls.
Finishing up with AL work for this week;
Okan put the finishing touches to the hinged rack that will soon hold three of our 300Wp solar panels on the front roof area of the Pilot House. More on that once we start mounting the solar panels.
Uğur welded the plates for the Paravane rigging winches to the bottom of the hinged Arch.
ELECTRICAL WORK:
Most of Hilmi’s work this week was not very visible as he raced ahead of the interior installation teams to put in the wiring for things like the 120V, 220V, 12V and 24V receptacles spread throughout the boat.
But this quick peek into the Aft Electrical Distribution box off the Corridor by the Guest Cabin will give you an idea of what he has been up to.
Hilmi has also been spending more and more time in the Workshop as he wires up the various system components which are mounted there.
This is the control box for the Watermaker
Which is off to the Right here and some of the other AC & DC wires and cables leading to the area on the Left where the Workshop Distribution panel will mount.
PLUMBING:
Speaking of the Watermaker, Cihan was busy this past week doing more of the plumbing for it such as the foil covered high pressure lines you see here running from the Watermaker up to the four membranes on the ceiling.
On the far Right side of the WM, near the WT door from the Swim Platform, Cihan has now got most of the plumbing in place for the Webasto BlueCool AirCon unit which has been moved out of the way for now.
To Red accumulator tank and the Supply/Return lines for the sea water cooling lines are in place and ready to be connected to the Chiller unit.
Always a good sign for me to see that little red hose in the background as that’s where Cihan will attach an air line to pressurize and test the plumbing for leaks.
And more good signs as we see the soapy solution being applied to the joints to see if there are any leaks.
The system is left pressured overnight to see if it all holds, which it did.
The IsoTherm Calorifier or Hot Water tank has most of its plumbing in place; Safety Valve bottom Right, Mixing Valve for In-Floor Heating lower Left, Mixing Valve for DHW upper Left. Two more lines bringing hot water to/from the Gardner and the Kabola diesel boiler still to be added to the White capped off fittings.
Both pumps for the Domestic Water pressure fully plumbed and covered in protective bubble wrap.
MASTER HEAD & SHOWER:
Transitioning from Plumbing to Heads & Showers, the Composite Team has been busy glassing in the Master Head on the far Right and Shower on the Left. They use flat sheets they make in house for the large flat areas on the walls and then build molds for things like this corner box section that makes the transition from the walls to the ceiling.
Rectangular cut outs on the Right are where the large 2 mirrored door Medicine Cabinet will be mounted and provide access to systems behind the wall.
Areas such as this Shower Seat are first laid up in molds in the Composite Shop
and then brought onboard to be glued in place with resin.
Faruk on the Left and Osama are extremely skilled at this and everything fits just right.
Once they have the pieces affixed they start taping up the joints in preparation for filling them in.
Now they are busy building the molds for the large floor and ceiling pans and you should see those next week.
MASTER CABIN:
This wider shot helps to show how things are shaping up in the Master Cabin with the Shower in the center area and the Head behind it.
Wardrobes and bureau of drawers lining the Stbd/Right hull and the wall beside our bed on the far Left here.
Şevki and Selim are now staring to put the Port/Left hull wall back together
And prepping the ceiling with mounting blocks for
…. the ceiling grids. Weight reduction cut outs marked
….. and cut out……
…… and attached.
More excitement as some of the removable wall panels emerge from the Upholstery Shop!
SUPER SALON:
The SuperSalon has been rather vacant of late with most of the cabinetry over in the Finishing Shop to be varnished. This is looking aft towards where the Galley will be in the Aft Left corner, stairs up to the WT door in/out of the SuperSalon from the Aft Deck, double Fridges go in the cabinet on the far Right and open hatch into the Basement in the bottom Right corner.
But the tide is turning and finished cabinets are starting to flow onboard with their lustrous varnished surfaces all aglow. Double opposing door Fridges in the background and double drawer style Freezers in the Foreground.
We, well OK me, is a bit maniacal about eXtremely well insulated Fridge and Freezer boxes so even though our Vitrifrigo units come with the latest and greatest insulation from the factory we are adding at least 50mm/2” more rigid foam insulation around all sides and the backs of all four units and 100mm/4” on the bottoms.
Omur has the Freezer cabinet upside down to put in the insulation in the bottom area before he mounts this to the floor in the background which has another 50mm/2” of insulation.
Up front the Main Helm has been getting its own insulation, this time for acoustics.
Header for the door into the Master Cabin is now fitted.
As are details such as this transition piece where the upper rear corner of the Fridge cabinet meets up with the big thick SuperSalon glass windows.
Black conduit carries solar panel cables down from atop the SkyBridge roof to the Basement.
Over in the Cabinetry Shop, Omur is also routing out the openings for the hidden hinges such as the one you can see on the far Right here.
Laid down on its side for Omur to work on, this is the Galley Garage that sits atop the marble countertop.
These are small versions of the hidden hinges we are using on the full size interior doors you saw last week and these smaller ones ensure the Galley Countertop Garage doors all open smooth as silk at a touch of your finger on the solid mechanical latches.
GUEST CABIN & SHIPS OFFICE:
Lots of work on ceilings this week and Okan is bringing the freshly epoxy coated ceiling grids for the Guest Cabin and Ship’s Office aboard.
Once the ceiling grids are in place in the Guest Cabin he won’t be able to do this so Okan is taking advantage of the last chance to pass the large ceiling grid panels down through what will soon be the Galley countertops.
Sure enough, a couple of hours later the ceiling grid is in place in the Guest Cabin below and no more access from up above here.
Omer, Muhammed and Okan soon have the ceiling grids all securely fastened and leveled in the Guest Cabin.
Omer is meticulous and detailed so he is going around and sealing any small areas between the ceiling grid and the mounts to the AL frames above and making sure they are fully insulated so there is no thermal transfer.
Next up, Omer turns his attention to installing the Ro$ewood door frame to the Guest Shower.
The floor in the Showers are raised to provide enough room for well sloped drains and the In-Floor heating PEX tubing so …..
…….. the bottom door sill is higher than the other doors.
Once all the parts of the door frame fit, they are glued in place.
Hakan is conferring with Omer on some details with the Shower drains and you can see what a masterful job Omer has done with all the matching grain patterns which flow across all parts of the door frame. The door itself will be plate glass for added light and openness in the Shower and when walking in/out of the Guest Cabin on the far Left.
FINISHING SHOP:
Let’s go upstairs to the Finishing Shop for a peek at what our Polyurethane wizards are up to;
We can’t let the Rosewood steal the show every week and these Beech shelves are more than up to that task.
Looks like a wizard of a different kind in the middle here? What do you see?
The Beech you can see on the inside of this Galley cupboard alongside the stairs up to the Aft Deck, has to my happy eyes, a beautiful contrast with the darker tones of the Rosewood and then also matches up nicely with the Blonde islands that naturally emerge within the Rosewood in many areas.
More of that creative contrast on display within this section of the Galley Countertop Garages.
Even though this back panel that the 50” SmarTV mounts to, setting on its side here, will rarely be seen by most it will bring great joy to my heart every time I see it and just knowing it is there.
This will soon be the top surface of the double Freezer cabinet but right now it is huddling in the back of the Finishing Shop with its brothers and sisters waiting to be carefully wrapped in bubble wrap while they await their final trip onto Möbius.
Mr. GEE our Gardner 6LXB Single Engine
I was able to get away from all my other boat building duties a bit more this week and all day yesterday (Sat) and got some time to move Mr. Gee further along.
This is a special cylinder honing tool I have had great success with in the past and I’m using it here to put the final just right 45 degree cross hatch pattern on all the cylinder walls.
If you look closely you can just make out the thin line where the new dry cylinder liner has been pressed into the cylinder black casting. After pressing them in place they are precisely machine bored to original factory diameter which enables the block to be returned to same as new condition.
This cross hatching s a critical detail that ensures that not all the oil is scraped off by the piston rings on each stroke so that there is just the right amount of lubrication to reduce the friction and wear.
The process goes relatively quickly and I soon have all six cylinders in good as new condition.
Next I turned my attention to the major cast aluminium components such as the massive crankcase in the foreground, the cast ribbed oil pan in the far Right background and several smaller cast covers on the Left.
All these parts had all been sandblasted several months ago and I gave them a light coat of primer so I now gave all surfaces a thorough wet sanding to get them ready for final coat of primer.
I taped off all the openings and hung up the two big AL castings that form the flywheel housing on the aft end of the Gardner.
I am using a special ultra high temperature primer that is good for up to 600 degree C/1112 F which is WAY hotter than needed but works well to stick to the aluminium which is notoriously difficult.
A few hours later …….
once the fan had cleaned out the air ……
…… you wouldn’t know that these castings have been in service for almost 50 years and they were all ready for their final colour coating to bring them to better than new condition.
Stay tuned, much more of Mr. Gee’s renovation to come in the following weeks.
NEW ARRIVALS:
Ending as we have been doing with the New Arrivals here at Naval Yachts things were much slower than the past few weeks but no less exciting for me as this load of thick wall 150mm / 6” OD AL pipe arrived.
Any guesses what this will soon become?
Will it help you to show you that this is eXtremely robust pipe?
I’ll have much more details to show you in the coming weeks but this is for building the Davit system for bringing our Tender on/off the Aft Deck once Yigit has it fully developed in Rhino.
Until then these quick renderings, thanks to Yigit, will have to tide you over.
And that’s what’s all of us on Team Möbius have been up to this first week of March 2020 over here at Naval Yachts in Antalya.
We REALLY appreciate you coming along with us on this adventure and please add any and all comments, suggestions and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Thanks!
Wayne
by Wayne | Feb 29, 2020 | Boat building, Cabinetry, Electrical, Electrical Systems, Interior, Interior, Plumbing, Systems, The Gardner |
Good thing 2020 is a Leap Year so we get an additional day to work on Möbius here at Naval Yachts as the time goes flying by and I can barely comprehend that it is already the end of February 2020. However as you are about to see and read below, the progress is very believable and that’s all we can ask for as everyone leans in to push us ever closer to Launch Date.
We get a lot of questions about “When will you launch?” which is quite understandable, we think about it too, and I finally have an answer for you; Thursday. Not to be flip about it but the reality is that we don’t know the exact date when Möbius will be ready to dip her beautiful aluminium belly into the waters of the Med other than my second response which is; as soon as possible or ASAP. I might even borrow and tag on one of my favorite quips, apparently from Albert Einstein “and not one bit sooner”, which he apparently said in reference to simplicity as in “Everything should be made as simple as possible but not (one bit) simpler. We are all working towards the shared goal of building the best boat we can that will meet and exceed the clearly outlined fundamental principles which Christine and I have created based on our decades of full time sailing and live aboards. This is further exasperated by the fact that this is very much a “version 1.0” boat of the XPM class so most things are completely new to all of us. We are all working as hard and as efficiently as possible towards this mutual goal and so “Thursday” and ASAP, seems to be the best answer for the launch of our Goldilocks boat.
So let’s go see what Team Möbius has been up to this past week and you can decide how well it is going.
ALUMINIUM TEAM:
Let’s start this weekly update with our Aluminium Team of Uğur, Nihat and Okan now that they are back after almost a month away while Uğur was out with his badly broken thumb.
I’m going to be mean and hold you in suspense for a wee bit longer about what exactly this three massive AL bars are for but the wait sill soon be over in the next week of two once they start installing these in the hull. I can give you a hint that these will be very solidly welded into the hull and they will be in the Aft Deck area.
My hand will give you a better sense of their size and 50mm/2” thick mass. All the sharp corners are about to be fully rounded over including the edges of the large hole in the top.
Does that help you guess what these are?
Stay tuned, answer coming soon.
Moving on to the next quiz, any guess as to what this new AL frame is for?
Here it is mostly completed now and ready to be lifted up onto the front of the roof of Pilot House.
Now you know right?
Correct! This is the frame that will hold the front three (in Blue) solar panels which fit overtop of the angled space in the front roof area of the Pilot House.
This frame or rack will be hinged on the aft end in front of the SkyBridge windows such that it can be raised when we are at anchor such that the solar panels are horizontal or whatever angle puts them perpendicular to the sun’s rays.
Then when we are heading out on passage, the whole solar panel folds down and locks into the angled recess in the PH roof.
As you may recall seeing last week, our solar panels have arrived so I will soon be able to show you photos of them being installed in this rack on Möbius.
In our typical “Swiss Army Knife” strategy of making as many things as possible serve multiple purposes, when lifted up the hinged solar panels creates a fabulous wind tunnel to capture all the breezes blowing over our bow at anchor and direct them down through that bright Green frame you see at the end of the “wind tunnel” and then down into the SuperSalon below.
So while they were working on the PH roof, Uğur and Nihat also fabricated and installed the Green frame you see above.
The flanges of the L-bar frame will be used to mount the Mist Eliminator grills which remove most of the salt and humidity from the air flowing through and further increase the comfort of everyone inside.
And here is the fully installed frame all ready to have the Mist Eliminator grills bolted in place.
You can see how the fully EPDM insulated interior surfaces have been covered with AL foil cloth to increase the air flow down into the air plenum on the ceiling of the SuperSalon below.
The Red & Black cables will soon have their MC-4 connectors on their ends to attach to the outputs of the three Solar Panels and then run down into their individual MPPT controllers in the Basement.
I received several questions about this drawing I showed last week of the vent shut off lids we have built into all the Dorade and other vents bringing fresh air into the interior of the boat so here are a few more pictures to better answer those questions.
Consistent with my opening Einstein quote about “as simple as possible but not any simpler” or as I usually refer to it KISS Keep It Safe & Simple, you can see how that applies to these simple yet effective vent shut offs.
This is the simple to fabricate inner frame that holds the threaded rod in the center of the 100mm/4” ID vent pipes when it is welded in place.
Not pictured but you can see in the drawing above, there will be a simple knob on the bottom of this threaded rod and a round plate on the top so to close these vents you just reach up inside and turn the knob to bring the rubber lined lid down and sealed against the vent pipe.
Given the build in water shedding design of Dorade vents we will only need to do this in eXtremely severe seas when we think there might be a chance of a roll over. Hopefully that ends up being NEVER! But you also never know.
Jumping down below, Uğur and Nihat picked up on their work to install the Prop Shaft removal tube in the Rudder which just came back from the waterjet company next door who cut the complex angled hole for this pipe.
Here it is from the other side where the prop shaft would slice through when being removed
This is one of the many examples of us applying the lessons learned from decades of sailing the world. When, never if, you need to remove your prop shaft it adds an appreciable amount of time and work if you need to first remove the rudder and then replace it when you’ve got the prop shaft back in. Simple in theory, this hole through the Rudder nicely solves that problem by making the eliminating the need to remove the Rudder. As is often the case though, executing on this simple solution is quite complex.
ELECTRICAL:
Hilmi has also been off sick the past few weeks and is till not back to 100% but he was able to get several important jobs done this past week.
Starting here with the wiring of the three 230V and then the ……..
……… two 120V Victron Multi-Plus Inverter/Chargers on the other side of our Victron Rack in the Basement.
We’ve always had great experience with Victron products on our previous boats so we are using them throughout Möbius.
The high amperage carried by the 24V amp cables requires doubling up two 70mm2 cables and as you can see Victron provides for this with dual positive and negative bus bars inside each inverter charger.
We find that connections overall are particularly well thought out in Victron equipment. All the AC and data wiring comes up through WT cable glands in the bottom of the cabinet and the slots for the larger DC cables are well insulated with nylon inserts all around. This kind of attention to detail makes it so much easier to access in the future and to connect initially.
Hilmi has a good selection of special tools for thigs such as this hydraulic cable lug swaging tool. I have a similar one I carry onboard as well for whenever I need to make up new cables.
Fully tined lugs on the ends of all the DC cables provide an eXcellent resistance free connection BUT only if you create a perfect connection between the copper wire of the cable and the inside of the lug. These tools make that much easier and I have yet to have a bad connection inside lugs I’ve installed so we are aiming to continue that trend on Möbius.
We also need Hilmi at 100% because this is only one small collection of the many electrical devices that are piling up in our store room and a new shipment arrives on Monday!
Seen here are some of the many Maretron black boxes for monitoring systems throughout the boat, the FLIR night camera in the top Left and some of the OGM nav lights on the right.
Mr. GEE our Gardner 6LXB Single Engine
I wasn’t able to give Mr. Gee as much of my time as I would have liked this past week but he did get some TLC such as this newly machine flywheel which just returned from the neighboring machine shop.
The massive flywheel needed two modifications the first of which is machining the recess your see here with the 8 M14 threaded holes where the AL SAE14 flange I’m holding up will be bolted on. This AL flange has a series of rounded “teeth” on its inner surface where the rubber flexible coupling slides into and transfers all the power from Mr. Gee’s crankshaft to the Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox and propeller.
They machined this inner recess such that the SAE14 AL flange is a slight press fit onto the flywheel to ensure both parts are eXactly concentric and spinning on center with no vibration.
The second job was to machine this outer recess on the outside edge of the flywheel.
This recess is needed so that the flywheel clears the inside of this aluminium housing that surrounds the flywheel and bolts to the Gardner engine block.
You can see the clearance that has been created for the inner edge of the flywheel housing and then there is a similar clearance underneath those threaded holes between my fingers.
I also started to ready the many aluminium parts that bolt to the outside of Mr. Gee such as this water manifold on the Starboard side of the block that I’m holding and the coolant overflow tank in the upper Right and the water manifold below my arm on the bottom Left.
All these parts will be sand blasted and many of them will be polished to a gleaming shine to help create the work of art and engineering that is Mr. Gee.
One of the many unique features of our Gardner 6LXB which makes it so incredibly strong and long lasting are these threaded through rods which extend from side to side at the bottom of the massive cast AL crankcase.
Each pair of rods extend through each aluminium crankshaft bearing cap and creates an unbelievably strong and solid “bottom end” to this engine. This degree of solidity eliminates any vibration or flexing of the crankshaft and provides a truly rock solid base for it to spin freely in for another fifty years.
One last part I worked on this past week was a new spacer for the camshaft. This part establishes the just right amount of lengthwise play of the camshaft which is supposed to be .004-006” but over the many years of non stop spinning in his former life, this had grown to .009” when I tested it so I drew up this quick hand sketch for Yunus, which is Turkish for Dolphin BTW, in our Machine Shop so he can make a new one. I will show you that when I’m installing it next week or so.
PLUMBING:
Cihan our Master Plumber was busy as always throughout the boat so let’s go see what he’s been up to this past week starting up on the anchor platform on the Bow where he is installing these two wash down outlets.
One is for Fresh water the other for Salt.
We first experienced these beautifully made SS and plastic quick connect fittings on a boat we were delivering a few years ago and were so impressed by how well they worked we tracked some down for our four deck wash fittings; these two at the Anchor Platform on the Bow and then two on the Aft Deck.
As you might know I am loathe to allow ANY penetrations of the deck plating but I’m happy to make an exception to these two in the Forepeak area. As you can see they are very well sealed and even if/when they do leak many years from now the water would go straight down into the bilge area below.
At the very opposite end of the boat, Cihan was also hard at work installing the complex network of pipes, fittings, mixing valves and manifolds for the hot water system. You are peeking underneath the Starboard/Right side workbench at the very aft end of the Workshop where the IsoTherm Calorifier/Hot Water Tank is located.
This is one of two manifolds in the hot water system which provides hot water for both our DHW Domestic Hot Water for sinks and showers as well as for our in-floor heating system that runs through all the interior floors on the boat.
I will have more of Cihan’s craftsmanship in the coming weeks as he completes this system.
MASTER CABIN SHOWER:
Let’s go back up to the front of the boat and catch up with the new Composite Team who have been busy glassing all the walls, floor and ceiling of the Master Cabin Shower. In the past few weeks you have seen them complete the initial glassing by applying a layer of fiberglass resign and cloth to all the plywood surfaces. Next they cut out these 3mm/ 1/8” thick composite panels with White gelcoat outer surfaces.
The shapes are rather complex with no right angles anywhere to be found so they built templates inside the Shower and use these to cut each panel to match the shape of each area,
Then they apply a layer or thickened resin and press each panel into place with bars and clamps.and clean up any squeeze out.
It all goes quite quickly as the panels cover relatively large areas. The two rectangles on top Right are where the two mirrored upper cabinets will mount and the two lower ones are for the lower cabinet with the sink on top. The cut outs provide access to the plumbing and electrical systems behind.
The two etched glass shower wall panels will complete the corner closest to you.
The “Shower Tower” mounts on the diagonally angled wall on the Left and the seat with its own access door is on the Right with the grinder on top.
MASTER CABIN:
At the other end of the Master Cabin, Omur, Selim and Şevki are finishing up the cabinetry for the bed area. All the White dots on the headboard and dropped ceiling are the female FastMount clips where each of the upholstered panels will snap in place.
Zooming out you can see more of these FastMount clips on the end and side walls now ready for their Ultra Leather upholstered panels.
Speaking of which, here is a sneak peek into the Upholstery Shop of some of the wall panels having their foam and Green/Gray Ultra Leather applied. We’ll have much more of this to show you in the coming weeks.
Looking up above the dropped ceiling we can see that it has now been solidly attached to the overhead AL frames of the hull with three AL L-brackets and now White epoxy coated spacers are attached for the ceiling grid to mount to.
And off to the Starboard/Right side of the Dropped Ceiling the solid Rosewood header above the Master Cabin door has been fitted.
SUPER SALON:
Moving up to the SuperSalon it has been pretty much gutted this week as all the cabinetry has been fully fitted and has been taken over to the Finishing Shop where about five coats of Polyurethane varnish are applied and rubbed out to a beautiful satin lustre.
With all the cabinets gone, Selim on the Left is now busy putting in all the pink rigid foam insulation as he preps the floor for cutting in all the U shaped grooves for the 15mm/ 5/8” PEX tubing for the in-floor heating.
At the Aft end of the SuperSalon where the Galley is, Selim is also now able t install all the 4 layer acoustic insulation panels in these White stepped inner surfaces that make the transition from the Galley countertops to the Guest Cabin below.
Up at the front of the SuperSalon, the Main Helm station is being completed with both wiring and cabinetry being installed.
The angled Helm Dashboard with two 20” monitors is in the center with a large triangular storage area on the Left and angled wall on the Right with the forward electrical panel below.
Before heading to the Finishing Shop the Cabinetry makes a stopover in the Cabinetry Shop so Omur and Selim can do the final sanding and preparation for final finishing. Here Omur is cleaning up and sanding the inner surfaces of the opening where one of the two Fridges will eventually be installed. All five surfaces of these Fridge and Freezer walls will be lined with 50mm / 2” of rigid foam to insulate their already highly insulated Vitrifrigo boxes.
Selim and Omur add some of the details to the SuperSalon cabinetry such as cutting in all the ventilation grooves into the back panel where the 50” SmarTV will mount.
These vents are needed to provide a ready source of fresh air for the Port/Left Air Handler that is housed in the area behind and to the Left of this TV panel as well as one of our House Computers which is behind this hinged TV panel.
The multi directional TV mount will sit flush inside the rectangular box in this panel so unfortunately you won’t see this work of art too often, but when we do ………………………….
Elsewhere in the Cabinetry Shop, Omur and Selim are also finishing up more details such as this door in the outside panel of the Galley Counter that runs alongside the stairs leading up to the Aft Deck entrance door.
Both the door and its outer frame are made of solid Rosewood so that’s what you see them fitting in these phots.
With all the grain fully matched of course!
GUEST CABIN:
Never one to be outdone in the friendly competition between our two Cabinetry Teams, Omer has been hard at work finishing things up in the Guest Cabin.
His latest project has been installing the ceiling grid that provides the foundation for mounting all the ceiling panels, lights, ducts and hatch trim.
The combination of 12mm/ 1/2” lightweight Poplar marine plywood and all the lightening cut outs keeps this grid very light yet very strong.
Down on the ground, Omer has also been installing the same 12mm marine plywood on the floors.
The aluminium plates are all access ports to enable us to access all the baffled areas in the four diesel fuel tanks underneath.
Each of these access ports in all areas of the boat will have their own fully finished floor covers that can be lifted out if needed but will normally be largely invisible. Each one of these removable floor panels have specially made SS threaded hold down hardware to prevent these hatches from coming loose in the unlikely event of a full roll over.
The floors of the Corridor outside the Guest Cabin get the same floor treatment.
BUT, can you spot the most exciting new development hiding in plain sight in this photo????
Hint, it was a multi team project and Omer is working on part of it here and …..
…….. here.
That’s right! The first of our shiny new WT Bofor doors is being installed!!
Nihat is threading the SS bolts through from the Workshop side of the Corridor with Omer helping on the other side.
Which looks like this when they are finished and it is closed.
And like this when open with Uğur nicely framed as he cleans up some of the Sikaflex adhesive used to seal the door to the aluminium bulkhead.
This is the only WT door on the interior so it is powder coated White. Bofor custom built this door to eXceed all requirements for strength and water tightness even if the boat were to be completely flooded on one side.
The other two WT doors are external doors, the main entrance from the Aft Deck into the SuperSalon and the door into the Workshop from the Swim Platform and they also exceed all requirements several times and but are left in raw aluminum.
FINISHING SHOP:
As you can imagine things are really piling up in the Finishing Shop as all the cabinetry is taken off the boat and brought to them for the final preparation and then spraying of the PU varnish.
Just the first coat on this Freezer cabinet but looking good already!
The Ro$ewood doesn’t get all the attention as these Beech tops of the Dinette seats can attest.
and size doesn’t matter either as all parts large and small, such as this bit of transition trim where the Fridge cabinet meet up against the window glass.
Each piece spends quite a bit of time in various parts of the Finishing shop as they have to be carefully sanded down between each of the 5 coats to get all surfaces fully filled and flat for the final coat.
This is the top of the Fridge cabinet after its 3rd coat.
Once they have all been fully finished and polished they are carefully bundled up in lots of bubble wrap as they await their final move to their new home inside Möbius.
NEW ARRIVALS:
This is the new arrival this week.
Can you guess what these are?
How about if I bring in the special testing model on Team Möbius?
This is a very cool product that Buse and Yigit were able to find and we will use this for the flooring in the Forepeak, Workshop and Engine Room.
It is a special cast resin based composite that is used for things like walkways in harsh industrial plants such as chemical production. Also used on some high traffic walkways on bridges, marinas and parts. Easy to cut to shape and able to support thousands of kilos/pounds so very rigid.
You will see much more of this as we start installing it and we are super eXcited about this great new solution for flooring in these critical work areas inside Möbius. These allow us to still see all the way below and each floor panel will be removable for access as needed.
Whew! Another busy week here at Naval Yachts and as I said at the beginning you can see that the progress continues unabated as we head for that Thursday Launch Date! 
Thanks for joining us again this week and please join the team by adding your questions and comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
See you here again next week I hope.
-Wayne
by Wayne | Feb 23, 2020 | Boat building, Cabinetry, Electrical, Electrical Systems, Interior, Interior, Plumbing, Systems, The Gardner |
While no where near as much as I wanted, I did manage to spend more time this past week giving Mr. Gee, our Gardner 6LXB diesel engine, more of the TLC he needs and deserves. After a LOT of disassembly and seemingly endless cleaning and reconditioning of parts it felt GREAT to finally begin putting all the pieces back together again and see some light at the end of this tunnel.
However Mr. Gee is not the only source of our Gee Whiz! reactions this past week as we also experiencing a similarly gratifying change aboard Möbius as more and more of the cabinetry which the Cabinetry Teams have been building the past few months, emerge from the Finishing Department with their lustrous polyurethane surfaces gleaming as they are moved aboard Möbius. All the while more new equipment arrived at Naval Yachts this week and keep feeding Cihan and Hilmi’s productive plumbing and electrical teams as they continue installing all the systems.
LOTS to show you so settle into a comfy chair with a large beverage and let’s jump right in with this week’s Show & Tell of all the progress accomplished by Team Möbius this past week of February 17-21, 2020.
Mr. Gee; 1975 Gardner 6LXB diesel engine
This is where we left off last week with the gleaming chrome molly crankshaft with all its freshly cleaned and polished surfaces covered in new oil, being lowered into the new bearing shells in the massive solid cast aluminium crankcase. The other half bearing shells are lined up in order along with their matching main bearing cap nuts.
**Note: Mr. Gee is upside down in these pictures and the cast aluminium oil pan will bolt to the flat surfaces you see here.
These are the freshly scrubbed crankshaft main bearing caps that fit over those large vertical studs you see in the photo above and then the cast steel bolting blocks span the whole surface to help distribute the loads as the bearing cap studs are fully tightened.
The machined flat flanges with the small hole and two bolts on either side are for the all important oil distribution pipework that pumps fresh oil into the tiny gap between the crankshaft main bearing surfaces and the bearing shell to ensure these surfaces never touch and spin freely on the microscopic film of oil.
The center main bearing in the middle of this photo is the first one I installed as it also holds two thrust bearings to keep the crankshaft centered lengthwise in the crankcase and prevent it from moving back and forth as it rotates.
Caps # 3, 5 and 6 are waiting their turn to be carefully pressed down on their respective studs.
I got to use my new Milwaukee Fuel 12V 3/8” ratchet which made quick work of running all the cap nuts down until they just touched the cast cap blocks.
It is critical that these main bearing blocks be torqued down in the right sequence as per the Gardner manuals and to the correct torque as shown in the page below, the nuts are torqued down in seven different stages each one with a higher torque than the last until I got to their final tightness of 24,0Kgm / 2100 lb.in.
This is quite tight and was more than I could pull on the end of my torque wrench so I had to use a length of aluminium pipe to extend the handle length. I also had to get two others to hole the crankcase in place to keep it from rotating as I torqued down each nut. But all went well and the crankshaft was home at last and ready for the final test; did it spin freely?
Yes! With one finger I was able to have the crank spinning freely and put on the first of what will likely be hundreds of thousands of rotations in Mr. Gee’s newest life.
These are all eXtremely critical parts and must be installed to precise tolerances so there are checks all along the way to make sure the “new” engine conforms to the Gardner specifications. This page of my Gardner LXB Overhaul manual specifies the tolerance for the endwise clearance of the crankshaft to be between 0.006 – 0.009 in. To put this in perspective, a human hair is about 0.001 or “one one thousands of an inch”.
Using my trusty old dial indicator clamped to the crankcase with its indicator end pressed against the flywheel flange on the end of the crankshaft I carefully tap the crankshaft all the way to one end and then back to the other to measure the total distance it moves.
As you can see on the dial indicator it was spot on at 0.007 inch so I made a note of this in my manual page above.
The newly rebuilt Oil Pump went in next and was quickly torqued down tight with a bit of silicone gasket material to seal its cast iron machines faces to the AL surface of the crankcase. The vertical pipe sits down inside the sump of the oil pan (remember the engine is upside down here) and pumps the oil under about 45psi throughout the engine starting with the main bearings.
Which is what these cast iron fittings and steel pipes accomplish by creating an external pipeline to carry the oil from bearing to bearing. The hole you can see in the connecting rod bearing surface at the bottom of this photo is where the pressurised oil is routed from the main bearing cap and then the oil flows out and drains into the sump as the engine spins.
If you look inside the upper hole at the top of the fitting (click to enlarge any photo) I’m holding at right angle to the cap surface where it will be mounted, you can see I’ve inserted a new rubber O-ring which seals the steel distribution pipe when it is pushed in place. Another rubber O-ring fits into the groove on the bottom of the fitting to seal it against the cast cap block and keep this whole oil distribution pipeline fully sealed and pressurised.
Crankshaft Oil distribution system all ready for another lifetime of trouble free service keeping Mr. G’s crank spinning freely as he uses all his torque and power to move Möbius around the world.
After flipping Mr. Gee back right side up, I move on to the next part of the assembly.
And a chance to give a quick quiz for my mechanically minded followers;
??? What is this shaft I have started to insert into the crankcase?
The answer might surprise many of you because believe it or not this is the Camshaft.
Huh? I hear you say, where are all the cams? And here’s your answer.
On most engines the camshaft is a single part with each of the egg shaped lobes or cams machined into the camshaft. However on a Gardner each cylinder’s cams, one Intake and one Exhaust is a separate part which slides onto the actual camshaft and is held in place with that square headed setscrew you see here and the photos above and below.
These cam lobes cause the Intake and Exhaust valves to open and close at eXactly the right time and amount using a series of pushrods and valve lifters which we’ll see in the next few weeks. Each cam is carefully marked for this LXB engine model and as you see in the photo above I also engraved each cam when I was first disassembling Mr. Gee.
It’s a straightforward process of holding each pair of cams in order inside the crankcase as I slide the camshaft towards the rear of the engine. First four cams are in place here and #5 and 6 are waiting their turn at the far end.
We will pick up here next week so stay tuned for more of Mr. Gee’s assembly.
ELECTRICAL
Hilmi, our head Sparkie, was unfortunately sick the last few days but he was able to get a few things done such as installing more of the Maretron bilge water sensors and also testing out these cool LED lights for the Basement and Forepeak.
He also showed me some other versions and some that used fluorescent tubes but we liked the white light intensity of these 24V LED overhead fixtures as they provide great light for working so we’ll go with them for working spaces such as the Basement, Forepeak, Engine Room and Workshop.
PLUMBING:
This shining Stainless Steel beauty showed up this past week and Cihan got to work installing it in the Workshop. We chose this Isotemp Basic 75L model from Indel Webasto for several reasons including good experiences with one on our previous boat. This is a Calorifier rather than a “water heater” as it would otherwise be called because
our primary water heater will be a Kabola KB45 Combi diesel fired water heater or “boiler” such as this example in another boat.
This eXtremely efficient diesel boiler heats up a special fluid which is run through a heat exchanger loop inside like ……..
……. this one you can see inside this nice cutaway model of an Isotemp Calorifier and all those ribbed fins quickly transfers the heat to our Domestic Hot Water stored inside the Calorifier.
In the center is a traditional electrical heating element that runs on 240 Volt AC but we will rarely use this because ……..
…… our model has two of these heat exchangers inside; one that transfers heat from the diesel fired Kabola and a second one that will have hot coolant from the Gardner engine when it is running to take advantage of that additional heat source.
The heat exchangers connect to the four In/Out fittings labeled in Red, cold domestic water flows in through the bottom Blue fitting and then our DHW Domestic Hot Water comes out the white capped threaded fitting on the bronze mixing valve with the black adjuster knob. The mixing valves allows us to set the temperature we want to actually have at the taps and showers by mixing in some cold with the hot water.
This setup gives us a very reliable, very efficient and unlimited supply of hot water.
Cihan soon had this newest arrival bolted in place in the Workshop hanging underneath the Webasto BlueCool Chiller and Delfin Watermaker above.
Cihan also finished mounting the two Deck Wash Pumps up in the Forepeak; one for Fresh and one for Salt water. In addition to providing pressurized water for washing down our forward decks the Salt Water pump provides an easy way to clean the anchor and chain as it comes aboard and then wash down the anchor deck once we’re done.
MASTER CABIN:
Omur, Selim and Şevki were busy applying their impressive skills to crafting all the Ro$ewood and Beach cabinetry in the Main Cabin again this week and Şevki is installing the newest feature, Christine’s bedside shelf.
We are very happy with the way this “floating” shelf has worked out. Top of this shelf is at the same level as the top of our mattress so makes it easy to reach your phone or glasses and see a clock there,
The aluminium L-brackets you saw last week were installed to keep this dropped ceiling over our bed solidly in place. A nice feature in the Master Cabin and then also provides voluminous storage underneath the Main Helm in the SuperSalon above as you’ll see a bit later.
The stairwell leading up to the SuperSalon is coming along nicely and you can see how that angled wall at the Main Helm becomes part of this stairwell and keeps it very safely closed in on all sides.
Şevki continued to finish installing the FastMount fittings on all the wall and ceiling panels in the Master Cabin which allow us to snap each panel in and out as needed to access what’s behind or to change the leather coverings in the years ahead.
This FastMount system intrigued many of you you so a few more details on how this is installed. The White female fittings which you see on the Left here are installed first by threading them into holes drilled in the underlying marine plywood.
Then these Red center markers are snapped into the White fittings ….
…… and the outer panel is positioned just right and then you give a good “thump” with your hand where each Red center marker is located…….
……. which puts a perfect little dent for you to place the center of the drill to put in the matching hole for ……………….
…………………. the Black Male FastMount fittings and your panel now snaps into eXactly the same spot you had carefully aligned when you thumped it in place. Quick, Easy, Strong, what’s not to like? OK, a bit pricey but WELL worth it compared to alternatives such as strips of hook & loop strips and these panels come off and go back on the same way for many years. A no-brainer decision for me.
MAIN BATHROOM & SHOWER:
We have a new team onboard now that is looking after all the “composite” work such as fiberglass, epoxy and plastics for interior areas we want to be fully sealed and waterproof such as inside our showers and heads/bathrooms.
They have taped off the nearby furnishings in the Master Cabin to keep them fully protected and masked off the interior areas where the fiberglass transitions to the finished Rosewood and start applying the initial coat of resin.
Earlier they had applied a coat of white epoxy to all the internal surfaces of the marine plywood panels that form the initial substrate of the walls and ceiling. This protects all the plywood surfaces facing the interior EPDM insulation and prevents moisture and smells from seeping into the plywood.
The two White panels here are about to be fastened ……
……. to the ceiling of the Shower and …..
……. the Head.
With the surfaces all prepped they glass in a layer of cloth ……….
…… to provide the initial sealing of all these surfaces ……
……and their corners which will provide the ideal surface for applying the finished fiberglass flat panels.
Once dry openings such as these two for the VacuFlush toilet’s fresh water inlet and Black Water outlet pipes …….
…….. will be cut away with a sharp knife.
Using an age old technique of creating quick templates out of thin plywood strips Osma builds a set for each area of the walls and ceiling.
Using a hot glue gun to hold the plywood strips together the eXact shape of each panel can be quickly captured and then these templates are taken over to the Composite Shop where the flat and prefinished fiberglass panels which they make in-house can be cut to size and then brought back to be glassed into the Shower and Head.
SuperSalon & MAIN HELM:
Moving upstairs to the SuperSalon, Omur and Selim have also been making great progress on the cabinetry for the Main Helm area and this early rendering will give you a sense of the layout of the Main Helm at the very front of the SuperSalon.
And this overhead shot shows the overall layout of the whole SuperSalon with the Galley in the Upper Right corner and then working clockwise; stairs down from the Aft Deck and then around and down to the Corridor and Guest Cabin, twin Fridge cabinet, Eames lounge chairs, Helm Chair, stairs down to Master Cabin and then the L-shaped Dinette eating area.
Here, Omur is fitting the Rosewood panel that spans the front half wall of the Main Helm.
The rectangular opening is for an access door to all the wiring that ……
…… is coming up through these penetrations into the Basement below.
Similar penetration for wiring running up into the AC/DC electric distribution circuit breaker panel inside the angled half wall on the far Right of the Helm,
which you can see here.
50” SmarTV/monitor on the Left, Helm Dashboard in the center and AC/DC Distribution Panel inside the angled cabinet on the Right and another 43” monitor just out of sight on the far Right on the other side of the stairwell which can be seen easily from the Helm Chair which mounts in the center of the Helm area.
Omur then turned his skills to building up the triangular desktop on the Port/Left side of the Helm. The triangular desktop will be hinged to provide access to …….
….. this hugey storage area underneath.
There will be a false bottom where those two White epoxied strips are that will create a good sized storage space under the desktop for log books, maps, dividers, binoculars and such things we typically want at hand when at the Helm.
You can now see just how voluminous the storage areas are under the Main Helm and see how this was created by the dropped ceiling above the Master Cabin bed you saw earlier. We will take advantage of these well protected yet easily accessible areas underneath the Helm dashboard and desktops on either side for electronic goodies such as network switches, hubs, routers, device chargers, etc..
GUEST CABIN/AFT OFFICE CORRIDOR
I am never quite sure what to best call this multi-function area made up of the Corridor between the Guest Cabin Shower & Head and the WT Workshop door with my Office along the Port/Left hull, ……..
…… but whatever its name, Omer and Muhammed have been very busy installing the recently varnished cabinetry and the whole area is coming to life very well.
The tall cabinet on the bottom Right is for the main AC/DC Electrical Distribution panel with most of our DIN circuit breakers, meters and other electrical equipment. My office desk minus its Corian top running Aft and the door into the Workshop on the top Left.
Here is a shot in the opposite direction taken standing in front of the WT Workshop door looking forward at the stairs leading up from the Corridor to the SuperSalon
Components of my Office now being installed with handy storage cupboards above and drawers below. White grid is about to be mounted to create the support structure for the wall behind my desk.
Like this.
Completing the Port side wall up the sides of staircase is this final Rosewood covered wall panel with one more very large storage area underneath the side decks running up above. .
Here is what this wall looked like by end of the week yesterday.
We are thinking of using this area for more of our electronic gear such as network hubs and switches, the computer for the SkyBridge Helm which is right above the staircase on the Right.
The interior wall of this storage cupboard is removable to provide me access to the equally large area behind the two Fridges in that large cabinet in the upper center.
There was lots of action and progress on the opposite side of the Corridor as well this past week as Omer and Muhammed brought our now beautifully varnished “Swiss”, as in Swiss Army Knife practicality, double acting door up from the Finishing Shop and hung it on the outer wall of the Guest Head.
In this position this door will close off the entrance into the Guest Cabin once the Shower walls go up.
Then when swung the other way it now closes off the Guest Head.
These double acting Swiss doors as I’ve taken to calling them, are fabulous taking up so much less space and eliminating multiple doors all competing for swing room, hitting each other and a myriad of other problems.
Last item to complete this door frame is the header which Omer is setting in place here.
Which produces this latest work of art from Omer and the Cabinetry Team. A Grey/Green leather panel will be mounted in the open rectangle.
Zooming in on the outer edge of this Swiss Door for one example of the attention to detail and a quick quiz; can you see anything hiding in this picture?
Click to enlarge for a closer inspection.
Find it?
If you looked REAL closely in the photo above, you might have been able to just make out the edges of these absolutely awemazing hidden hinges we are using on all our interior doors and some cupboards. These are mortised a long ways into the door and frame and are unbelievably strong. I can literally hang off the other corner of these doors and swing back and forth with nary a change in their smooth open/close action.
And yet, when the door is closed these hinges just disappear!
It is difficult to capture this other side of the stairwell but you can see how the Rosewood angles up the stairs at an angle with my infamous Blue Horizon Line and handrail making the transition to the Green/Gray leather upper wall panels.
Next week they should be installing the Shower that goes across from the Head so stay tuned for that.
NEW ARRIVALS:
LOTS of new equipment arrived this past week and I won’t go into too much detail on each of them here as I will cover them more when they are being installed but here is a quick overview of this week’s new arrivals:
ANCHOR CHAIN:
This pallet with 100 meters/328ft of 13mm/ 1/2” DIN766 / G43 chain showed up at the beginning of the week.
We were able to get this chain from Zintas, a very large industrial chain manufacturing company in Istanbul and they made this run of 100 meters of DIN766/G40 chain for us and had it tested so it came with this class society rating certificate.
WLL Working Load Limit = 25,000Kg / 55,115 lbs
Breaking Force = 106kN / 23m829 lbf
Weight = 3.8Kg/m / 2.55 lb/ft
Total 100m chain weight = 380Kg/838 Lbs
As per the shipping label, this is 100m/328ft of chain which will attach to our 110kg/242lb Rocna anchor when that arrives in a few weeks. Even at with a long scope of 5:1 this length allows to have an eXtremely strong anchor in depths up to 20m/65ft and with such an oversized Rocna we can easily go to 3:1 scope for depths up to 33m/110ft. We also carry another 50m/165ft of 1/2” Dyneema line that we can use to extend the rode length for really deep anchorages. We also carry long lengths of Dyneema line for shore ties when in narrow anchorages such as fjords.
WATERTIGHT EXTERIOR DOORS!
This is one of the crates we have been waiting a LONG time to receive. If you know your marine suppliers you know what’s inside……
Yup! Our three Watertight exterior doors! Yigit (standing middle) has been working with us for months on getting these doors just right for Möbius and Omer and Muhammed lent a hand to unbox them and check them out.
Bofor, a Turkish manufacturer in Istanbul makes all custom built doors and hatches for superyachts and industrial ships around the world and are regarded as one of the best.
This WT door is internal as it goes between the Workshop and the Corridor into the Guest Cabin area so we had Bofor finish it in white powder coat to provide a nice look and contrast with all the Rosewood and leather wall panels.
Yigit is checking the seals around the full length glass window in this WT door where you enter the boat from the Aft Deck down into the SuperSalon. Six beefy “dogs” and specially built glass creates a WT door to eXceed the forces it might experience in the unlikely event of a full 360 degree roll over and will bring even more light and visibility into the SuperSalon.
Captain Christine gave all three doors her official stamp of approval and we are absolutely delighted with the quality of these Bofor doors. These two exterior doors are finished in brushed raw aluminium same as the rest of the boat so they will blend right in with the patina and low maintenance which is one of our four top priorities.
FRIDGES:
Our two 130 liter/ 4.6 cu.ft. Vitrifrigo C130LX stainless steel side by side fridges arrived this week.
The two matching drawer style DRW7070 liter/ 2.5cu.ft. should be here in the next few weeks as they are brand new models just being released and will take a bit longer to arrive.
As we have done with all our previous boats, we go with externally mounted air cooled Danfoss compressors which you can see in these photos from Vitrifrigo.
Sea water or keel cooled models are prone to much more maintenance and failure and the difference in performance is relatively minor and will be even more so in Möbius as the four compressors will be mounted below the fridges and freezers in the Basement which has very stable temperatures and lots of ventilation to keep these compressors happy for many years.
STRAINERS & DORADE COWLS:
We also received our dual sea water strainers which mount on the two outlet pipes on the Intake Sea Chest in the Engine Room and filter out any debris, kelp, fish, etc. from getting through. We like these Vetus Type 1900 strainers because they require no tools to remove the clear lids to check and clean the strainers inside. With two strainers we always have a clean one ready for action if the one in use ever clogs.
We also received two of the four Vetus Dorade Cowls we need for the Foredeck and the other two should be here soon. These silicone cowls are eXtremely durable and can be rotated in any direction.
We like these Vetus cowls because they can be easily removed by turning the grey base ring and putting in a solid disc to replace the cowl and completely seal off the Dorade Vent boxes.
Most of the time we keep these Cowls pointing forward to capture the most amount of breezes blowing over the bow at anchor and keeping our Master Cabin well ventilated when it is raining and we can’t keep all the big glass hatches open. Dorade vents also keep the Master Cabin with a healthy supply of fresh air when we are underway as they are built to prevent any water from getting through in anything less than severe weather.
And then if we want to fully close off the Dorade Vents when we leave the boat for long periods of time or in eXtremely severe seas when we might have a lot of green water on the foredeck, I designed this simple screw Up/Down aluminium lids which we can completely close and seal all the vent pipes in the boat by reaching up inside and turning the know on the bottom.
This might all seem over the top “belt & suspenders” design and building to some of you but trust me, it only takes one good dousing of sea water on your bed and other parts of your cabin to teach you how important it is to keep all the water OUTSIDE the boat!
Ask me how I know????
BOW THRUSTER:
Last “bit of kit” that arrived from Vetus this week is our 2204DE Extended Run Time bow thruster. Bow thrusters are a bit like insurance, something you hope you never need to use but IF you do then you are really glad you have it.
In our experience with our previous boat which was a relatively large and heavy 35T all steel sailboat, I put in a big 48V ABT Bow Thruster which worked very well but we typically used it less than two or three times in a year and often when years never using it.
But as I noted above, when you do need a way of controlling your bow in dodgy situations such as in strong cross winds while docking a powerful bow thruster is VERY much appreciated.
We considered going with a 220V model which has several advantages but decided to stick with 24V DC and go with this Extended Run Time model that can be run for up to 7 minutes without overheating and we rarely need more than short bursts of a few seconds to move the bow.
Thruster tunnel/prop size is 300mm / 12” and has 220Kgf/485lbf of thrust so on those rare occasions when we might need it, this should help us keep our bow where we want it.
SOLAR PANELS:
Another VERY welcome site this week was this pallet full of all our solar panels. It is a longer story for another post about what a challenge it became to get the size panels we needed when SunPower which we had originally specified could not provide us with any of their solar panels.
After a LOT of time online researching, I finally found and was able to work direct with Lightech Solar in Tianchang China. Meet Arthur, a truly amazing manager and problem solver who worked with me for over a week exchanging drawings and specs.
In the end Arthur offered do a short run of solar panels just for us and to my specifications and dimensions.
Arthur and his colleagues at Lightech were able to produce our 18 panels in a matter of a few days and get them shipped out before they shut the factory down for Chinese New Year.
AND, Arthur was able to do all this for an incredibly low price that worked out to be 25 cents/Watt. He then also arrange to ship them to us here at Naval Yachts for an equally great rate so including the shipping it worked out to 30 cents/Watt. Awesome!
I ordered several extra panels to have onboard as spares and Christine and I will also look at ways we might be able to mount them at a later date to increase our total solar output.
This is the specs and MC4 connectors on the underside of the top 5 panels you see in the photo above. Each of these panels have 54 monocrystalline silicone cells and produce 295Watts.
They measure 1560mm x 920mm which is a non standard size which SunPower X-Series panels use and was exactly the size we needed to fit on the hinged mounting rack that goes in front of the SkyBridge windows.
Eight panels are slightly larger at 320W panels create the roof over the SkyBridge and then the other three go on the cantilevered roof over the Aft Deck BBQ & Outdoor Galley.
The larger panels produce 320Watts from 60 monocrystalline cells.
Total Wp of all 14 panels we will originally install works out to 4.405kW which is a bit less than the 5kW I was aiming for but close enough and they fit within the dimensions we had originally designed for so we are VERY happy.
If we find locations to add the other three panels our total Wp would go up to 5.635 Watts and we have several options in mind for expanding our solar further that I will show you later.
Whew! As I said at the outset, another very productive week for Team Möbius and if you’ve made it this far, even if you skipped ahead, congratulations and thanks SO much for your perseverance and patience with me. It really means a lot to both Christine and myself that so many of you would take time to join us on this eXtreme passage through the past 2+ years.
Don’t forget to leave your questions and comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below and I hope we will see you here again next week.
-Wayne
by Wayne | Feb 16, 2020 | Boat building, Cabinetry, Electrical, Interior, Plumbing, Systems, The Gardner |
The wind shifted from being out of the ccccccccccCold North to coming off the Med to the South so our temperatures here in Antalya when from low single digits and night time temps a few days down to 1C/34F to a high of 19C/66F on Thursday so a very welcome change even though the warmer winds did bring some rain with them. However, Team Möbius powers through with more progress this past week no matter what the temperatures dipped to inside the Naval Yachts shipyard so let’s jump right into this week’s XPM78-01 Progress Update.
ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS:
We will start off with our “Sparkie” Hilmi and his excellent electrical work. With electrical systems, wires and cables spread throughout the entire boat Hilmi really gets around but I managed to catch him here in the Basement early in the week as he was wiring up two of our 14 Johnson Viking 16 24V diaphragm Bilge Pumps.
Here is what the finished setup on these two pumps looks like now.
Cihan has already done all the plumbing work and connected all of the bilge pumps to their respective Sea Chest outputs with the clear 25mm/1” hose so the low level bilge water system will soon be ready for testing.
The larger 38mm/1.5” white hose with the green stripe is for the independent high water capacity Bilge Pump system. He has left the grey protective wrap on these hoses to keep them clean and protected until the build is done.
To help with orientation, this is the front Port/Left corner of the Basement WT Bulkhead with the Master Cabin on the other side. Just visible on the Right is the large AL “heat sink” panel holding all 14 of the Victron SmartSolar 100/20 MPPT controllers which you have seen being installed previously.
At the Aft end of the Basement on the WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin on the other side, Hilmi was busy this past week doing all the wiring for the three circulation pumps for the In-Floor Heating system that is in each of the three living areas; Master Cabin, SuperSalon and Guest Cabin/Office.
Wiring now all done for the Circulation Pumps.
Cihan has two of the three zones Red PEX tubing run here where they will soon be connected to these beautiful SS Hot water manifold on top and the colder Return manifold on the bottom.
Here is the photo I was missing for last week’s Update with a good shot of how the low level Maretron BHW100 solid state water sensors are being installed in the bottom of the “V” shaped Gutters where the Margin Plate bend down to meet the hull and run down the full length of each side hull.
These V shaped Gutters are in lieu of us having more typical bilges because everything below the WL is tankage on our hull. A small aluminium. With no moving parts these Maretron sensors are SO much better and longer lasting than the typical float switches I find to be so failure prone. The internal sensor in the Yellow plastic rectangle switches “On” when water reaches the middle of that white Maretron label which is about 15mm / 5/8” of water in the bottom so we will know right away when any water should find its way here.
The 38mm White hose is the backup High Water Bilge pickup.
PLUMBING
I didn’t manage to catch the equally fast moving Cihan as he was working on Möbius’ plumbing a few days this week but di manage to catch him installing the PVC ball valves for the Domestic Hot/Cold water manifolds behind the back of the Couch in the Guest Cabin.
We were very surprised and disappointed when more than half of the original German built ball valves that were shipped to Naval were leaking on the very first pressure test. Fortunately Christine was able to pick up a full new set when she was back in Florida for her 100 Ton Captain’s certification and brought them back with her on the plane so Cihan was able to replace them all this week.
These access openings are a good example of how we are ensuring that even when we have system components behind cabinetry, there is still plenty of space to work on them in the future. We do our best to keep all such access happen where there is no cabinetry such as in the Basement, Workshop and Forepeak, but some cannot be avoided and we have designed in access ports such as this.
Just off to the Right or Aft of the Couch, Cihan was also busy this week putting in the plumbing connections for the Air Handler for AirCon and Heating in the Guest Cabin. This 12k BTU/3.5Kw-h Air Handler exchanges the heat energy in the fluid flowing through the Chilled for AirCon or Hot for Heating tubes with the air being blown through them which is then fed up through ducts to vents along the ceiling.
This is a peek inside the cabinet which Cihan is working on above, which holds this Guest Cabin Air Handler to show the Supply/Return cooling/heating fluid lines going to the Air Handler. The round disc on the Right is the large squirrel cage fan that pulls the air through the internal heat exchanger and then blows it up the soon to be installed duct up the side of this hull.
We will most commonly use these Air Handlers to cool off the rooms in the boat in hot tropical climates and then we’ll use the In-Floor heating in cold climates but there are times when a quick heat up of the air volume in a room is the most efficient way to quickly heat up a space so we have these dual purpose Webasto Air Handlers in both Cabins and two larger ones on each side of the SuperSalon.
GUEST CABIN:
Still in the Guest Cabin but switching to Omer and his Cabinetry team hiding all their handiwork after installing the now fully varnished cabinetry to protect it from the likes of Cihan and others as the systems all get installed.
He used the super robust AL frames above to help push this Ro$ewood cabinet top behind the couch into position while the adhesive sets up.
Over on Omer’s workbench in the Cabinetry shop he has been assembling the elegant Rosewood and White upper Bookshelf that wraps around the front and Starboard/Right corner of the Guest Cabin.
I got lucky and timed my stop in the Guest Cabin just right to get this shot of the Bookshelf being installed.
Pullman Berth is on the upper Right and houses a full size single bed that folds down for an additional guest to sleep. More often though our Guests will sleep on the Queen bed that pulls out from the Couch at the bottom of this shot.
Then before you can blink twice, they have it all covered in protective cardboard!
Christine’s Office Desk is covered up on the far Right.
You can be forgiven for not being quite as excited by this shot as I am but what you’re seeing is Omer on the Left and Muhammed assembling what will soon be MY workbench/desk which is located in the Corridor just outside the Guest Cabin.
They soon have the lower cabinet of drawers mounted to the Port hull.
Two rectangular Rosewood panels covered up on the bottom …………………..
…. looked like this a few minutes earlier. These panels flank the opening for my knees when I am sitting on the fold out seat.
WT door into the Workshop is on the far Left
Stairs up to the SuperSalon are on the far Right.
MASTER CABIN:
Şevki continued making great progress on the “Storm Bed” area on the Port/Left side of the Master Cabin bed and now has the center divider in place. The 12k BTU/3.5Kw-h Air Handler for the AirCon and air Heating in this Master Cabin will be installed in the rectangular space in the foreground and the aft space is more storage.
Şevki has cut out these slots in the stair risers for the intake air supply louvers for the Air Handler.
On the opposite side of the bed, Selim has the 10mm/ 3/8” marine plywood flooring all in place now. The Red PEX tubing runs immediately under this atop the 50mm / 2’ thick rigid foam insulation which will keep us toasty warm in cold locations and nice and cool in the tropics. Finished flooring will be some of the new high end vinyl planking that you will see in the coming weeks.
At the foot of the bed, Omur and Muhammed are working at covering all the floors, ceiling and walls of the Master Head and Shower with more marine plywood that will then be fully covered and sealed with fiberglass.
They have the plywood walls all in place and are now fitting the corner boxed frame to make the transition from wall to ceiling.
The two openings in front of Muhammed are for access ports where the two mirrored Medicine Cabinets will be mounted overtop of the lower cabinet drawers with the sink mounted on top.
We are also using this inside of this corner to be the perfect chase or duct for the N2K cables that run from the Forepeak in the background across to the Basement.
Here Omur is fitting the attachment blocks for mounting the plywood ceiling panel.
This is one of the intake air vents coming into the Head/Bathroom from a Dorade Box on the Deck above. Omur has wrapped it with the same super flexible wood strips used to laminate curved components. This creates a good thermal break and a spot for the ceiling panel to attach to.
Aft Ceiling panel in place around the big 700mm / 28” square hatch that brings in light and fresh breezes to either side of the vertical glass half panel that divides the Shower area from the Head.
Ceiling above the toilet area now in place with that air vent hole easily seen.
The two plumbing fittings poking through the end wall is for the hot water flowing in and out of the heated towel warmer and the fresh water inlet for the VacuFlush toilet can be seen at the bottom beside the rectangular cut out for its outlet pipe.
Shower seat on the bottom Left and access to one of the underfloor tank access plates. Vanity sink on the far Right.
Şevki was also busy installing the snap in place FastMount system we are using to fasten all the removable wall and ceiling panels to their underlying grids. I had used FastMount clips on previous projects years ago and they were fabulous so we are using them again on XPM78-01 Möbius.
Zooming in on the lower Right corner of that white grid in the middle of the photo above you can see this white plastic female half of the FastMount fitting which Şevki has threaded into the wooden grid.
This FastMount system is a fantastic way of mounting panels with these snap in plastic fittings. You then snap one of these ingenious red center markers in each White female half and hold the outer plywood panel in place, give each corner a good tap with the palm of your hand and …………….
……….. these steel center points put a little conical dent into the plywood that marks the exact center for you to drill the hole in the outer panel for the matching Black male FastMount fitting.
These FastMount clips come in a variety of different “strengths” based on how much of a pull it requires to snap each FastMount fitting In/Out of its socket as well as many different types for different materials and panel mounting situations.
There is a nice set of special drills and clip installation tools that fit into a hand drill for you to cut the right sized holes and then thread the Male and Female fittings into the wood. Fast, simple, accurate and strong!
While not cheap, this FastMount system is very long lasting and makes removing and installing panels on walls and ceilings extremely easy and keeps the panels eXtremely securely fastened to the walls and ceilings.
Last Update from the Master Cabin this past week was the installation of this dropped ceiling box that goes overhead of the Master Cabin bed.
As with most components this is multi-purposed providing both a visual break in the ceiling, a spot for overhead lights and then a voluminous storage area under the Main Helm Station that you will soon see immediately above in the SuperSalon.
It is visually matched by this boxed in corner soffit where the leather covered side wall panels transition into the ceiling.
As we’ve done in the Bathroom/Shower this corner box also provides the Goldilocks place to run our N2K cables and Black Boxes as well as providing a place for the AirCon output vents.
To ensure that the dropped ceiling box is very solidly mounted, Omur had Nihat whip up three of these AL corner brackets.
These will mount out of sight inside the dropped ceiling box
and then be bolted to the thick AL frame member above.
SuperSalon
As with all our other craftsmen, Omur is simultaneously working on lots of different projects so let’s move up into the SuperSalon and catch up with what he’s been doing with the Main Helm Station up here.
These two quick renderings will give you a good perspective on how the Main Helm and overall SuperSalon areas are laid out.
And here is a rough render of the current layout of most of the key items that will be at the Main Helm, including the angled wall section on the Right side of the Helm Chair, not shown, which will sit on the centerline of the boat.
We have designed this angled wall to be another multi-functional component.
- It will be part of our Main Helm “dashboard” with a place to mount instruments and Helm based devices such as the engine throttle and CPP Pitch levers
- the space inside this wall will have a door facing the Helm Chair which will be home to many of our AC and DC circuit breakers and some electrical data displays.
- and it ticks the Safety box being a super secure enclosure of the stairwell down to the Master Cabin and a spot to push you hip onto when standing at the Helm in heavy seas.
For those who have been following the previous posts you will recall seeing Omur and Selim laminating this very odd shaped and angled component of the Main Helm with its matching Rosewood veneer.
If you look closely at the rendering above (click to enlarge any photo), you will see a half wall that extends aft at an angle on the Right side of the Helm Chair and that is the part which Omur is assembling in these photos.
Turned 90 degrees to work on here, this boxed end with the angled top surface will soon become the main electrical panel holding over half our AC and DC circuit breakers of which number over 150 in total for the whole boat.
Back onboard Möbius here is the current state of the SuperSalon looking forward towards the Main Helm in the center. 50” monitor on the angled wall on the far Left and 43” on the far upper Right, Dinette on the lower Right and stairs down to the Master Cabin between the Right side of the Helm and the Dinette.
This view of the inside of the Dropped Ceiling Box in the Master Cabin shows how much volume this provides for mounting electronics and steering gear inside which is one of the main features we designed into this multi-purposed box.
Omur has now brought the roughed in angled Helm wall onboard and it mounts atop the white rectangular foundation where Şevki’s Left hand is resting. You might note that the oblong hole in the bottom of the wood cabinet matches up with the oblong aluminium penetration in the SuperSalon AL floor just in front of Şevki’s hand,
The angled top surface will have a Black Leather covered surface to match the rest of the Main Helm surfaces and reduce window reflections on night watches. We will mount engine/CPP controls and other navigation equipment here as well as on the Main Helm dashboard.
This angled wall cabinet will be mounted a bit more to the Right in this photo but this shot should make it easy to visualise and you can refer back to the rendering above.
Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB Main Engine
Mr. Gee finally started to get some much needed TLC from me these past few weeks and I have finally begun the big reassembly process now that all the individual components have been scrupulously cleaned with sand blasting, degreasing solvent and a LOT of elbow grease supplied by Christine and myself.
This is the recently built plastic tent that helps keep all the dirt and dust out and keep all the spray paint inside as I start to apply the final colour coats as I assemble the engine.
Cast aluminium crankcase on the far Right, Chrome/Moly Crankshaft in the foreground and Cast Iron Cylinder block on the Left.
For some historical perspective:
This is my “Love at first sight” photo the day I first met Mr. Gee in person at Gardner Marine Diesel in England after their fabulous CEO Michael Harrison pictured here had just plucked him out of a tugboat on the Thames after over 55 years of uninterrupted service.
For a glimpse at what the “after” photos will look when I finish this renovation, this is what a fellow Gardner lover and restorer, Jamie Gabb’s 6LXB motor looks like, minus the polished AL valve covers.
Shot of the aft end of Jamie’s 6LXB with the same oversized flywheel and SAE cogged flange for the rubber flex drive connection to our Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox.
Here is what he looked like when we offloaded Mr. Gee at our friends home we were house/pet sitting in Albufeira Portugal for his first round of dismantling and cleaning.
The first of several complete disassembly rounds begins.
Unboxing the complete set of brand new OEM Gardner parts of which we have a duplicate of pretty much EVERY “bit and bob” as my British friends would say from new pistons, to every bearing, gasket, meter and nuts and bolts. Pretty much every part other than the primary cast or forged parts such as the cast AL crankcase, dry sleeved CI cylinder block, heads, etc..
After pressing in new cylinder liners, grinding head and block surfaces, new valves & springs and lots of pressure washing, I put Humpty Dumpty back together again along with his trusty sidekick the 2 Ton hydraulic lift and ….
…. wrapped him all up in shrink wrap for his next land based journey being trucked over to Antalya Turkey where we now pick up the story.
It might be questionable if I have all my Ducks in a row but I present this photographic evidence that I do have all my main bearing shells in a row.
along with all their matching Main Bearing caps lined up in wait of being assembled.
With all these primary Gardner engine parts weighing in the hundreds of Kilos I’m using all 2 tons of my trusty hydraulic rolling lift such as in this case where I’m using it to gently lower the surgically clean crankshaft onto its bearing shells you saw in the photo above.
And I’ve also been getting great use out of some of my Dyneema line as it is stronger than steel yet very soft and forgiving when going through highly machined surfaces such as the journals of the crank.
I will have LOTS more coverage of this Mr. Gee’s full renovation and new lease on life for my fellow gearheads and for those less interested you can just skim over these parts of future Progress Update posts.
NEW ARRIVALS @ NAVAL YACHTS
Floorspace in Naval’s shipyard diminished dramatically the past two weeks with the arrival of several new renovation boat projects.
On the far Left inside the plastic tent is “Twinity” a 22m/70’ all composite power catamaran which arrived as a bare hull and superstructure and Naval is now building out the interior and will deliver a fully finished boat. Beside Twinity is the newly arrived Bravo II which is a 70ft Princess power boat and then directly in front of Möbius where she used to be is the 26m/85’ steel Legacy which has returned for some additional work after extensive sea trials over the past 3 months.
And that’s the week that was February 10 to 14, 2020 here at Naval Yachts with the Good Ship Möbius. REALLY appreciate you taking your highly valuable time to join us on this latest leg of our journey to build our Goldilocks home and magic carpet as well as the first of what we hope will be many more XPM type boats that will join us as we continue our adventures cruising around this awemazing planet of ours.
Even though it takes me an embarrassingly long time to respond to them PLEASE do add your comments and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below and let me know how I might increase the value and enjoyment you get from following these blog posts.
– Wayne
Mr. Gee, which is what we call our Gardner 6LXB diesel engine, usually appears near the end of previous Weekly Progress Updates so let’s check in on him first this week. Actually these photos are from the week previous when I had time to give all the large cast aluminium parts their first finish coats of high them aluminium paint.
I had been thinking of just leaving the aluminium parts bare after sandblasting them thoroughly but I like a very clean engine and the cast aluminium can be a bit porous so I decided to cover all the aluminium with more aluminum in the form of powdered aluminium based paint. 
This is a silicone based paint that is specially formulated to withstand temps up to 300 C/ 572 F. I’m very pleased with the results and next week when I can hopefully go back to Naval I will give these all one more coat of aluminium paint and then finish it off with a clear coat to seal it all fully.
This is the Port/Left side of the crankcase casting that is the “service side” of the Gardner as the factory photo below shows ……………
………. how this is the side that has most of the engines parts that you access when servicing such as the fuel injection pump which is mounted with those two circular clamps you see above, fuel and oil filters, alternator, etc.
These two castings enclose the huge heavy flywheel and that flat surface on the Left one facing this photos is where it bolts to the aft end of the crankcase. The housing on the Right has a SAE bolt pattern flange which matches the one on the Nogva CPP Controllable Pitch Propeller gearbox.
Even though he is one of the most efficient diesel engines ever to be mass produced, Mr. Gee needs a good steady supply of clean diesel fuel so we are building an extensive set of fuel filtering systems that include a pair of 2 stage Fleetguard filters, water separators, a fuel transfer and polishing system and a full Alfa Laval centrifuge that can convert even the dirtiest fuel into crystal clear diesel.
This requires a series of manifolds and ball valves such as this pair in the Basement for transferring fuel from any one tank to any other. Now we need about four more manifolds for the fuel transfer system, fuel polishing and Day Tank. 
So the Machine Shop has been busy making these out of blocks of solid 75mm/3” square aluminium which they drill out and tap with NPT pipe threads for the SS ball valves. You’ll see more of these as Cihan starts installing them in the Workshop.
In the meantime though, Cihan is busy plumbing in all the fuel and water lines in the Workshop and Engine Room. This is looking forward at the Day Tank on the Stbd/Right side of the Workshop with the ER wall on the Left. You can see the water and fuel lines in the vertical trays on the Right and running across the ceiling and down to the ball valves atop the Day Tank.
The area between the Day Tank and the Stbd hull is starting to be well populated as the various “highways” of support trays for fuel, water and electrical cables intersect. The horizontal trays here are carrying electrical cables through the penetrations in the WT Bulkhead you can see at the far end. 
When all the hoses or cables are in, these penetrations are sealed to be fully watertight with a White special certified caulking compound you can see in this penetration under the workbench you see in the photo above.
Down below the Day Tank we can see more of Cihan’s handiwork with these water hoses which make the turn into the penetration through the ER Enclosure wall on the Left.
The clear hoses are bringing sea water from the intake Sea Chest in the ER back to the Watermaker low pressure Feed Pump and the Circulation Pump for the Webasto BlueCool Chiller.
Those water hoses run aft into these ball valves which direct sea water supply and return lines from the Watermaker Low Pressure Feed Pump and the AirCon Chiller Circulation Pump.
With the ball valves installed Cihan mounts that SW Circulation Pump to the mount he has previously welded in place.
As with all pumps and motors, this is mounted with these vulcanized vibration absorbing mounts. 
Cihan also has both Deck Wash pumps mounted and plumbed. This is the pump for the Sea Water Deck Wash with its clear filter covered with the white latex glove. The Fresh Water Deck Wash pump is on the far Left of this shot.
Yigit has been extremely busy managing all this work as well as designing and modeling all our systems and this past week we worked with the engineers at Halyard to finalise the design of our wet exhaust system and have them build and ship that to us ASAP.
We have refined it a bit more but the earlier rendering below is close to the final design that Halyard is now starting to build.
I don’t have too many pictures of Hilmi’s progress this week but we have been frequently connected via WhatsApp and he’s been continuing to install more and more of the Maretron BB’s Black Boxes and N2K cables.
One of the many networks on the boat is the one for all the Victron equipment which is the base of our AC and DC electrical systems. Victron is another one of those tried and true solutions for us so we went all Victron for things like inverters, chargers, isolation transformer, MPPT solar panel controllers, DC-DC converters, etc..
This is our Victron OctoGX, which we may swap out for the just released CerboGX and these both serve as a central communications device to bring all the inputs and outputs together and enable us to closely monitor all aspects of our electrical system. 
On the XPM’s or any long range passage maker boat, this level of monitoring is critical as we literally live off of our electrical system and the consequences of losing any part of it can have eXtremely severe consequences for us. So these comm centers put pool all the data from all the devices and allow us to know right away when anything changes.
Hilmi has also been installing other electric components such as these 12V and 24V DC distribution blocks. We have these spread throughout the boat wherever we might want to power 12V and 24V devices. 
In addition to the 8 port model above, these also come in round 2 port models where fewer such DC connections are needed so we use a mix of both.
These blocks are very well made and require a single 12 of 24V DC power input which is then distributed to each of the Anderson Powerpole plug in sockets which are individually fused with an standard ATC blade fuse. The block can handle up to 40 Amps which is more than enough for the various chargers, LED lights, fans, radios, and other DC powered devices. Also super handy to have near my workbenches in the Workshop and my Boat’s Office.
Uğur, standing, Nihat, kneeling, and Okan had a very busy week with their typically varied set of jobs such as continuing to install the many doors in the two Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck. 
Door on the far Left and Right access storage areas. Upper Middle frame is for the Extraction air from the Engine Room and Lower Middle frame is for the Extraction Air from the workshop, both with large axial fans built in.
Both tops will soon have their AL plates welded on and a bit later these will be covered with some of the Aquamarine Marble countertop surfaces. Taller countertop on the Left will be left as is and the electric BBQ Grille mounts into the lower counter surface on the Right.
They also whipped up this bracket for the Manual Hydraulic Steering Pump that will be installed inside the Main Helm.
This will secure the Kobelt 7012 Helm Pump which is connected via hydraulic hoses to the Kobelt 7080 steering cylinders. We will keep a traditional steering wheel stored nearby that can slide onto the 7012’s keyed shaft and enable us to steer the boat manually. 
However this wheel will rarely be in place as this is only a last resort backup steering in case either of other two independent 24V steering systems, AutoPilots and cylinders should ever fail completely.
However what stole the show excitement wise this week is this! 
2. Tilted up to be horizontal when at anchorage for both maximum solar gain AND to act as a giant wind funnel directing the breezes over the Bow to the big vertical vent Green Mist Eliminator grill you can see in this rough render.
The three panels are fastened into the hinged AL frame.
Once in place each panel butts up tight against each other to form a single continuous solar surface.
Front two panels in place.
and then there were three!
Each of our 14 solar panels have their own dedicated Victron 100/20 SmartSolar MPPT controller to maximize their output and give us the most control over losses from any shading of any one panel from nearby structures such as the SkyBridge Roof, Arch, Radar, etc. If multiple solar panels are connected in series to a single MPPT controller then the shading of any one panel reduces the output of all the others as well.
Here’s the “powerful” view from the SkyBridge.
Şevki and Selim continue to build out the Master Cabin. All the Green/Gray leather wall panels on the Port/Left side are now snapped in place.
All the ceiling panels are removable with FastMount clips holding them in place. The ceiling grid has now been installed and they are installing the White FastMount female sockets you can see in the foreground and then two of the rough cut ceiling panels have been snapped in place behind.
View from the entrance into the Master Cabin looking forward to see that the rest of the rough cut ceiling panels have now been fitted and snapped in place.
Hmmmmm, what do you think we are witnessing here?
It took quite some time but Buse persevered and was able to source a British version of this Bosch Washing machine Christine had picked out so that the engraved text is in English rather than Turkish. (click to enlarge)
We received this exciting photo on Friday as they put in the Rosewood stair risers for the first time. This is the spiraling stairwell leading up from the Master Cabin to the SuperSalon which we will go look at next.
They picked up where the left off last week with filling all the joints between the fiberglass panels that form all the surfaces of the floor, ceiling and walls. As you may recall from last week, they tape off each joint with two different layers of tape so they can put on two layers of grout to create a nicely radiused corner.
With the joints all filled and sanded they could now install the lower sink cabinet and the base for the VacuFlush toilet you see on the Right with the patch of blue painters tape to protect the surface as they cut the hole for the toilet base.
Continuing up the stairs from the Master Cabin, Omur and Selim are now installing the rest of the Main Helm cabinetry with this section overtop of the Master Cabin door. There will be a Black leather covered triangular lid atop the space to the right of Ömür’s hand which will lift up to access the surprisingly large storage space underneath.
That allows Selim to start fitting the side panel which makes the corner transition from the panel above the door and caries on below the windowsill on the far Stbd/Right side of the stairway.
Stepping back towards the centerline of the boat, let’s turn clockwise for a series of shots to see the layout of all the areas that make up the Super Salon.
Turning to look at the Aft Port/Left corner of the SuperSalon shows the whole wrap around set of connected Galley cupboards.
Which you can see much better if I zoom in on the Galley at bit more. 
Continuing to turn clockwise you can see the stairs leading up to the Aft Deck in the background on the Right. 
Rotating a bit more reveals the opening for the 50” SmarTV/monitor cabinet.
One more twist to the Right lets us see the Main Helm cabinetry.
And one final twist to complete the full 360 photo tour we are back to the stairwell down to the Master Cabin with the Settee on the Right.
Here’s a different perspective of the SuperSalon looking straight ahead at the Main Helm while standing at the base of the stairs down from the Aft Deck. 
Off to the far Right of the photo above here is a sneak peek at the first of the Galley Garages which sit atop the marble countertops and I look forward to showing you the rest of these Garages as they are installed next week.
And of course, the Blue Horizon Line or BHL you first saw being installed last week, continues to go in all around the circumference of the SuperSalon.
More BHL running along the upper edge of the Settee.
BHL on the Port side along the upper edges of the Fridge and Freezer cabinets.
and starting to make its way around the Main Helm.
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