It has been very fun and surprising to have so many of you tell me that you anxiously await each weekly Möbius Progress Update and all the more of you finding the ongoing story of Mr. Gee and getting to the bottom of what caused him to suddenly loose most of his oil pressure while out on the first sea trial to be so fascinating. Usually it is Captain Christine who is in charge of writing mysteries and intrigue when she is writing all her best selling marine murder mystery novels under her nom de plume of Christine Kling, so rather surprising that I find myself apparently writing my own “mystery novels” given my brevity challenged NeveraSentenceWhenaParagraphWillDo style!
To be sure, “As Mr. Gee Turns” will continue to be a long running series and this week’s update won’t be the final chapter/novella but many of you will be very happy to know that I have finally dismantled Mr. Gee enough now to have found the source of the sudden drop in oil pressure and a reasonable assessment of the damage done and what will now be required to get him back to better than new condition. So go grab your favorite beverage and comfy seat and come join me on this week’s Show & Tell Möbius update for the week of May 31-June 5, 2021.
In what may be THE biggest milestone of this almost four year long Project Goldilocks, we had the official finale of the building of XPM78-01 Möbius courtesy of Dincer and Baris Dinc at Naval Yachts this past Friday, June 4, 2021. We were not able to get everyone who had worked on Möbius over the years but Dincer did his best to get most and we had a lovely little celebration up on the rooftop of Naval Yachts. Christine and I created a design for some black T-shirts with the names of pretty much everyone who had ever worked on Möbius and all our great suppliers and you can see the back of one of these with the person on the Right here. I can’t seem to find the final version which has a LOT more names on it but this will give you an idea of what the shirts looked like.
We will be doing our best to get one of these one of a kind T-shirts out to all those who where not able to attend the celebration on Friday. Here you can see the fronts of the T-shirts nicely modeled by Dincer on the Right and Yusuf (originally our head Electrician) on the Right. Dincer very kindly had this eXtremely special XPM78-01 Möbius cake made up and the insides were even better than the outside if you can believe that!
New Navy Neighbors
And before we dive into the whole story about Mr. Gee’s hole, check out our newest neighbor who pulled into the harbour next to us! Last week I showed you the three smaller vessels from the Turkish Navy fleet and this week their bigger brother arrived. Made for great entertainment for Christine and me on our nightly sundowner glass of wine on the foredeck. For those interested in knowing more about the Turkish Navy, my super sleuth Christine dug up THIS Wikipedia list of all the currently active ships and submarines in the Turkish Navy. According to Wikipedia, as of January 2021, the Turkish navy operates a wide variety of ships, including; 16 frigates, 10 corvettes, 12 submarines and various other ships.
Mr. Gee is not the Only One Left Hanging!
May of you wrote to me (thanks!) to tell me that I kept leaving you hanging as to the root of Mr. Gee’s sudden loss of oil pressure and when we ended last week’s update, Mr. Gee was also left quite literally hanging in his Engine Room like this.
Picking up where we left off last week, once I had Mr. Gee securely and safely raised up about 1 meter above his engine beds, I began the laborious process of dismantling him in search of what had gone so terribly wrong for the oil pressure to have suddenly dropped from its usual 38 PSI down to just under 20 PSI This cutaway illustration of the Gardner 6LXB lubrication system (click any photo to enlarge) might help you follow along with all the different parts that need to be removed and let you see what all needs to be removed to strip a 6LXB “naked”.
It turned out, getting to the bottom of the Mr. Gee’s problem was going to require me to dig all the way down to Mr. Gee’s bottom end, right down to his massive crankshaft.
I felt a bit like Ruby (one of our boat dogs) digging furiously for the ever elusive crabs she has acquired a delicacy for as they burrow deeper and deeper into the sand below. This meant pretty much completely dismantling Mr. Gee Humpty Dumpty style and my center workbench in my Workshop soon started filling up with all the bits and bobs as I removed more and more of them from Mr. Gee. Here I am pulling off Mr. Gee’s tiny little flywheel that weighs a mere 230 Kg / 507 Lbs. Who knew that my Garhauer 6:1 block and tackle with 10mm Dyneema line for raising and lowering the Tender Davit, would come in so handy! With the flywheel and all its housings removed, I could now remove the over 40 bolts securing this cast aluminium oil sump/pan and pry it loose from the cast Al crankcase above. I would estimate that this cast oil sump weighs about 45 Kg/100 Lbs, so I tied a loop of line around the bottom of the front end of the oil sump to keep it suspended and enlisted the help of Captain Christine to help me slide this monster out from under Mr. Gee, out the ER door and out onto the Aft Deck.
With the oil sump out of the way I could start the process of removing all the pistons and connecting rods. Suspending Mr. Gee such that I could remove all the pistons and the crankshaft is a bit tricky. The front end is easy because the big motor mount brackets can be left in place so I have attached a loop of Dyneema line that goes to the overhead chain block and then I put in two more loops that wrapped around each motor mount as a safety backup and this left the area underneath the crankcase completely open. However the 2 motor mounts on the Aft end need to be removed along with the split cast AL flywheel housings and there just isn’t much left to tie onto that is strong enough to hold the 1000 Kg / 2200 Lb. engine.
No problem, I just grabbed a pair of my adjustable jack stands (doesn’t every boat carry these??!) and built up a platform that spanned across the two engine beds using some square steel tubing I carry as well. With the tops of these jack stands resting on the wide flat AL surface that the oil sump bolts to, I had full access now to the full bottom end of the crankshaft and the bottom of each cylinder’s connecting rod. For my growing Gardner fan base, the following two illustrations from some of the original Gardner factory manuals which I am SO fortunate to have copies of, will help you see more clearly what’s going on inside a Gardner 6LXB like Mr. Gee. The con rod bearings are half shells that are clamped by four large bolts on each con rod. Removing the four nuts allowed me to slide the bottom half of the con rod off crankshaft and then you can push the whole piston & con rod assembly up and out of the top of the cylinder.
Here is the full piston & connecting rod assembly from cylinder #1 sitting upside down on my workbench.
As you push the con rod/piston assembly up out the top of the cylinder block, you need to be eXtremely careful not to let the hardened threads on con rod bolts hit the crankshaft journals as they can ruin this very accurately ground surface.
So to prevent this I slid protective sleeves I made from some spare PEX tubing onto of the 4 threaded ends and then used a long stout length of wood to push the whole assembly up till the piston cleared the to of the cylinder block. With pretty much everything except the crankshaft now removed, that center workbench continues to fill up with more and more parts as I get down to the very bottom of Mr. Gee and find the culprit responsible for his low oil pressure problem.
The Whole Truth about the Hole
As my awemazing author wife has taught me, a good mystery writer keeps their audience in suspense until the very end and we are getting close to that point now so here is the big finale so many of you have been so patiently awaiting all these past weeks.
As the more observant and mechanically inclined will have noticed, the clues have been revealing themselves throughout this Update and the crime is a nasty one. These are the two bearing half shells that came out of Cylinder #1 and this is NOT what you want to see in any con rod bearings let alone those with less than 5 hours of run time since new!
To help explain, this illustration of the Tri-metal bearings used on Gardner and still in most modern combustion engines, shows why that copper you see in the photo above is an eXtremely bad thing. Even though I caught it early, that drop in oil pressure meant that there was not enough lubrication between these bearing surfaces and the journals on the crankshaft and so they started to wear very rapidly with each huge push on each piston as the diesel fuel was compressed and then fired. If you’ve been following this “murder mystery” for awhile now, you may recall that when the oil pressure dropped I also noticed a slight knocking noise and a bit of burning oil smoke rising up from cylinder #1 and I already had a suspicion as to why, but more on that later. In this and the photo above, I have lined up all the bearing shells in order with #1 on the far Right/Bottom all the way over to #6 on the far Left/Top.
In addition to seeing a bit of copper having been worn through, the additional clue is that Cylinder #1 has the most wear and then it gets progressively less as you move aft. Let me zoom in to show this more clearly.
This are the bearing shells from Cylinder #1 and you can see that that the upper half which is on the Right here has the most wear because this is what takes all the force with the piston is at Top Dead Center or TDC where the fuel first fires and thee massive thrust pushes this shell against the crankshaft journal. Here is #3 cylinder, still an eXtreme amount of wear for such new bearings but much less than Cylinder #1. Finally at the far aft end of the crankshaft, this is what the bearing shells from Cylinder #6 look like, with again way too much wear but by far the least of all six.
OK, but Who Dun’ It Wayne??
Like in the game of Clue, was it Colonel Mustard with a dagger in the Conservatory? Or was it Miss Scarlet with a Lead Pipe in the Billiard Room?
Sorry! None of the above.
It was Wacky Wayne with a Hole in #1 Crankshaft Oil Tube!
You are going to have to wait yet one more week for the full story, but here’s the lead in. See those dotted lines in this partial view of the front end of a Gardner 6LXB crankshaft? Those are steel tubes that carry oil pressure from the Main Bearing #2 here, up to the connecting rod journals of each cylinder. I won’t be able to show this to you very well until next week when I get the whole crankshaft out, but I was able to stick my phone up into the crankshaft at Cylinder #1 and here is what that steel oil tube looks like in real life.
As Perry Mason might have said, let me draw the Jury’s attention to the area circled in Red……. Zooming in as best I can with the crankshaft still inside Mr. Gee’s crankcase, here is a bit better view of the perpetrator of this heinous crime again circled in Red. I can hear you whining already but yes, that’s as far as I can take you this week and you will just have to look over all these clues at the crime scene above and come up with your own solution as to what the hole story is. (sorry I couldn’t resist)
I will leave all you junior detectives to have some fun with this for now and please join me next week, same time, same station, same channel, for yet another gripping episode of As Mr. Gee Turns.
Hope to see you here again next week and do be sure to write your best guesses in the “Join the Discussion” box below as to the Whole Story of the Hole and we can compare notes next week.
This past week has been a roller coaster ride of emotions for both Christine and myself and the whole thing is difficult to articulate and yet not something that can be captured by cameras either but I’ll do my best to use my standard Show & Tell technique to bring you up to date on the latest leg of the journey of Project Goldilocks aka the design and building of XPM78-01 Möbius.
I’ll start with the ending which is that Möbius is now ALL OURS and we are back on the hard, aka land, having hauled Möbius out to complete some of the jobs remaining to make her fully sea worthy.
BUT, this time the land Möbius is on is OUTSIDE of the Free Zone where she has been for over 3 years during the build and now she is resting inside Setur Marina in Antalya.
I’ve marked up the sat photo above and the photo from Setur here, to show you our big move to Freedom.
It may only be a few hundred meters in reality but it is worlds apart for us. We are quite used to living aboard a boat that is “on the hard” as it is called when you haul your boat out of the water and put her on “hard stands” to hold her up, as we have probably spent several years all together in this situation from times we were working on our previous boats. NOTE: Back in February, when we were last here in Setur Marina for the first launching of Möbius, we met Emily & Matt who have their catamaran “Sea Odyssey” out on the hard just behind that big silver sailboat on the far Right in the photo above, so we already know some of our new neighbors.
Mountains off our Starboard/Right side and the Med on our Port so as you can see from all these photos, while not in the water where we would prefer, this isn’t too bad a place to call home for the next 1-2 months.
But wait!! I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s go back to the beginning of this latest leg in the adventures of mv Möbius.
FREE’d at LAST!
We are always so gobsmacked, as our British friends might say, at how many of you have been following us from near the beginning of this building of XPM78-01 Möbius at Naval Yachts here in Antalya Turkey that began back with the first aluminium hull work on April 6th, 2018 which as the counter at the bottom of this blog notes was 1144 days ago! Over THREE years ago? Yikes!
The actual beginning of Project Goldilocks as we originally called this whole adventure once the crazy idea of switching from sail to power and designing and building our own boat to do it with, took hold back in 2016 and we spent the first two years working closely every day with our awemazing designer Dennis Harjamaa at Artnautica Yacht Design in Auckland New Zealand which was where we delivered our last boat Learnativity to her new owners in Whangarei NZ. Rob Westermann runs Artnautica Europe where you can check out his notes on Möbius HERE. Rob and Dennis are also now busy designing an all new LRC65 that Rob and his wife will use as their next magic floating carpet ride.
Once we had the design of XPM78-01 Möbius pretty much set in 3D models and 2D drawings, we began searching the world quite literally for the Goldilocks just right location and builder and ended up partnering with Naval Yachts who are locating within the Free Zone here in Antalya Turkey and we now have them to thank for working quite literally cheek to jowl with us to build this first iteration and our new home, Möbius.
As most of you from following these weekly updates, Möbius first “splashed” on February 20th here at Setur Marina when the Free Zone had no launching capabilities for several months during their massive rebuild of their harbour and all their launching equipment. Since then we have been working through the process of commissioning every system where you get them all up and running, adjusted and dialed in. I’ve described these past few months as being a version of Zeno’s Paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles, where you make forward progress in steps that are each one half the remaining distance. The reason this is a paradox is that as odd as it might seem, it takes an infinite number of those half steps and you never arrive at your goal because there is always one more half step to go!
The other dimension to all this is that when building a new boat, while the Owners are technically just that and they “own” the boat, they don’t take possession of the boat until it has been fully finished by the Builders and the Owners make all the final payments and accept the boat. The feelings surrounding this gradual transfer from Builders to Owners are part of what I referenced in the beginning of this post that are so difficult to articulate. We’ve been living aboard since we splashed in February and it felt great and almost unbelievable to have our visions from years previous be transformed into this very solid reality. And yet, as the commissioning process extended into more and more days, then weeks and then months, the Free Zone felt a bit like living inside the line in the Eagle’s class Hotel California“Such a lovely place. You can check out any time you like. But you can never leave!”
The Free Zone was a lovely place, Möbius is an incredible boat, but she still wasn’t ours and we couldn’t help wondering if we would indeed ever leave so we could start finally restart our new lives in our new home and get back to our old habits of traveling the world’s seas.
And then, mid afternoon on Tuesday, May 18th, we received a text from our Builders that said “Prepare to leave, you are fully cleared for export and need to leave the Free Zone this afternoon!
What ensued next was like a scene out of the Keystone Cops and perhaps video will help capture this best so Christine has quickly pulled together this video montage of being “Freed from the Free Zone” on Tuesday afternoon.
That whole scene remains a blur but by late Tuesday afternoon, we ended up here, tied alongside the TraveLift bay where Möbius would get plucked out of the water by the 200Ton TraveLift and set down inside the hard stand area at Setur Marina! I sent off a quick text to Matt & Emily to say “You won’t believe it but ….” and they met us at the dock and helped us tie Möbius to the dock.
That was all 5 days ago now and It still has not quite sunk in for me that this has all happened and is real. But that is an eXcellent problem to have and I’m working on it!
Moving Möbius into her New Home
This is the same TraveLift that first launched us back in February so the operators quickly had us plucked out of the water and wheeled her over to ……. … this freshly vacated spot just a few meters away from the TraveLift bay and just a few boats over from Matt & Emily on Sea Odyssey. With all four sets of wheels on the TraveLift able to turn it makes it easy for them to move Möbius into this spot …….. …… and set her down on her keel. You can see another reason we designed the Rub Rails the way we did as they make for the perfect spot for the hard stands to be wedged underneath. This obviates the need for the more traditional stands which go down much lower up against the bottom paint and create a whole new set of problems.
KISS at its finest; Keep It Smart & Simple. So this is Möbius’ new Home Base for the next month or two.
Very Slick Bottom you have there Miss Möbius!
One of the good things about hauling out again is that we got the chance to check out how well the new Foul Release paint was doing its job. The hull had been in the water for three months without moving so this was a good test, and as you can see in this photo (click to enlarge any photo)the InterSleek 1100SR silicone based bottom paint had worked even better than I had hoped.
This will give you a bit of a Before & After shot where I had gently wiped the corner spot in the foreground here with a sponge and every bit of the algae and growth wiped clean. A few minutes with my sponge and I had the CPP prop blades, the Skeg and the Rudder wiped spotlessly clean. Even what growth there was you can see on the sides of the hull in the upper Left were minimal and came off with a gentle wipe of the sponge. And looked like this a few minutes later. There is a lot of surface area on a 24m/78 ft long hull so it did take us a couple of hours to do it all but this was the result and I’ve gotta say that I wouldn’t have believed it if I had not seen it for myself. * For those of you interested in this Foul Release as opposed to Anti-Foul bottom paint, I wrote about this in more detail HERE in this Weekly Progress Update from Feb 8-13, 2021
It is still early in its life of course, which we expect to be 5-10 years before needing to be recoated, but based on this initial experience I am just blown away by how well this silicone based bottom paint works and can not say enough good things about it at this point. Stay tuned for “Bottoms Up (dates)” over the next few years.
Open Sesame Mr. Gee!
Many of you have been asking for more details about Mr. Gee and his sudden loss of oil pressure on the last sea trial. Now that we are out of the Free Zone and very solidly setup, that is my #1 priority and so yesterday I started to dismantling Mr. Gee to track down the culprit and fully fix the problem.
I’ve oft been asked why the hatch overtop of the Engine Room is so big and now you know the answer. To make it easy to access the entire engine and CPP gearbox and be able to lift it all out as one assembly if/whenever needed over the lifespan of the boat which is measured in decades.
At this point I am still hoping that it won’t be neccessary to completely remove Mr. Gee and the Nogva CPP but with the hatch removed it makes working in the ER very well lit and ventilated even in the mid 30C/95F weather we are already having here. You can also see why I designed the ER to be as wide as it is which makes accessing everything a piece of cake compared to most other boats I have ever worked on.
While I don’t know if I will need to remove the engine, I do need to remove the large cast AL oil pan and to do that I need to lift Mr. Gee about 1m/40” up from where he sits here. So I first need to remove many of the parts up on the front such as the cast AL water reservoir and the whole cogged belt system I made to drive the upper Electrodyne alternator on one side and the sea water pump on the other. I also need to remove both heads to check out the valves and pistons and to do that I need to remove everything attached to the heads such as all the valve train, exhaust and intake manifolds, fuel lines, etc. So my next few days are a process of removing all these parts and here are the ones I removed yesterday. Cast AL water holding tank on the middle Left, Fuel filter and valves in the lower Left and water manifolds on the Right.
That workbench will soon be filled with a lot more parts as I get to the bottom of the problem and fix it properly so stay tuned for more episodes of “As Mr. Gee Turns” As I rest my weary little body each evening of this process, I’m going to be dreaming of the day when Möbius is back in this spot with Mr. Gee thrumming away as we back out of the slip and head off into the blue horizons that await us. Thanks as always for taking the time to join Christine and I on this grand adventure and don’t forget to add your questions and comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Team Möbius continue to rack up the milestones and this week we hit the jackpot that inspired the riddle in the title of this post; What dance step rhymes with Cash (and LOTS of it!)
Does this photo taken on Thursday afternoon give you some clues?
Hint: Something is missing? How about this one?
Hint: Opening door? Still not sure?
Hint: What just appeared underneath? Bingo! “Big Bird” the 72 Wheel Yellow Boat Mover has arrived at Naval Yachts because ……………..
LAUNCH DAY HAS ARRIVED!!
Don’t worry if you have not yet solved the riddle as to what dance step rhymes with “Cash”, hang in there and all will be revealed and be clear by the end.
All the big shipyard doors are opened up full width and Big Bird slides under the all cleared out space (the “what’s missing?” hint above) below Möbius and the countdown to launch begins! Captain Christine is up on Deck doing last minute prep and clean up and the Owner’s Rep is standing around as usual, getting up close and personal with Big Bird. All the while Möbius is being her typical good natured and patient self as she awaits the her big moment to shine in the brilliant sunny day we were gifted with for the big launch. You may recall from previous moves over the years, Big Bird has a series of swiveling hydraulic lift pads along both sides So they are now being readied to lift our girl off her support stands and struts for one last time. Or so we thought at this stage of the “dance”, stay tuned for more on that. The silicone InterSleek 1100SR bottom paint is quite soft and new so they cut up squares of carpeting ….. and slid them in between the hull and the wood lift pads to prevent the rough wood faces of the hydraulic lift pads from damaging this fresh paint. With all the Lift Pads in position 20 hydraulic pistons easily lift Miss Möbius up off her perch and all the support stands underneath can finally be removed for good. The Captain does one final check and packs her bag with cameras and champagne and is ready for the long and winding walk to the temporary new launch site that is much further away as you are about to see. The BIG Day has finally arrived and Möbius takes her first step away from her home of the past 3 years at Naval Yachts and heads for her new home; Mother Ocean. You can almost hear the shipyard and all the other boats saying “Good Luck Miss Möbius, we’ll miss you!” as she makes the turn onto the road that leads over to the inner harbour inside the Antalya Free Zone. She graciously poses in front of the home she is about to leave as she heads out to make her own life at sea eXploring that Big Beautiful World of Water that awaits.
Oh, the places you will go Miss Möbius!!
Three of the pivotal people responsible for building Möbius join in the Big walk. And Möbius’ adopted parents join the parade as well. Rounding the first of several sharp corners is a piece of cake for Big Bird when you have 72 wheels that can all steer! This massive construction of the whole inner harbour of the Free Zone which has ripped out all the launching facilities and necessitated that we take an overland route to Setur Marina and launch all the boats from the Free Zone shipyards there for the next few months. In spite of this major disruption this major construction project of the whole Free Zone port is fascinating and you would probably enjoy watching THIS VIDEO ANIMATION which does a great job of showing how the whole new harbour facility works.
It would normally be quite a shock and surprise to see a ship floating by outside your office window but here in the Antalya Free Zone it is a common and almost everyday occurrence so no one gives it much mind. However, given the uniqueness of the XPM boats and Möbius’ gleaming aluminium silver sides, she definately turned a LOT of heads on her trip to the sea. Normally this is where the Free Zone ends and there is a very large and intimidating gate here topped with concertina wires and lots of security cams but we were given special permission and so they opened up the gate, took down lots of big power cables above and we rolled on through. We took this rare opportunity to do what you are supposed to do with all newly born creatures and introduce them to as many of the other inhabitants of the brave new world they have just arrived in.
Not a bad backdrop! One more 90 degree corner which was no problem for us but ………. ….. startled a few of the truck, car and bus drivers who suddenly found themselves sharing the road with a 24 meter / 78 foot long boat!
Not your average traffic jam! The long and winding road trip eventually led us to this road on the back side of the repair yard section of Setur Marina and the final 90 degree turn to the home stretch to the new launch site. Uğur, who has been with us the longest is particularly happy to see this big day finally arrive, took the opportunity to climb aboard and have his own scene right out of the movie Titanic perched up at the bow as he rode the final land based home stretch. We’ve arrived!
Big Bird rolls to a stop right in front of …..,, …… Möbius’ very handsome date who has been patiently awaiting her arrival. Like walking the Bride down the isle, Big Bird carefully escorts Möbius down the path underneath the turquoise arches of this 200 Ton Travel Lift. There are four of these cabled lift points on each side of the Travel Lift which are now carefully lowered to the ground. Where the looped ends of the thick wide webbing that forms a sling that goes underneath Möbius belly, are pinned to the lift bars. To protect Möbius’ fresh silicone Foul Release bottom paint, the slings have all been covered with soft padding. And then each sling is threaded overtop of Big Bird’s side rails, under Möbius’ belly and connected up to the lift bar on the opposite side. Up go the lifting slings as the weight transfers from Big Bird’s lift pads and they can now all be removed. Transfer complete! Big Bird backs out and heads back to the barn while the Travel Lift carries Möbius …….. ……. the final few meters to the water’s edge. Sccreeeeeeeechhhhhh!!!!!! HOLD IT!!!
Not so fast there Miss Möbius, there are official vows and a ceremony needing to take place before you get your first taste of Mother Ocean’s tasty salt water! Travel Lift obliges and backs up just enough for Christine, Baris and myself to say a few words, announce that “We christen you Möbius” and break that champagne bottle over her hefty keel bar.
Note to those concerned, Christine had carefully wrapped the champagne bottle in silicone mesh so no glass shards were spilled.
The not recorded funny part is that this took two tries as the thick glass of the champagne bottle won the first smash on the keel bar and took this second try which you can see in THIS short video clip which I have also embedded below.
But here at last is Möbius first kiss with Mother Ocean.
Oooooops! Not so fast there Captain! Mr. Murphy has different plans for you today!
Immediately upon splashing into the water and while still in the slings, you spend a few minutes below checking all through hulls and other possible sources of leaks to make sure that everything is sealed and all the salt water is where it is supposed to be; OUTSIDE the boat! As we did so we found a small leak on the Rudder Shaft tube and so we made the call to haul her back out and set her back on land while we tracked down and fixed the leak. Hence the less than excited faces on all of us in the video below as came back out of the water and onto the hard for the night.
Poor Möbius! So close yet so far and yet another example of that paradox of trying to get to your destination by taking steps that are half the distance remaining which means that you get closer and closer but never fully arrive!
The Travel Lift set us back down in front of the launch pad and she was once again blocked up for the night. Later that evening I discovered the source of this leak which fortunately this turned out to be a set of 6 holes that had been drilled into the Rudder tube for injecting Sikaflex around the outer races when they were installing the Jefa Rudder roller bearings for the Rudder Shaft. This happened back in October 2019 while I was back in the US and Canada visiting family so I wasn’t aware of this procedure and the SS plugs had not been threaded into these holes so they were weeping upon entry into the water. A relatively quick and easy fix and I re-tapped/threaded these 6 holes to clean out the threads thoroughly, Uğur & Nihat ran into town to get six M12 x 10mm SS socket head bolts and I mixed up a batch of good ole’ JB Weld to fill the holes and coat the threads and torqued the 6 bolts up tight and we were done before 10pm.
!Next morning, Saturday 20 Feb, 2021 we arose to what was surely the perfect Launch Day with even more sunny and brilliantly Blue skies and NO wind And it was time to back the Travel Lift overtop of us and put those slings back underneath to lift us up and take us those final 10 meters to the water’s edge! Lowering back down so Möbius could have here second kiss with Moher Ocean. Once in we again checked throughout the boat for any sign of seawater inside such as around this Sea Chest in the Forepeak and my first glimpse of the sea below. Not a drop to be found onboard so a quick check of where the real waterline ended up at the stern and we were good to cast off and be gone. We gave the thumbs up to the Travel Lift operator and the slings were fully lowered and he backed away. Due to several complications Möbius did not have a working steering system and the oil for the Nogva CPP gearbox has still not arrived but all the arrangements for getting out of the Free Zone, taking down the power lines, Travel Lift apointment, etc. had been made long in advance so we launched anyway and that meant we had to be towed back to the harbour inside the Free Zone which is why this tug showed up and threw us this line. Fortunately we had thought of these kinds of scenarios well in advance and had designed this Samson post and nose cone for just this purpose and the tow rope was quickly set and we were off. The Free Zone harbour is literally around the corner that is on the Left side where that Blue & White tug is tied up so it was a very quick trip and with no wind it all worked out just perfectly. The large green boat in the center is inside the Free Zone which then becomes the container port on the Right with all the cranes. Rounding that corner on the Left with the Green boat now off on our Starboard side to the Right we can see the slot they have opened up for us to tie up in between the end of the Red tugboat on the Left and the Grey bow of the first of four Arabian Police boats you can see lined up along the same wall. Naval had arranged for a second second small tug to help maneuver the stern and push us into our slot sideways. Because as you can see, the open space was only about a meter longer than our 24 meter overall length so It was a pretty tight fit and they needed to push us in sideways to fit. With the help of some of the great guys on Bozcay IV and III, we got the first line ashore and it was all very quick and easy from there in these windless conditions. Now the second tug on our stern could push us sideways into the wall with just enough room to spare off the bow of the first Police boat. Viewed from up in the SkyBridge, this is Möbius’ first contact with a dock. Stern lines secured and we were soon all tied up for the first time! When Christine and I were first drawing up our design criteria and use cases, one of the things we wrote down was that we wanted to fit right into being docked in a working harbour and stick out like a sore thumb in a “yachty” marina.
So how well do you think we have met that criteria with these as our neighbors astern……… ….. and these two up front? Still lots to do as the real work begins but enough time for a quick snack and celebration with the two founders of our builder Naval Yachts; Baris on the far Left and his brother Dincer on the right.
The rest of the afternoon was equally as Goldilocks time as we enjoyed this stunningly sunny 17C/62F weather being entertained by our two new bow neighbors as they brought this little fella “Lucky Star” in to get loaded up.
Then it was just the Captain and I, and of course Ruby and Barney so it was at last time to celebrate with an unbroken bottle of champagne that we had at last made it to that ever elusive Launch Date!
Peanuts, a box cutter and champagne, what could be more Goldilocks; Just Right, Just for Us?!!! While we never doubted that we would make it we did often wonder just when this day would arrive but that has all made this milestone all the sweeter to experience. We still have LOTS of work to do to get our beloved Möbius fully finished and ship shape so we can head out for those infinite horizons and get back to eXploring this awemazing world of ours.
Oh, almost forgot! If you are still wondering about that riddle, it was the 2-step Splash Dance!
I’ll be back to cover all of that starting with next week’s Progress Update but for now we’ll be sleeping aboard to keep an eye on this new launched beauty and start learning all she has to teach us.
It is Monday August 3rd here in Antalya Turkey and everyone is enjoying the last of this big four day Kurban Bayrami Holiday weekend. Tomorrow is also our anniversary so Christine and I decided to join in and take a much needed break from boat building so we rented a car and drove East along the coast to the lovely town of Alanya for two nights away. It has been a fabulous break and we are now back and I’ll do my best to get this week’s XPM78-01 Möbius Progress Update off to you at last with apologies for the delay.
This will be a shorter update due to both having only four working days last week and also due to the launch of the GreeNaval 60 hybrid boat “Mega-Guard”. This was a long overdue milestone for both Naval Yachts and Mario the owner as this build began a few months before Möbius so this launch has been three years in the making and it was all hands on deck at Naval Yachts to splash Mega-Guard this past Wednesday. I’ve got some photos of that big event as well as this weekly update on the progress aboard Möbius so let’s jump right in.
Mega-Guard Splashes!
The GreeNaval 60 or GN60 is an all aluminium 60’/18.25m diesel electric hybrid yacht which has 2x 370 HP Volvo Penta diesel engines and 2x 150 kW electric motors. GN60, which offers 16knot cruise speed with diesel option can achieve 11,5knot cruise speed with electric motors. This GN60 brochure will give you more photos and details if you are interested in learning more about the GN60. Getting her first full shot of sunshine on her bow as Mega-Guard emerges from the Naval Yachts shipyard this past Wednesday. She is setting atop one of three such boat moving machines that are on call within the Antalya Free Zone and as you can see this one can take much longer and larger boats onto its all hydraulic controlled bed. Looking out of my first floor Workshop/Office inside the shipyard this is the view from the other end as the boat mover starts the several block trip over to the launching equipment at the launching basin within the Free Zone. While the boat mover goes slowly it takes less than 30 minutes to make the trip from Naval Yachts to the launching basin. Next, the big Blue Travel Lift straddles the boat mover and lifts the GN60 up within its slings and moves her over to the launching basin. Where she gets slowly lowered down into the sea water for the first time.
And what do you know? She floats!
Mega-Guard is all the more special being the new prototype and test bed for Praxis Automation Technology based in the Netherlands. Praxis technology is usually found in very large shipping and other commercial vessels but they are now offering equipment for smaller boats in the 18-40m and recreational range so they wanted to have this real world testing and demonstration laboratory and she leaves Antalya on Thursday bound for Rotterdam and then on to Praxis HQ in Leiderdorp NL. We wish Mario and Praxis our very best and hope to be anchored with them in the near future.
We Are Floored!
This week’s title is in reference to the multiple places inside Möbius where the flooring has begun to be laid. The majority of the interior flooring will be interlocking planks of industrial vinyl flooring made by the big Turkish company Ado and you can see a sample of the White/Silver “Aperta 2010” colour we’ve chosen HERE on the Ado website.
One of the key features that makes this vinyl flooring the Goldilocks just right flooring for XPM78-01 Möbius is that it has a significant amount of texture on the top surface which I’d describe as similar in appearance and texture to that of well weathered wood. This a critical safety factor for us to ensure that even when walking with wet bare feet there is no slippage. This LVT or Luxury Vinyl Tile as Ado refers to it is primarily aimed at very high traffic scenarios such as airports, shopping malls and the like and it is also 100% waterproof, fireproof and extremely quiet when walked upon.
It is also specifically designed and engineered to be used overtop of In-Floor heating systems such as the ones we have installed in Möbius. The Flooring team chose this area in the Head/Bathroom of the Guest Cabin to begin to cut and fit the individual planks of LVT and are just getting started but this will give you a good idea of how these interlocking “click-lock” planks are laid down.
In order to access the integral fuel and water tanks below all our floors, there are aluminium tank access plates bolted down throughout such as the one you can see here in the middle of the photo partly obscured by the Rosewood sink cabinet. The flooring overtop each of these hatches will be removable and will be secured by a special SS twist lock device to ensure that these access squares can not fly out in the unlikely event of a full roll over. Directly across from the Head is the Guest Shower and it is having its all composite based flooring installed which is the same material as all the walls and ceiling so everything is fully bonded and sealed.
Same style of lift out section to get at the tank access lids below the shower floor.
The aluminum suction tool in the foreground is how we lift out flooring hatches, wall panels and the like and works eXtremely well. No unsightly handles required, simple, quick and easy to use. Once the flooring was fully cured the pre-installed drain was routed out for the SS drain fitting to be installed flush with the floor which slopes down to this point. The finished floor in both showers will be made of inlaid Teak as this has that just right amount of underfoot non-skid texture and is naturally waterproof. These are two of the three sections of flooring for the Guest and Main showers and there will be a third matching one for the adjoining Head/Bathroom floor in the Master Cabin. Same construction technique as is used for installing all teak decks on yachts, each individual Teak plank is cut, fit and glued to a template underneath and then once the whole panel is laid up, the template is removed and the teak panel is attached to a composite/fiberglass panel underneath. The grooves between each Teak plank allow for expansion and flex and will be filled with a Black rubber like waterproof filler and then the whole panel is sanded flat. These are the two floor panels for the Master Cabin. The longer one in the foreground will become the floor in the Master Cabin Head and the one in the back will be the floor in the Master Shower.
You will be able to see this in great detail in the upcoming Weekly Progress Updates as these floor panels are built and installed so say tuned for more.
Finishing the Corridor:
Just outside the Guest Head Omur has been busy deftly applying the finishing touches to the cabinetry in the Corridor area. This is a very busy area where you make your way down the stairs from the SuperSalon above to get to either the Guest Cabin or the Workshop & Engine Room.
This past week Omur finished installing the “hockey stick” shaped Rosewood BHL or Blue Horizon Line which provides a safe, secure and eXtremely Beautiful handrail when you are transiting these stairs. Biscuits are used to join the Rosewood sections of the BHL Handrail to the wall panels to ensure they are up for several decades of hand traffic.
The ubiquitous aquamarine epoxy strip spans the space between the upper and lower halves of the BHL. And with a bit of ingenious clamping techniques Omur soon has the bottom section glued in place. I’ve peeled back a bit of the protective cardboard and tape coverings to show you how the two halves of the BHL Handhold terminate up at the top of the stairs. Omur has also been finishing off the cabinetry on the opposite side of the stairs where the tall Electrical Panel sits part way down the stairs and then my long skinny Office desk and storage area runs along the Port/Left side of the Hull. Here is what the Corridor area looks like viewed from the stairs looking aft through the WT Bulkhead door into the Workshop. Seen through that WT Workshop door you can just make out the Blue/Green leather covered Corridor wall panels on the Right side and the Office desktop and drawers on the Left.
If you have your orientation down you will know that the Guest shower is behind the foreground wall on the Right and the Guest Head is behind the wall after that.
GALLEY GOODNESS:
Up those stairs and on the Right is the Galley and over in the finishing shop they are finishing all the Rosewood fronts for the many drawers in the Galley, some of which you see here. More here …………………… …… and more here.
Yes we have a LOT of drawers in the Galley and can’t wait to start filling them with food, plates, utensils and our extensive collection of kitchen tools. Once they are all hand rubbed and polished, all these drawer fronts are brought onboard Möbius to be installed. Which is what Omur is busy doing here to some of the drawers under the side “peninsula” of the Galley. And pretty soon they all look like this bank of drawers on the opposite peninsula behind the Dinette Settee.
Temporary Blue painters tape handles for now and just wait till you see what these look like when their permanent SS latches are installed.
ELECTRICAL:
As always, the handiwork of Hilmi and Selim can be found throughout the boat as our two Sparkies aka Electricians, continue to install the wiring and start connecting all the various electrical components together.
This is the inside of the control panel of the 40k BTU Webasto BlueCool V50 chiller. Hilmi has removed the outer cover to make the internal connections to the boats wiring. A few steps away inside the Engine Room Enclosure, the helpfully tall Selim is busy pulling wires into the ER through the penetrations you can see (click to enlarge) up near the ceiling and then securing each wire to the cable trays mounted on the Alucobond covered ER walls. Those cable trays continue to run forward behind the exit manifold on this Sea Chest at the front Port end of the ER. Meanwhile, Hilmi has been busy running more cables across the Front of the ER for things like the High Water pump out valves, Grey Water pumps and various tank level monitors.
FYI, Hilmi is sitting where the front end of Mr. Gee our Gardner 6LXB engine will soon call home. Right here. The two inner facing Engine Bed extensions are where the front engine feet or motor mounts will set and be bolted in place.
Engine Room Hatch Hinges:
Uğur and Nihat didn’t get much time to work on Möbius again this week as they were busy getting Mega-Guard finished and launched but they did get time to make some progress with things such as these hinges for the big Engine Room Hatch which forms almost the entire ceiling of the ER. These hinges are one of the latest examples of the overarching KISS or Keep It Safe & Simple approach we try to use throughout XPM78-01 Möbius. Uğur is very handy on the metal lathe so he quickly turned out these three hinges by drilling out three lengths of sold aluminium round bar to accept the 10mm / 3/8” SS pin he machined.
After leveling this big ER Hatch with the surrounding deck and centering the Hatch in its frame Uğur tacks the ER Hatch in place and welds on the three parts of each hinge to the Deck and Hatch. Removing the tack welds the door swings open easily and is locked in the open position using pin locks to the Vent Box on the Right here.
For those wondering why this ER Hatch is so huge, we designed it such that the complete propulsion package, the Gardner 6LXB mated to the Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox, can be lowered in/out of the ER as one single large assembly.
That won’t happen very often but WILL happen often is that I can open up this big ER Hatch whenever I am down working in the ER and have all that fresh air and natural light pouring in which will make working in there all the more of a treat.
SkyBridge Solar Panels:
However the most exciting bit of progress Nihat and Uğur made the past week was this!
If you were with us last week you will remember that we had lowered the roof frame over the SkyBridge to its hunkered down position that we will use for going up canals with low bridges or when leaving the boat in locations during hurricane seasons. Part of the reason for lowering the roof was to make it easier to install the eight 340 Watt Solar Panels which also form the waterproof roof. I chose to use Sikaflex 292i which is their strongest industrial adhesive to bond the aluminium frames of each panel to the rectangular aluminium tubing that the SkyBridge Roof frame is built from. Prep is always the key to a long lasting bond so all the AL surfaces were cleaned first with a wire wheel and then wiped down with Sikaflex thinner. Then an even bead of 292i is laid down. and each Solar Panel is then carefully set in place. We used a laser level and straight edges to ensure that each panel when in just the right position before being pressed tightly down to squeeze out the Sikaflex on all sides. The tops and side of each panel were also bonded to each other using 292i to create a very well sealed and fully waterproof roof. Using this eXtremely strong adhesive eliminates the need for any mechanical fasteners and made for a very fast installation and met with Uğur ‘s satisfaction as you can see.
In addition to these eight roof top panels, there are three more in a hinged frame on the front and three more on a sliding frame aft for a total of 14 panels with a combined total output of 4.4kWP I did manage to make a bit more progress on Mr. Gee but I’ll keep you waiting and save that for next week’s Progress Update.
Thanks for joining us and special thanks to all those who add their comments, questions and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below and I hope more of you will do the same and add to the richness of this blog.
This coming week will also be shortened down to just four days but hopefully we will have most of Team Möbius back working with us now that Mega-Guard is launched. See again then.
Naval Yachts is a beehive of activity this past week with a big push for launching two other boats in the shipyard. One particularly exciting one for Naval is the the first GreeNaval boat to be launched, their GN60 all aluminium 18m/60ft hybrid electric powerboat whose build began about three years ago just before Möbius. The second boat is a complete refit inside and out of an all steel 16m/54ft sailboat originally built in the 1980’s. Unfortunately this means that most of Team Möbius members have been called on to work on these two boats as they are both due to launch by the end of this month but hopefully they will return soon and progress can resume on our already long delayed launch.
However the remaining Team Möbius members are literally working overtime and weekends so progress on XPM78-01 Möbius is still being made so I have lots for this week’s Show & Tell progress update so let’s jump right into all that.
HOUSE BATTERIES:
Our Lead Sparkie aka Electrician Hilmi had Selim assisting him with pulling some more cables and wires such as these huge cables which connect the 24 FireFly Carbon Foam L15+ batteries to the Main DC Distribution Box seen here and where you may recall they left off last week. The overall House Battery system is shown here and consists of four individual “battery banks” formed by connecting six of the 4V @ 450Ah FireFly Carbon Foam batteries together in Series, Positive to Neg, which is abbreviated as 6S in electro-speak. And here is what 6S looks like in reality when six 4V @ 450Ah FireFly batteries are connected in Series.
* NOTE: If you look closely at this photo (click to enlarge) each of these FireFly L15+ batteries are actually TWO 2V cells inside of one case. This is a very smart way to do things because by simply changing how those black covered copper bars are connected, each cell can be either 2V @ 900Ah OR 4V @ 450Ah, your choice. We are choosing to configure each L15+ as you see here so I will always refer to each L15+ as a 4V @ 450Ah battery .
** TINY TECH TALK (feel free to skip over if not interested)
Series vs Parallel connections:
Each of these four 6S banks are subsequently connected in Parallel, Positive to Positive, Neg to Neg, abbreviated as 4P so the total House Battery is 6S4P:
6S = 4V x 6 = 24Volts @ 450Ah
6S4P = 4 x 450Ah = 1800Ah @ 24V
When connecting batteries in Series the VOLTS of each battery are added together while the amps stay the same so each 6S bank is
6 x 4V cells = 24V @ 450Ah.
As per the House Battery schematic above, the four 6S banks are then connected together in Parallel or 4P where the AMPS are now cumulative and the Volts stay the same so the total House Bank is abbreviated 6S4P and totals 4 x 450Ah = 1800Ah @ 24V. Volts x Amps = Watts so that equates to 43.2kW aka a LOT!
Protecting Wires vs Consumers:
Fuses and circuit breakers can be used for two very different purposes depending on WHERE in the circuit they are installed. if they are installed at the very beginning of the power SOURCE such as a battery or inverter, then they are protecting the WIRE from what is known as Overcurrent Protection. If the fuse is instead installed close to where the consumer or appliance is connected then they are protecting the Consumer/Appliance. It is possible to have one Fuse/Circuit breaker do both by installing it at the very beginning of the circuit aka power source but this means that the amps would need to be the SAME for both the total amps carried by the wire AND the total amps required by the consumer. Therefore this only works in the case where the whole circuit is serving just one individual consumer so that the amperage rating of the fuse matches both the limits for protecting the wire and protecting the consumer.
Putting all that theory into practice, let’s take a look at the case of fuses used for Overcurrent Protection of the batteries and their cables. In this photo you can see that Hilmi and Selim have installed these large T-class fuses directly to the Positive output of this 6S bank using a thick copper flat bar.
The batteries are the very beginning of the circuit so these fuses are being used for Overcurrent Protection of each Red 120mm2 / 5/0 AWG cable. If as is often done when wiring batteries, no fuse is used and the Red cable is connected direct to the Positive battery post then there would be NO protection of that cable as it makes it way from the battery to the Positive Bus Bar inside the Main DC Distribution Panel. With the potential of 24V @ 450Ah a short circuit on this positive battery cable would be VERY bad and a fire all but guaranteed. Hence we use Overcurrent Protection on all our wires and cables.
This adds a degree of expense and complexity but when Safety is involved all other factors take a back seat.
AFT DECK WINCH:
Back in the Workshop looking up at the ceiling right behind the end of the Engine Room Enclosure, we find another job that Hilmi and Selim completed this week by connecting the 24V power cables to the big Lewmar EVO65 winch up on the Aft Deck. This winch will get quite a workout as it is how we lift the Tender off and on the Aft Deck and we’ll cover that more in the coming weeks as the Davit Arch gets built.
As you can see, the motor and gearbox assembly tuck up nicely in this space which will be even more protected with the AlucoBond ceiling panels are put in place.
N2K NETWORK & MONITORING:
On the Starboard/Right side opposite the Winch Hilmi has mounted this Junction box to house some of the connections of the wiring in the Workshop for some of the 24V consumers such as the Maretron Black Boxes and Workshop lights.
Every wire labelled at both ends of course. Zooming out a bit to get the bigger picture you can see how this newest junction box sets nicely up in the boxed corners that wrap all the way around the perimeter of the Workshop and how well that beautify big overhead hatch brings in all the light and fresh air. The large rectangular AL bracket will soon have the DC Distribution Panel mounted to it and all those large Red/Black/Yellow/Green cables will go in their to connect up to the Positive and Neg bus bars, circuit breakers and fuses. Speaking of which, that DC Distribution Panel for the Workshop showed up this week so we now have all three of these Distribution Panels, two of which you’ve seen in previous weeks with one up in the Forepeak and the Main one down in the Basement. All the cable glands have been pre-installed for all those cables you saw in the photo above and keeps each cable both securely mounted with a waterproof connection. You will be seeing more of this panel as it gets mounted inside the Workshop and Hilmi starts connecting all the cables, wires, fuses and circuit breakers. Panning to the Left to this area above the Fuel Manifolds, these are some of the Maretron BB’s and one of the bluish multi-port N2K blocks on the far Right where the N2K backbone connects with the larger Blue cables such as the one visible on the far Right. The small white wires are coming from the various Maretron sensors for things like temperature, pressure, fuel flow, WIF Water in Fuel, etc..
TRANSDUCERS:
Making a nice transition from electrical to aluminium “hotworks”, I finished up the design for this fairing block for the Aft Depth and Bottom Discriminating sounder and Uğur transformed it to solid 30mm thick aluminium in literally minutes.
The Black plastic transducer I’m holding is a Furuno 520-5PSD Bottom Discriminating Sounder which connects to a dedicated Furuno BBDS1 Black Box and then sends the data and graphics like this out via Ethernet cable to our boat computers and the TimeZero navigation software. These sounders are most commonly used by commercial fishermen but having all this detailed information about the contours and materials below us is eXtremely valuable to us for checking out the best anchorage spots. While very powerful, these BD transducers are very sensitive so they need to be well protected where they are exposed on the bottom of our hull from debris and possible groundings. Strangely enough bubbles are the biggest “enemy” in terms of getting maximum performance from this and any depth transducer as they interrupt the pulsed sonar signals being sent and received by the transducer.
This boat-like shape helps accomplish all these tasks; protects the transducer and smooths out the water flowing over the bottom surface of the transducer.
Equally critical is having the bottom surface of the transducer being parallel with the waterline so that the sonar signals are pointing straight down so we tacked the front end to the place on the hull we had strategically chosen and then used the laser level to get the bottom surface eXactly parallel with the “ground”. Even though we had chosen a spot on the hull that was relatively flat there was still a good sized gap at the Aft end where the bottom plates start their sweeping curves up into the prop tunnel. However it only took Uğur minutes to quickly cut some small triangular shapes of 5mm AL plate to fill that gap and then start laying down the first passes of weld to make this all integral to the hull.
Uğur will lay down at least one more bead of weld and then we will grind the block to an even more hydrodynamic shape and finish it up with epoxy fairing putty when we are prepping the bottom for the epoxy primer preceding application of the silicone base InterSleek 1100SR Foul Release bottom paint we are going to use.
One additional detail we designed in for an extra bit of safety with anything that is a penetration of the hull is that I had Uğur weld in a matching boat shaped piece of 5mm thick plate to the top of this 30mm thick boat shaped block before he tacked the whole block to the hull where it touches on the far Left/Forward end. Click to enlarge this or any photo to see this 5mm plate and then the thicker 10mm hull plate above it.
Mr. Gee Mounting System
In last week’s Update I outlined the design I came up with for mounting the Gardner and the Nogva to the beds in the Engine room using large anti-vibration mounting “feet”. This week I finished up those design and construction drawings and Uğur got busy the brackets for Mr. Gee’s four “feet” and the two for his best buddy the Red Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox.
For the front Gardner mounts we need to extend or widen the inside of the Engine Beds a bit where the motor mount feet attach and for the Nogva feet we need to add an underhanging mounting bracket to the beds on both sides.
To help with your orientation in the real world, here is a shot standing up on the Aft Deck looking straight down into the Engine Room. The two long parallel Mounting Beds you see in the rendering above are what you see here running from top to bottom in this photo. Stern is at the top here so that is the Aft end of the Engine Room Enclosure at the top of this photo and out of sight at the bottom is the WT Bulkhead with the Guest Cabin on the other side. Two large transverse Frames # 18 & 19 rare what you see spanning across between the two beds. Inside the ER looking Aft I’ve been busy laying out the exact locations for the mounts. Getting the location of these engine and CPP mounts eXactly correct is eXtremely critical to the overall performance of the propulsion system so even though I’ve modeled every component very precisely in Fusion 360 3D modeler, I double, triple check all the numbers and geometry using independent hand sketches and pulling off real world measurements with tape measures, laser levels and machinist squares and then transferring this all to the aluminium with labels and lines on the masking tape I’ve put down along the beds.
The red flange halves up at the top are the zero reference or base plane that I have used for all my models and measurements as this 2 part flange is where the prop shaft connects to the output flange shaft of the Nogva CPP Gearbox. When it comes time to align these mating flanges we have to get them to be less than 0.002”/0.05mm. For reference a human hair is about 0.07mm in diameter so we don’t have much room for error when it comes time to align the Engine/Gearbox with the propeller flange.
Uğur has cut all the 25mm / 1” thick AL plates to size and prepped them for full penetration welds with the large 45 degree chamfers to form a deep V gulley for his MIG welding passes. I really enjoy working so closely with Uğur and with all the modeling, measuring and marking done and all the plates cut and prepped time now for Uğur to start tacking them in place.
For orientation, the Door into the ER in the upper Left corner and the angled walls of the ER point to the Stern which is on the far Left. The aft most mount for the Nogva Gearbox required this stringer be cut away where the mounting bracket plates will be and to provide enough room for the MIG gun to access. New stringer plate will be welded back in again after the mounts are all done. At the opposite front end, the supports for the bed extension required these slots be cut in the stringer under the 25mm thick Mounting Beds. With all the interfering stringers cut away and slotted, Uğur could start tacking in the mounting plates starting with this vertical brace for the Stbd/Right Nogva Gearbox undermount and get it perfectly lined up with the reference lines I’ve marked on the bed surfaces. He soon has both vertical braces tacked in place. and then tacks in the horizontal base mounting plate. My hand will give you a sense of size and scale. Mr. Gee weighs in as a svelte 1400kg/3100lbs and the Nogva CPP adds about another 250kg/550lbs so these mounts need to stand up to several decades of support for over 17-1800kg / 3750-4000lbs of vibrating propulsion goodness so I am over engineering these beyond even my usual eXtremes.
BTW, Mass is also a big help in reducing vibration and noise so there is that added benefit as well.
At the front end of the beds this Stbd/Right side bed extension is also now all tacked up and perfectly leveled ready for one last check with the laser level and straight edges before final welding begins. Soon all four mounts, none needed for the two in the middle, are all tacked up, checked and ready for welding. Front Bed eXtensions fully welded ready to be ground flat and flush. As are the rear two undermounts with the stringer plates now added back in. And here is a Birds-eye view looking down through the big ER Hatch on the Aft Deck. Meanwhile, one floor up in the “Fitting Room” in my Workshop, I’ve been busy getting Mr. Gee’s new mounting brackets which we finished building last week, all fitted and installed on Mr. Gee himself as we prep for the big day of lowering him into his new home in the ER onboard Möbius.
These are the Aft two mounts that sit in the middle of the ER Beds. The huge flywheel is also being prepped to mount to those six bolts on the end of the Crankshaft.
Seen from the front side and with the anti-vibration “feet” in place, this is what the finished Aft Mounts look like. Front Right mounting bracket and foot test fit and good for final torqueing. On the Front Left mounting bracket I have incorporated this extended base plate where I will soon be mounting the big Jabsco sea water impeller pump that provides all the cool seawater to flow through the heat exchangers for the engine coolant, engine oil and Nogva Gearbox oil before exiting out via the wet exhaust system and back into the seal. In the photo above, the PTO or Power Take Off drive can be seen on the far Left here and then viewed through the two holes in the vertical mount brackets. I’ll be making up a SS drive shaft that will attach to that PTO end and go through those two holes in the mount and then be attached to the shaft of the Jabsco pump. Should make for a very robust and reliable drive setup for this critical pump.
Mr. Gee’s FLYWHEEL;
Mr. Gee’s feet were not the only thing I’ve been massaging this week, I also finally made the time to finish prepping the purposely “obese” flywheel option that Michael at Gardner Marine Diesel kindly provided for us. This mass helps to further even out the legendary eXtreme smoothness of all low revving Gardner 6LXB engines and make Mr. Gee a real smooth operator to quote Sade Adu’s great song. Many months ago I had sent this flywheel out to the CNC Machine shop next door to have that recess with the 8 M-12 threaded holes machined and now I needed to remove these no longer needed bolts and bearings that are used for mounting a traditional Gardner gearbox. The outer circumference of the Flywheel also serves a critical function by having these precise marks that are used for setting the timing of the fuel injection pump. There are three sets of these precision marks and this one is for setting the injection timing of #1 cylinder. I have filled these stamped in marks with fluorescent Green paint to help make them easier to see through the timing window in the outer aluminium Flywheel bell housing. I sanded these areas down to leave the Green paint just filling up the letters and masked them off before spraying on the primer and topcoats. As always, all the time in painting comes from the prep work so after months of that it only took a few minutes to spray on the first coat of primer. Followed the next day by the final topcoat of aluminium paint.
A bit eXcessive for an item that will never see the light of day? Perhaps, but with our last boat having been all steel and Neil Young’s refrain of “Rust never sleeps” echoing in my head, I try to do anything I can to prevent rust happening ANYWHERE on my beloved new boat Möbius! Call me crazy if you like, you’d be in the majority, but I’m a very happy and rust free nutcase!
My anti-rust fetish had me take the time to sand blast the six anti-vibration feet so I could paint them while I had my spray gun out and the aluminium silicone paint mixed up, And shot them at the same time I was shooting the Flywheel so they are now all ready for installation. Final step was to insert this aluminium SAE14 Centamax 1600 drive plate into that recess I pointed out earlier and torque down the eight hardened M-12 bolts. When it is time to connect the Gardner to the Nogva Gearbox, this rubber flex drive which is bolted to the input shaft of the Nogva, will slide snugly into all those matching U shaped grooves in the AL drive plate that is now bolted to Mr. Gee’s Flywheel. This is one more very significant component helping to make Mr. Gee such an eXtremely smooooooooth operator.
This is Exhausting!
The last bit of TLC for Mr. Gee was getting these stainless steel flexible exhaust bellows machined and welded so we can start installing the Halyard exhaust system. These SS woven mesh connectors work really well by absorbing any vibration or movement between the Gardner engine and the dry stack SS pipes running up and over the Gardner on their way to the Halyard Combi Silencer/Separator.
The round SS flange faces up and this is where the first vertical dry stack Halyard pipe attaches. And the bottom square flange bolts to Mr. Gee’s exhaust manifold. You will be seeing much more of this once we start installing the Halyard exhaust system later this month.
Why Drop Your Drawers When You Can SLlllllliiiiiiiiide Them Instead?
We kept dancing to Sade’s Smooth Operator song throughout the week and that certainly included all the work that Omur and Selim were doing in the Main Cabin and the Galley.
Omur continued installing all the beautiful Rosewood drawers in the Master Bed Platform with their super smooth operating Blum drawer slides.
As you may notice, our Chippies aka Cabinetmakers, went a bit overboard last year when they started building the first drawers for XPM78-01 Möbius and made EVERY surface out of Ro$ewood so my pocketbook and I needed to reign them in a bit and use the very nicely contrasting Beech for the insides and undersides and unseeable surfaces of all the rest of the drawers and drawers they subsequently made.
But as you are seeing here in the Master Cabin, all the drawers in the King Bed Platform are Rosewood throughout. All the other drawers and doors in the Master Cabin and throughout the rest of the boat have this very lovely contrast of colour and grain between the dark swirling Rosewood and the honey coloured Beech. Thee upper four drawers in this Bureau of Drawers beside the Master Bed Platform show this well.
The upper four are slide out drawers whereas the bottom four where the hull curves in and makes them narrower have fold down doors. The outer faces will soon receive their Gray/Green leather covered fronts.
I covered these AbFab Blum bottom mounted drawer slides ad nauseum last week so I’ll leave you to go check that out if you’d like and just point out that this is a good shot at the underside of one of the Bureau drawers to show how these slides and their cushioned auto-close mounts work. and here is an interior shot of one of the sliders in one of the bed platform drawers. Looking rearward to the stairs leading up to the SuperSalon, these are the six drawers along the Starboard/Right side of the Master Bed Platform. And these are the five drawers on the forward facing end of the Bed Platform. Last 2 drawers in the Master Cabin are the two Omur in front of Omur located underneath the Vanity Sink at the very front end of this Cabin. Omur soon has both drawers all mounted as well s the door on the Medicine Cabinet above the sink. The Rosewood doors along that Starboard side open up into very large storage shelves with hanging lockers and the Washing Machine behind what will soon be mounted Green/Gray leather covered drawers above the BHL Handhold. Difficult to fit it all into one photo but this shot standing in front of the Vanity sink provides this perspective looking down those doors on the far Left and along the Bureau of Drawers and the Bed Platform on your way to the hanging locker on the Left just before you start up the stairs to the SuperSalon. Speaking of which this view looking straight down those stairs from the SuperSalon lets us see that Omur has also now installed all the solid Rosewood nosing on each of these stair treads. The solid Rosewood nosing and intake air grills for each of the stair treads came back from the Finishing Shop with their multiple coats of PU varnish all rubbed out to a beautiful matt sheen. Omur soon had these all fully installed and awaiting the installation of the final flooring which will be planks of click-lock high end vinyl.
MAIN HELM STATION:
Upstairs Omur and Selim continued to make good progress installing the Main Helm Station which we saw them begin the previous week. The hinged Dashboard is now back from the Upholstery Shop along with the mounting panel for the two 19” touch screens and the cut-outs for the switch panels are in the angled wall on the Right side of the Helm Chair. I was finally able to get a photo of Sinan our Mater Upholsterer standing beside the latest round of ceiling panels for Möbius as well as the three Black Leather covered Dashboard pieces. This is the basic layout that Captain Christine has come up with and is now in place. Kobelt Throttle/Pitch control levers bottom Right, Furuno Jog Lever to its Left and then the Gray cover is hiding the Furuno 711C AutoPilot Head.
Above the Jog Lever is the Maxwell Windlass Chain Up/Down switch with the round Kobelt Pitch Angle gauge to its Right and the ACR Pan/Tilt Searchlight control in the Upper Right corner. The empty hole beside is waiting to be filled by the Vetus Bow Thruster Joystick that has not yet arrived.
The hole on the far Left corner will have a smooth radius ring on it and will allow the Standard Horizon RAM4 VHF mic cord to coil up in the space below.
Vertically mounted on the Right wall is the Nogva Clutch & PTO control switches and the empty rectangular cut-outs will soon have the switch board mounted to control all the exterior flood/search lights and the High Water Bilge controls system. Up on top of the Right side angled wall, that Black Kobelt panel is the Kobelt control station to give control to either the Main or the Flybridge Helms OR give control to this Kobelt 7176 WalkAbout Controller which we are eXtremely eXcited to try out soon. This is a corded remote control which can plug into a receptacle here at the Main Helm or up in the SkyBridge Helm and the 10m/33ft cord then allows us to “walk about” almost from stem to stern with this remote. It is eXtremely multi-functional as the two levers on the sides control the Pitch of the prop and Throttle of the Gardner and then up on top we can control the rudder, the bow thruster and the CPP Clutch. With this in hand we can pretty much control the whole boat while standing anywhere on the boat from the very aft end of the Swim Platform to up on the Bow. In addition to giving you an overview of the whole front end of the SuperSalon and the Main Helm, all those wires hanging down from the ceiling indicate that Hilmi and Selim have been here putting in all the power cables for the LED lights overhead. Most of all though, Christine and I are already fantasizing about sitting in our super comfy Llebroc Helm Chair up here and gazing out through these 360 degrees of windows as we head out towards our next great destination.
Come on Team Möbius, we are counting on you to get us there ASAP!
SuperSalon gets Superer!
It is a hard area to photograph well but the “doghouse” overtop of the Entryway from the Aft Deck into the SuperSalon is shaping up very nicely thanks to Ömür’s hard work.
This shot is looking straight up while standing on the Entryway Stairs. Omur now has the very nicely done Rosewood Hatch liner installed and Sinan has finished the first of the intricate snap in White leather covered ceiling panels on the Right here. More to follow soon.
Here is a different perspective on that same area looking in through the Entryway door on the Aft Deck. The Black Corner Box running across the upper ceiling area will have a snap In/Out panel to give us access to the various electronic gadgets that will live inside.
The SkyBridge is on the other side of the far right side here and ……. …… if I now climb up to the SkyBridge you can see this same Hatch liner from up here and get better oriented. Walking a few steps forward in the SkyBridge and looking back at this same Hatch you can see where the SkyBridge Helm Chair will set in that space to the Left of the Hatch. We have oriented this Hatch lid like this to make it easy for us to pass things back and forth from the Galley and the SkyBridge and to make it easy for us to talk back and forth when we are in these two areas.
GALLEY:
Can you guess where these three little drawers are bound for? Well, I guess the heading of this section makes that easy to guess that they go HERE on the “peninsula” in the Galley that runs parallel with the walkway as you come down the stairs from the Entryway door.
One of the main themes Christine and I prioritized as we worked through the design of XPM78-01 Möbius is what we refer to as “Diversity” by which we mean having a lot of different options for different aspects and areas onboard. in the case of the Galley that means a lot of diversity of size and shapes of drawers and doors so have a look around and see how this design diversity is manifesting itself in the Galley.
BTW, the tall skinny area in the middle of this set of different sized drawers will also be a pull out “drawer” that has no sides and just a series of shelves to store things like spices and condiments and utensils that you can easily access from the side.
Drawer Diversity continues over here on this set of drawers on the Window side of the Galley countertops forward of the double sink. And yet more different sizes and shapes of drawers here on the other “peninsula” running along the back of the Dining Settee on the other side. A bit difficult to see through all the construction but you can see how all the Garages atop the Turquoise marble countertops are also different sizes and depths for yet more diversity of our storage. Our hope is that having all these different options will allow us to optimize all these storage areas and enable us to find the Goldilocks just right spot for everything we want to store in our Galley. Also eXciting for us to see the big double sink be permanently set into the marble countertop. And yes we heard all your questions and recommendations for a undermounted sink instead and we may well agree with you for the next boat, but we are very happy with this top mount and thing it will work well for us.
The large main faucet has a removable spray head with a very effective magnetic holder to keep it in place when not being used. The smaller faucet on the far Right is just for cold drinking water which comes from its own 150 Liter tank that is completely independent of all other water tanks for an extra bit of safety should it ever happen that all six of our integral water tanks should be somehow contaminated. Highly unlikely as they are all filled from our 150L / 40 USG per hour Delfin Watermaker, but just in case ………………
Whew! Even when shorthanded the rest of Team Möbius still makes great progress and we get closer and closer to Launch Date!
Oh, and one last bit or eXciting news, look what we just received!
Holy Pinocchio!
It is NOT a Fake News lie that XPM78-01 Möbius is now a “real boy” as she is fully and officially registered in Jersey and the British Ship Registry!
I realise that this might seem like “just a piece of paper” to many but to us this is such a big milestone that makes our dreamboat seem all the more real and tantalizingly close.
Thanks as always for joining us on this grand adventure and PLEASE add your questions, comments and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
Till next week, same time, same Bat station this is your cub reporter Wayne and Christine’s Loving Owners Representative signing off.
Naval Yachts reached an all time high in productivity this week and it is an all time high that I’m not sure even they can top. On Wednesday Dincer, one of our builder brothers and founder of Naval Yachts texted us with the news that he and his wife Nesli had just welcomed their twins into the world! Wow!!
Two very healthy boys, Yiğit, which means brave and Mert which means honest, arrived a few weeks sooner than expected but both they and Mom are doing very well. Dad seems to be a bit tired though?
Both boys measure 42cm tall with Yiğit weighing in at 2.4kg and Mert at 2.2. Congratulations Nesli and Dincer and welcome to this awemazing world Yiğit and Mert! We can’t wait to meet and snuggle you soon! As per this week’s title, if you think we have our hands full, you ought to see our hearts!
Amidst all the celebrations the rest of Team Möbius continued their great productivity with lots of progress being made this past week welding the stanchion sockets into the Rub Rails, tacking up the SkyBridge roof frame and the fore and aft railings, and installing the first wire trays so let’s go check all that out now.
Picking up where we left off last week, Uğur and Nihat continued to tack together the frame for the roof over the SkyBridge. This is the aft end of the roof and each of those eight openings have been sized to have a full size solar panel sealed in place on top to form a fully watertight roof assembly. This front area provides an overhang around three front windows and there will be vent grills in the underside of the front overhang to channel air over the bottom of the solar panels to keep them cool and efficiently cranking the electrons to keep our big battery banks fully topped up every day.
Here is the fully tacked and cleaned up roof frame ready for final welding.
The V shaped on edge flat bars you see atop the plating fore and aft here are just temporary braces to hold the panels flush and will be removed once those joints are fully welded.
In last week’s update I included this rendering to show how the aft end of the dark green roof frame is attached at the aft ends to the hinged upper arch assembly such that they can both be folded down into “Canal Mode” shown in mauve here. This Starboard side view shows what the SkyBridge roof will look like in regular passage making or anchor mode.
With the SkyBridge roof frame completed Uğur moves up to deck level and seems intent on something?
Oh No! Why would he be cutting big holes in those eXtremely strong and beautiful Rub Rails he so meticulously welded in place last week?
Hmmmmm, these short lengths of 60mm thick walled pipe seem to fit in just right. Carefully measured and leveled to be perfectly vertical….
…. then welded in place top …… …. and bottom. Ohhhh!! Duh! Now I remember drawing these up! He is installing the sockets that will hold the aluminium stanchions and railings in place very solidly.
3 Dyneema lifelines running through these 1m/40” tall lengths of 40mm thick walled aluminium pipe will help keep us safely on deck. Barney the Yorkshire Terror is another story but you will note that the bottom lifeline is at a particularly low Barney height. This same type of nylon lined pipe socket will also be used to attach the 40mm pipe railings you can see in Cyan colour in the rendering above where they create very solid hand holds at the side boarding gates and around the bow and stern. You will be seeing more of these stanchions and railings as they get installed in the coming weeks.
Moving inside the boat there seems to be a meeting of the minds in the forward Main Cabin staring Dincer the new father of twins Yiğit and Mert.
Dincer is talking with Yusuf our head electrician as we work out the details of installing all the wiring and electrical systems on XPM78-01 Möbius. Packages of these aluminium wire trays of various widths have been piling up on deck during the week ….
…. and new pieces of flat bar have been showing up between stringers on the upper hull sides.
Each flat bar and each opening slot in the frames are carefully lined with thick rubber glued in place to protect the wires and pipes from any abrasion and keep the trays fully isolated from the hull. Here in the Workshop we will run some of the cables up and across the ceiling to the Starboard side. Like this.
Another set of trays will go below this first route of trays and you can see what those slots and holes in the frames are for. Wires will be routed to keep the high amperage AC and DC cables well separated from each other and we will run data cables on the opposite side. All this to help eliminate magnetic induction and noise interference. And that’s it for this week so we’ll turn out the lights and let Möbius rest for the long weekend bathed in the greenish night lights of the shipyard.
New Years is a particularly big holiday over here so Monday and Tuesday are holidays here and Naval Yachts and Team Möbius will start up again on Wednesday morning.
I’ve put together a short video or this week’s progress and you will find that below.
HOLIDAY BONUS!
We were all working today, Saturday and so wtih Christine’s help we spent time onboard and shot a bunch of video and I’ve used this to put together an end of the year guided tour of Möbius for all of you who have been asking for another and I will create a separate blog post for that with all the drawings and model shots in it so you can refer to these as you wish.
And for a Holiday treat, seeing as you have all been such good little boys and girls throughout 2018, I’ve turned this into a fully annotated video guided tour with drawings and models overlaid throughout to help you visualise the various compartments and layouts. At 23.5 minutes it is much longer than previous videos but I have put in markers throughout for each of the different cabins and areas on the boat so you should be able to fast forward to find what you are most interested in. I have put this new annotated video walkthrough into it’s own post you can find here and I have put a copy of each drawing and render from the video at the bottom of that blog post so you can refer to these “stills” anytime you wish.
As with most things I do I’m a complete novice at this kind of video editing and using all new software tools so please bear with me as I learn and try out new things My apologies in advance for the poor sound in many places. I am upgrading to a lavaliere microphone I can wear in the future and will work on the lighting changes with the camera. Otherwise I would very much appreciate any and all feedback from you as to what you like, what you don’t, what you would like more of, less of and any suggestions that will help me learn and improve to make these videos, or the blog postings, more enjoyable and informative.
Christine and I hope you enjoy the year end tour of Möbius and your celebrations with family and friends as 2018 draws to a close and we welcome in the new year. 2018 was certainly a densely packed year of milestones and memories for Christine and me and 2019 looks to be even more so as our awemazing adventures continue. Lucky us!!
In what may be THE biggest milestone of this almost four year long Project Goldilocks, we had the official finale of the building of XPM78-01 Möbius courtesy of Dincer and Baris Dinc at Naval Yachts this past Friday, June 4, 2021.
We were not able to get everyone who had worked on Möbius over the years but Dincer did his best to get most and we had a lovely little celebration up on the rooftop of Naval Yachts.
Christine and I created a design for some black T-shirts with the names of pretty much everyone who had ever worked on Möbius and all our great suppliers and you can see the back of one of these with the person on the Right here.
I can’t seem to find the final version which has a LOT more names on it but this will give you an idea of what the shirts looked like.
Here you can see the fronts of the T-shirts nicely modeled by Dincer on the Right and Yusuf (originally our head Electrician) on the Right.
Dincer very kindly had this eXtremely special XPM78-01 Möbius cake made up and the insides were even better than the outside if you can believe that!
And before we dive into the whole story about Mr. Gee’s hole, check out our newest neighbor who pulled into the harbour next to us! Last week I showed you the three smaller vessels from the Turkish Navy fleet and this week their bigger brother arrived. Made for great entertainment for Christine and me on our nightly sundowner glass of wine on the foredeck.
May of you wrote to me (thanks!) to tell me that I kept leaving you hanging as to the root of Mr. Gee’s sudden loss of oil pressure and when we ended last week’s update, Mr. Gee was also left quite literally hanging in his Engine Room like this.
This cutaway illustration of the Gardner 6LXB lubrication system (click any photo to enlarge) might help you follow along with all the different parts that need to be removed and let you see what all needs to be removed to strip a 6LXB “naked”.
This meant pretty much completely dismantling Mr. Gee Humpty Dumpty style and my center workbench in my Workshop soon started filling up with all the bits and bobs as I removed more and more of them from Mr. Gee.
Here I am pulling off Mr. Gee’s tiny little flywheel that weighs a mere 230 Kg / 507 Lbs.
Who knew that my Garhauer 6:1 block and tackle with 10mm Dyneema line for raising and lowering the Tender Davit, would come in so handy!
With the flywheel and all its housings removed, I could now remove the over 40 bolts securing this cast aluminium oil sump/pan and pry it loose from the cast Al crankcase above.
I would estimate that this cast oil sump weighs about 45 Kg/100 Lbs, so I tied a loop of line around the bottom of the front end of the oil sump to keep it suspended and enlisted the help of Captain Christine to help me slide this monster out from under Mr. Gee, out the ER door and out onto the Aft Deck.
With the oil sump out of the way I could start the process of removing all the pistons and connecting rods. Suspending Mr. Gee such that I could remove all the pistons and the crankshaft is a bit tricky. The front end is easy because the big motor mount brackets can be left in place so I have attached a loop of Dyneema line that goes to the overhead chain block and then I put in two more loops that wrapped around each motor mount as a safety backup and this left the area underneath the crankcase completely open.
However the 2 motor mounts on the Aft end need to be removed along with the split cast AL flywheel housings and there just isn’t much left to tie onto that is strong enough to hold the 1000 Kg / 2200 Lb. engine. 
With the tops of these jack stands resting on the wide flat AL surface that the oil sump bolts to, I had full access now to the full bottom end of the crankshaft and the bottom of each cylinder’s connecting rod.
For my growing Gardner fan base, the following two illustrations from some of the original Gardner factory manuals which I am SO fortunate to have copies of, will help you see more clearly what’s going on inside a Gardner 6LXB like Mr. Gee.
The con rod bearings are half shells that are clamped by four large bolts on each con rod. Removing the four nuts allowed me to slide the bottom half of the con rod off crankshaft and then you can push the whole piston & con rod assembly up and out of the top of the cylinder.
Here is the full piston & connecting rod assembly from cylinder #1 sitting upside down on my workbench. 
With pretty much everything except the crankshaft now removed, that center workbench continues to fill up with more and more parts as I get down to the very bottom of Mr. Gee and find the culprit responsible for his low oil pressure problem.
As the more observant and mechanically inclined will have noticed, the clues have been revealing themselves throughout this Update and the crime is a nasty one. These are the two bearing half shells that came out of Cylinder #1 and this is NOT what you want to see in any con rod bearings let alone those with less than 5 hours of run time since new!
To help explain, this illustration of the Tri-metal bearings used on Gardner and still in most modern combustion engines, shows why that copper you see in the photo above is an eXtremely bad thing. Even though I caught it early, that drop in oil pressure meant that there was not enough lubrication between these bearing surfaces and the journals on the crankshaft and so they started to wear very rapidly with each huge push on each piston as the diesel fuel was compressed and then fired.
If you’ve been following this “murder mystery” for awhile now, you may recall that when the oil pressure dropped I also noticed a slight knocking noise and a bit of burning oil smoke rising up from cylinder #1 and I already had a suspicion as to why, but more on that later.
In this and the photo above, I have lined up all the bearing shells in order with #1 on the far Right/Bottom all the way over to #6 on the far Left/Top. 
Let me zoom in to show this more clearly.
Here is #3 cylinder, still an eXtreme amount of wear for such new bearings but much less than Cylinder #1.
Finally at the far aft end of the crankshaft, this is what the bearing shells from Cylinder #6 look like, with again way too much wear but by far the least of all six.
Sorry! None of the above.
I won’t be able to show this to you very well until next week when I get the whole crankshaft out, but I was able to stick my phone up into the crankshaft at Cylinder #1 and here is what that steel oil tube looks like in real life.
Zooming in as best I can with the crankshaft still inside Mr. Gee’s crankcase, here is a bit better view of the perpetrator of this heinous crime again circled in Red.
![PXL_20210219_063714754[7]](https://i2.wp.com/mobius.world/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/PXL_20210219_0637147547.jpg?ssl=1 "PXL_20210219_063714754[7]")
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