I will do my best to reward all of your patience with my lack of a Weekly Update post last week by putting both weeks together into this post. Not only was the time doubled, everything was eXponentially eXpanded by the several factors as my Beautiful Bride and newly minted 100 Ton Captain Christine flew back to Antalya and back into my arms and we also manage to squeeze in a weekend getaway to attend the huge Dusseldorf “Boot” boat show so the past two weeks have been even more densely packed with fun and adventure than they usually are with us. So grab a favorite beverage and a comfy seat in front of your favorite screen and hang on while I take you on a fly through the past two very productive and adventure packed weeks.
With more than twice as many days of progress with the build to cover in this one post I’m sure it will end up being longer than the already too long Weekly Progress Updates I typically post so please feel free to skim and speed read. To help I will put in more obvious Blue Breaks to delineate each different section of the boat I’m covering.
Hope this helps and PLEASE let me know with your comments how well this worked and any other ways I can improve the readability and value of these Weekly Updates????
For those of you who are too young to remember or were outside the sphere of such marketing, I borrowed this week’s title from a very long running slogan for Wrigley’s DoubleMint chewing gum. We certainly did double our pleasure and double our fun these past two weeks even though no chewing gum was involved!
My 67th Birthday was on Thursday the 23rd and Naval Yachts surprised me with a B’day cake complete with sparklers which was a great gift for me. This is most of the people from the head office with Buse taking the photo and the rest of the Team all went out of their way to wish me a Happy Birthday as I met them onboard and around the yard. This is a good example of the kind of very special relationship that we have developed over these past 2+ years of this adventure. Thanks Team Möbius!!
B’day Getaway Weekend to “boot Düsseldorf” Indoor Boat Show
As you may recall from previous posts, Christine was back in Florida for some Gramma time with our grandson Liam as well as finishing her certification exams for her 100 Ton Captain’s license, which she passed, no surprise, with flying colours and much to the chagrin of all the other commercial captains who were all male and much younger. With that accomplished and four bags packed full of boat equipment she was schlepping back to Naval Yachts my Captain also managed to schedule her return flight on Thursday night the 23rd, just in time for her to be THE best birthday present EVER for me. Unfortunately, she ran afoul of the Customs officials when she landed in Antalya and they saw all the electronics she had in her checked bags and boxes so it took several hours for us to get out of the airport and then we were up until the wee hours putting together the mounds of paperwork they were wanting. We managed to get about three hours of sleep before we were up and on our way back to the airport to deliver all that paperwork and with the aid of our ever helpful Möbius Project Manager Yigit, they seemed to have everything they needed but it would require a bonded truck to take all the items directly to Naval Yachts in the Antalya Free Zone so we had to leave everything there for the weekend and we dashed off to catch our plane to Dusseldorf as Christine had organised a B’day weekend getaway for us there just in time to join over 250,000 fellow boaters and catch the last two days of the world’s largest indoor boat show.
As per Wikipedia “The Düsseldorf International Boat Show (German: International Bootsausstellung Düsseldorf), more commonly known as boot Düsseldorf or just boot[1] (German pronunciation: [boːt]) is one of the world’s premier boat shows. With some 1,600 exhibitors from over 50 co.untries, boot Düsseldorf is considered a benchmark for the international boat and water sports industry. Unparalleled at other major boat shows, large vessels up to 180 grt[2] can be looked on in their entirety, as the exhibition is a complete indoor event. Boot Düsseldorf is held annually at MesseDüsseldorf, Germany, for the duration of a week in the end of January.”
Christine had set us up with a lovely little AirBnB apartment a few kilometers from the show and right beside the main tram line and we had a blast not only revelling in all the new boats and equipment on display in 18 different buildings spread out over several acres of the “Messe Düsseldorf” grounds but also meeting up with some fellow boat building friends several of whom we had not met in person with before.
It was more Double your Pleasure, Double your Fun for me to be back in Deutschland again. Growing up as a Military Brat while my dad was a chef in the Canadian Armed Forces, we lived near Dortmund on two occasions when I was young, once from 1957-59 and then again from 1965-68.
Then during my teaching days I taught Canadian and international High School kids on the Canadian Air Force base in Baden Baden in the very SW corner of Deutschland from 1980-84 so having lived in Germany for over ten years it always feels very familiar to me and a joy to return to.
The weather also cooperated being the typical overcast grey this time of year all day Saturday which was just right for an all indoor boat show and then Sunday started out the same as we walked more kilometers of “boot” and then the sun burned off all the clouds and gave us the perfect weather to walk the old town and along the river. It is still January mind you so temps were around 5-7C/41-15F but it was glorious in the sun and we had the perfect “excuse” to enjoy a few mugs of one of my favorites; Glühwein which warmed our tummies as we basked in the sun along the banks of the always busy Rhine river.
German food in particular is one of my favorite treats every time we get back to Deutschland and both Christine and I indulged our foodie habits VERY well every chance we had, which was many! WAY too much to try and show you all the new equipment and ideas we found at the show but shows are great for displays such as this cut-away model of our IsoTemp Calorifier/Water Heater that we will soon be installing in Möbius. In the cutaway model you can see how the 220V heating element in the center which we are not likely to use too often because we have two of those corrugated SS heat exchangers in ours. One of these will connect to our Kabola KB45 Combi diesel fired boiler, and example of which we saw here on the very well made Elling E6 motor yacht we toured.
The other heat exchanger loop will connect to our Gardner main engine which will give us “free” hot water anytime we are underway with Mr. Gee running.
We treated ourselves to staying for one more night on Sunday and then took the direct flight back to Antalya and were back in the shipyard just after lunch.
OK, enough already of all this fun personal stuff Wayne! Get to what we really come to these Weekly Update posts for; the progress at Naval Yachts by Team Möbius for the past two weeks! With a reminder to always be careful what you wish for, buckle up and settle in, here we go…………………….
Starting with our dynamic duo Aluminium Team, Uğur and Nihat, can you guess what Uğur has started working on here?
If it helps those are pieces of 25mm/1” thick aluminium plate he is putting those 45 degree chamfered edges on with the router.
Will hit help you guess to know that two of these plates are tacked together and sent over to the Machine Shop to have a large 100mm/4” through hole cut in their upper rounded ends? Then they went back to the shop floor ……….. …….. to have the two halves fully welded together. Being so thick, this takes quite a few passes with the MIG welder to fully fill those V-grooves and make these all one solid block. More clues, there are three of these and once fully welded the edges are machined flat such as you can see in the top one here and then all edges of this now 50mm/2” thick tab will be fully rounded over as will the edges of the hole so it becomes a very smooth sided “donut” kind of shape.
These mystery pieces won’t get finished until next week so I’ll be a wee bit mean and leave you thinking about what these might be till then when I can show the finished parts being installed on the hull.
Back onboard, Uğur, Nihat and Okan have been busy finishing the fabrication and mounting of the shelf for the two Accu-Steer HPU400 hydraulic steering pumps which puts them right overtop of the Rudder Post you can see hiding underneath and thus nice and close to the big hydraulic cylinders they will drive on either side. The shelf is bolted in place with SS nuts and bolts so it can be removed for better access to the big Tiller Arm head underneath should that ever be needed. Also bolted in place to be removable, is this additional shelf where I’m thinking I will attach one of my big toolchests and also give me a good open work surface for mechanical repairs. and perhaps one of my big metal vices will find its new home here in my fabulous new Workshop. For those of you interested in such details, this is the compound we are coating most of the SS nuts and bolts with before assembly. In addition to the anti-seizing function this paste works in very high temperatures and also insulates the dissimilar metal contact between the aluminium and the Stainless Steel.
Our friends over at Damen Shipyards which is the largest shipbuilder here as well as the world having built over 6500 ships since 1969 in their 36 shipyards around the world, put us onto this and it is their go-to standard for these kinds of use cases. One of the many advantages of building in the Antalya Free Zone is that we are surrounded by such first hand and world class expertise. Moving on to the next riddle, any guesses as to what the Aluminium team are fabricating here? Yup! Those are stairs alright. There are two parts, the three step one you see above and this single step here. Together they form the four steps that lead down from the Aft Swim Platform into the Workshop. These are also bolted in place so they can be removed if needed to access items under the Rudder Shelf where Okan’s foot is resting here. That single upper step serves double duty as it forms a protective cover overtop of the Starboard/Right hydraulic Kobelt steering cylinder and its hydraulic hoses.
Nihat also managed to find time to finish up the two big fresh air ventilation plenums in the ceiling of the SuperSalon, one overtop the Main Helm and the other a bit further aft over the center of the SuperSalon. These plenum or manifold boxes are all lined with 50mm/2” EPDM foam insulation and then he covered this with the thick cloth backed aluminium foil to help clean up the air flow inside and out through the ten diffusers in the plates which bolt to the rectangular frame surrounding Nihat in the photo above and above Yiğit’s head here.
In spite of all the bronze you are seeing here, one of the next aluminium team’s jobs is putting the through hole the Rudder Blade so that the prop shaft can be removed without having to remove the Rudder itself which would add a LOT of time and effort to the whole process of removing the prop shaft.
So Yigit on the left, Uğur and I rolled up our sleeves and set about dismantling that beautiful Nogva CPP prop so we can remove it from the prop shaft and make sure the hole in the Rudder Blade is precisely centered. The aft hub on the prop is easy enough to remove, just 8 SS hex head M10 bolts.
For those curious, the SS hex head you see sitting flush behind this Prop blade is for filling the hub with grease. My hands were covered in grease so I wasn’t able to get shots of each step but as you can see here the way these CPP blades rotate to change pitch is pretty simple. At this point there is just one blade left attached on the bottom left of this photo. The rectangular SS block protruding from the bronze block in the middle is what engages with a slot in the bottom of each blade and when the center SS shaft on the far right moves forward and aft that block pushes on the offset slot in the blade and causes it to rotate. You can see how each blade is completely captured by the outer hub such that they can each rotate freely but cannot ever come off. The black O-ring on each blade keeps the water out and the grease in. There was probably more than a litre of grease inside this hub but after we scooped it all out and cleaned it up you can see these inner parts much more clearly. The SS shaft on the far Right runs all the way through the center of the SS shaft on the far Left and extends into the CPP Servo Gearbox in the Engine Room where the Pitch Control rod is moved forward and aft to rotate all 4 blades in synch to change the pitch to whatever you want from Neutral to full ahead to full reverse to anything in between. Now Uğur could slide the whole Prop Shaft and Hub out until the end of the SS Prop Shaft was touching the side of the Rudder Blade when it was rotated to its full 45 degrees deflection which where the through hole can be closest to perpendicular to the Rudder Blade. All of this was done to double check that the location of the through hole was precisely laid out prior to drilling. Knowing the holes center was spot on, Uğur quickly got to work drilling the pilot hole through the Rudder Blade. The whole Rudder was then removed from the boat and taken over to the Machine Shop to have the full size holed drilled through and the AL pipe welded in place so I’ll be back to show you all that in next week’s update. With everything all cleaned up we wrapped what was left of the Prop Hub with shrink wrap to keep it nice and clean over the weekend and we’ll finish the removal of the Hub from the Prop Shaft next.
Hilmi and his Electrical Elves have been very busy these past two week as well with most of their work centered on the wiring for all the 14 Solar Panels and their respective MPPT controllers which all comes together down in the forward end of the Basement on the other side of this mounting grid you see here for the five Victron MultiPlus inverter/chargers and the Isolation Transformer. All wiring and hoses run in perforated cable trays that you now see running along most of the hull sides and ceiling and is becoming like a complex superhighway complete with overpasses and interchanges.
The large Red & Black cables on the right are 120mm2 / 4/000 AWG positive and negative cables for the high amperage 24V circuits such as those connecting the House Battery Banks to the main Bus Bar and connecting all the Solar MPPT Controller outputs to the Bus Bar. For those unfamiliar with wire sizes, let’s just say these are HUGEY, bigger than a garden hose. Way over recommended requirements but I like to keep the voltage loss for these components down to under 1.5% so this is the wire size that requires.
The smaller Red & Black wires on the left are 6mm2 / 10AWG which is about the diameter of a wooden chop stick and these are the MC4 Solar Cables that run from each Solar Panel down into the Basement.
It doesn’t take Hilmi long to transform the spaghetti like menagerie above into this neat and tidy arrangement using lots of nylon zip ties to secure the wires to the cable trays.
If you look closely you’ll see that Hilmi has also been careful to keep twisting, almost braiding the large cable runs rather than keeping them parallel as this helps reduce the magnetic flux when the high amperage 24 volts are running through them which creates electrical “noise” in neighboring wires.
Over on the other side of the aluminium L-bar mounting grid you can now see how all those 6mm2 cables from each solar panel have now been run across the ceiling cable tray to where they will connect to their individual blue Victron 100/20 SmartSolar MPPT controller. Hilmi is keeping each MPPT box well separated from each other and fastening their internal heat sink backs to the big vertical AL mounting plate on the bulkhead. This plate thus becomes a giant heat sink and extends their cooling by several factors which in turn increases the overall solar efficiency. Once all the MPPT controllers and cable trays on the mounting plate have been attached Okan lends a hand to run each wire to the correct MPPT controller. And soon has all these cables securely fastened to the cable trays. Looking from the other side we see that most of the Solar Panel cables are now in place and ready for connecting to the MPPT Controllers. Note too that each wire has a yellow label on each end which provides the unique name of each wire so they know exactly which cable end goes to which MPPT controller. The spaghetti syndrome returns for a short time as each coil of wire is unwound and readied for connecting. Green insulated ferrules are crimped onto each cable end which is then inserted into their respective terminals and securely clamped in place.
We ran out of the clear adhesive lined heat shrink that covers all the labels and keeps them readable and secure so each of these wires will need to be removed to have this clear covering heat shrunk on later. But by the end of the day Hilmi and Okan had everything tidied up and all but the bottom MPPT controller wired up. Next up is installing the positive and negative Bus Bars, circuit breakers and other components in that space in the middle. With the Basement in order Hilmi moved up into the SuperSalon and Master Cabin. We are standing on the stairs leading down in into the Master Cabin with the Main Helm on the Left.
The two Gray flexible conduits running on the inside of the AL I-Beams for the Main helm will soon be filled with wires for lights and fans in the dropped ceiling over the Master Bed. And then one runs down between the WT Bulkhead of the Basement and the Master Cabin Headboard carrying the wires for the In-Floor heating temperature senders. Zooming in a bit to show how that In-Floor temp sender is embedded into the rigid foam insulation. The coiled Red & Black wires are for the indirect LED lighting strips which run along the bottoms of the bed cabinets. Closer still to show how the temp sensor has a concave side that snuggles right up against the PEX tubing to measure the temperature of the warm water flowing through. Each of the three heated floors has its own temp sensor which connects to a wall mounted thermostat control box and each of these is then wired into the central Azel 3 Zone Switching Relay which is the “brain box” that manages the three circulation pumps to tell them when to turn on and off as needed to maintain the room temp you set. More on that as those components get installed.
Staying with electrons but a different system, we move on to the beginning of the installation of the N2K or NMEA 2000 network on Möbius. This is a special type network based on the “mother” standard of CANbus which is the basis of a specific standard for the Marine world called NMEA2000 or N2K for short. N2K is used for managing all the digital data traffic on boats for monitoring and navigation system communications.
Captain Christine has taken on the Herculean task of designing of our N2K network and she has been meeting with the electrical teams here at Naval to go over her design and layout.
We had good first hand experience on previous boats with a limited number of the monitoring solutions from Maretron and in speaking with as many other long range passage makers as possible we decided to use an extensive combination of Maretron sensors sensors and software to build the monitoring systems for XPM78-01 Möbius.
While it also carries other boat data such as navigation, the majority of the N2K network is used for the extensive monitoring required when doing the kinds of long range eXpeditions the XPM’s are designed for. Given the long passages we take and the eXtreme remoteness of the places we visit, It is critical that we can monitor ALL systems on the boat and be alerted as soon as something out of the ordinary happens. This would include knowing when there is water in one of our bilge areas which in the case of the XPM’s are mostly the gutters formed where the margin plates of the tank tops bend downward to be perpendicular to the hull plates. Or if the temperature of the engine or CPP oil goes above normal, or the temperature in one of the electrical cabinets gets too high. You get the idea.
For those of those of you interested in a deep dive into how Maretron monitoring systems are used on passage makers I recommend you spend some time on one of our favorite blogs, that of MV Dirona which is a Nordhaven 52 that is the home of James and Jennifer Hamilton who have been cruising Dirona around the world for the past ten years. James & Jennifer maintain a blog which is a true treasure trove of valuable information of both their travels and their eXtreme technical acumen. WELL worth subscribing to, reading and referring to all the time as Christine and I do.
In particular check out this “Maretron N2KView on Dirona” post which provides an excellent and extensive overview of how James & Jennifer have configured their extremely extensive Maretron monitoring system and how they have set up N2K View which is the software which Maretron offers for you to create any number and level of detailed graphical displays of all the boat’s data such as this one screen from Dirona. N2K View also allows you to relatively easily, though not quickly, create whatever rules and alarms you’d like. Our sincere thanks to both James and Jennifer for all their time and effort in sharing what they’ve learned and being such great teachers for us in the process.
This is the schematic which Christine has created using another Maretron software N2K Builder and if you click to enlarge (works on all images) you can get a feel for the kinds of things we will be monitoring to begin with. As you can perhaps make out in this schematic, N2K uses a central “backbone” cable which runs throughout the entire boat with lots of T junctions along the way where you connect N2K “drop cables” to each component that is on the N2K network.
Spread along the backbone are then a LOT of N2K sensors and “black boxes” such as this FPM100 Fluid Pressure Monitor which we use to monitor all our tank levels for Diesel, Fresh, Black and Gray Water. In this case this one BB can have up to six individual tank pressure sensors connected to it and then the BB connects to the N2K backbone with a Drop Cable and the whole thing forms the N2K network for the boat. There are sensors for everything from temperature to pressure to electrical relays and much more and each one puts its data onto the N2K network which you can then use to display on those N2K View screens as well as use as input for all those IFTTT “If This Then That” type of rule creation.
This week, Christine spent time onboard Möbius with Yigit and Hilmi walking them through the N2K network she has designed and which they now need to install. Here they are up in the SuperSalon going over the schematic you’ve seen above. The N2K network runs through every area of the interior and so they next moved down into the Basement to review the N2K layout there.
I will leave this description at that for now and then get into MUCH more details as the installation progresses.
Cihan has also had a busy and productive two weeks mounting more and more plumbing related equipment and lines. Here are two sea water pumps, the bottom one is the low pressure Feed Pump moving salt water from the Sea Chest up to the Delfin Water maker’s High Pressure pump. The pump on the Upper Right is a sea water circulation pump for the Webasto BlueCool chiller for the AirCon system. These are both located underneath the open grid floor grates on the Stbd/Right side of the Workshop. Tucked safely under the lower Workbench shelves on the Stbd/Right forward end of the Workbench where the Day Tank sits are these two Johnson Aqua Jet Deck Wash Pressure pumps, one for salt, one for fresh. The pumps are upside down above their respective filter/strainers. All four Deck Wash Pumps, two on the Foredeck, two on the Aft, will be plumbed to these very slick Jabsco 1/2” flush mount quick connect hose fittings. The two on the Aft Deck will be located inside the Stbd/Right Vent Box/BBQ on the Aft Deck making it easy to wash down the aft decks, SkyBridge and Tender. Up on top of that same 5m/18ft long Stbd Workbench Cihan has the Delfin 200L/50USG per hour Water Maker on its rubber soft mounts. Behind the Water Maker and the Webasto BlueCool Chiller he has now bolted that wide horizontal AL mounting plate to the vertical hull frames. The Red Webasto Accumulator Tank and pressure gauge have been bolted to this mounting plate and …. it will soon be joined by the three filters for the Water Maker which he is now removing from the sides of the Water Maker frame. We are moving them to make access easier and provide more space between the equipment on the Workbench. Plumbing runs throughout the boat of course and so does Cihan so here is some of his recent handiwork up in the Forepeak where he as started to fill the penetrations through the WT Bulkhead frames with the special class rated White WT filler.
The black wire coming out of the Grey flexible conduit in the bottom penetration is the cable connecting the Whale smart sensor for the Shower and Head floor drains to the diaphragm pump which is up here in the Forepeak to keep any of its low noise out of the Master Cabin.
Up at the top of the Forepeak the clear hose is the vent tube for the Fresh Water tanks in the Master Cabin and the white PPR pipe is for compressed air from the air compressor in the Aft Workshop. We have quick connect compressed air fittings all along the full length of the boat and use these for everything from blowing sea chest blockages out, running air tools as well as providing air for our Hookah diving regulators when we are cleaning the hull or working on other underwater components.
Another vent hose for the Port Water Tanks in the Master Cabin.
This special WT filler is a rubber/silicone like compound that fills the space around all pipes, hoses, cables and wires which run through these oval AL sleeves which are about 200mm/8” long.
Speaking of the Master Cabin, here is an early rendering of the layout when standing in the doorway as you enter coming down the stairs from the SuperSalon and looking diagonally across to the glass walled Shower/Head area on the forward Port/Left side. Back in the real world from about the same vantage point we find the Cabinetry Team of Omur (not pictured), Selim in the rear and Şevki in front are busy mounting the now varnished cabinetry. Sliding over to the Port/Left side to show the Bureau of Drawers alongside the King Bed on the far Right and then all the Wardrobes forward of that all the way up to where the Forepeak WT Bulkhead begins. Vanity sink in the middle of this Bulkhead wall, washing machine in the cabinet above to the Right and Head/Shower on the Left. Now I’m standing in front of that Vanity Sink and looking aft at the bed and stairs up to the SuperSalon. Storage everywhere you look with 12 drawers under the bed alone in Ro$ewood …. and more storage under the mattress in those four open storage areas lined with lighter Beachwood. Şevki is now fitting the Poplar based Marine plywood wall foundations inside the Head and Shower area. Ready access openings to all the Hot & Cold water manifolds on the hull sides. Red PEX in-floor heat tubing snaking through to keep your tootsies toasty and drain from the Black Head/Bathroom floor drain at the bottom. Toilet brought in to finalise positioning. The small box it is sitting on here is just being used to get the important finished floor to toilet seat height just right. The finished toilet platform will be run across at this height.
The bolted down square Aluminium plate is one of the many access ports to the Water Tanks integrally built into the hull below. Master Cabinetmaker Omur (right) and team to start test fitting the cabinets in the Head/Bathroom area for the lower sink cabinet and upper “Medicine” Cabinets with mirrored doors. Şevki leveling the lower cabinet. Top mounted sink will be where his left hand is….. ……. and looks like this! Can’t wait to see what this all looks like when it all gets installed and finished. But for now, Selim and Şevki are fitting the Upper Cabinets while Omur checks the recesses for …. ….. these eXtremely strong and beautiful Bathroom door hinges. Hard to see but Şevki is laying out the placement for the towel warming rack that mounts on this aft wall above the toilet.
I can attest to the fact that Captain Christine is VERY excited about indulging in the luxury of hot towels as you step out of the Shower. Which presumes she will be able to convince herself to step away from the pleasures of her brushed SS Vitra MDS 6 shower tower.
There is a matching unit in the Guest Cabin to help entice our grandkids to stay even longer and there’s also a lower outlet for washing Barney & Ruby, our two canine crewmembers.
We left the shower tower in its protective cover also Omur measured things up for the 45 degree angled corner surface that the shower tower will mount on.
Cihan (middle) and Şevki working out the position of the plumbing fittings for that towel heater. Next quick quiz for you. Any guesses what bathroom feature Şevki is unboxing for the next fitting?
Would it help or hinder your guessing to show you this upside down view of the item in question being installed on the VacuFlush toilet? Correct! It is the bioBidet BB1000 which I think Captain Christine is even more excited about, as am I, than the shower tower.
Oh, and yes there is a matching Bidet in the Guest Head. I will leave it to up to you to figure out all the options on the wireless remote control and just say that Team Möbius members now refer to this as “the Android Toilet”.
And don’t be too quick to judge because if you’re still wipin’ instead of washin’ then you have never tried one!
My favorite feature? NO TOILET PAPER = NO CLOGS and NO “Sweet Water maintenance”!!!! ‘nuff said.
With the Bathroom fitted out Şevki moves on to prepping wall that runs along the the Port side of the Master Cabin bed. This wall will have a 3×3 array of Green/Gray leather covered rectangular panels that snap in place with FastMount fittings. You can see the nine panels on the wall now and a matching set continuing around the corner of the Shower wall before it transitions into etched glass wall corner.
With that done he moves on to mounting the mattress panel with the bed drawer and storage bins underneath and the solid Rosewood outer rails….. ……. which run around the perimeter to keep the mattress in place. Six of those twelve under bed drawers in the foreground. Let’s pause on our way to the stairs out of the Master Cabin to notice that the wall panels on either side of these stairs are also now being fitted.
The rectangular opening here is where our big beautiful daylight readable 43” LiteMax DLF4300 monitor will reside on its 6-way adjustable mount system which is ideally positioned to see from the Main Helm Chair. Much more on all that in future posts.
As you climb up those stairs behind me you’re in what we refer to as our SuperSalon with its 360 degree wrap around plate glass windows where we will spend the majority of our indoor time. Cihan took this shot from floor level looking forward towards the Main Helm and the bow outside the windows. Moving counter clockwise the large rectangular opening is for the 50” Smart TV monitor that serves double duty as one of our many screens for boat data as well as our primary entertainment screen for movies and photos. Next on the far Left are the cabinets for the two Vitrifrigo 70L drawer style freezers, Dinette seating and table on the far Right and the big hatch into the Basement in the foreground.
Let’s go take a look at what Team Möbius have been up to the past two weeks to make this area even more Super.
It might take a bit of mental gymnastics as it is upside down here but I think you’ll soon see that this is that wall panel we saw on the Left side as we made our way up the stairs out of the Master Cabin.
Here they are gluing the solid Rosewood edging around the opening for that 43” LiteMax monitor. The wall panel on the other side of those stairs is on the upper Left here joined by several other panels that are receiving their matched Rosewood surfaces solid edging prior to being fitted in their respective new homes around the lower walls of the SuperSalon. One of which is this end and armrest for the Dinette seat. Earlier, over in the Cabinetry Shop it looked like this as Omur was gluing the large radius corner to the armrest panel. Onboard Möbius Omur and Şevki are test fitting the lower wall panel that runs under the Main Helm. Once fitted it was taken back to the Cabinetry Shop and transformed into this beauty which will soon move back onto Möbius where it will be fastened to ………. …. these white mounting pads along the forward Main Helm wall. The rectangular cut-out in this wall is to provide access to the plethora of wires and N2K cables running up from the Basement into the Main Helm. On the Right side of the Main Helm chair there will be an angled wall whose white foundation frame can be seen here with the oval penetration inside for all those wires and then a mocked up version of the wall.
We will mount things on top of this wall such as the engine throttle and CPP Pitch control levers and the inside wall will be home to the forward circuit breaker panel. So stay tuned for more as this evolves.
Omer has been particularly busy and productive working almost single handed on the cabinetry in the Guest Cabin and most recently he has moved all the cabinetry over to the Cabinetry shop for final sanding and prep for the boys in the Finishing Department. So as you can see in these two photos there isn’t much left in the Guest Cabin and Corridor area but the bare bones of the wall grids. Here we find Omer at his workbench putting the finishing touches on the drawer cabinet beside Christine’s desk. Omer now has young Muhammed working with him on this wall that goes between the Corridor and the Shower in the Guest Cabin. As with all the cabinetry all edges are solid Rosewood with a veneer overlay that enables them to put these nice rounded corners on all edges. This wall on your Right side as you go up the stairs from the Corridor to the SuperSalon is a bit more complex than most others as it incorporates the Blue Horizon Line into doubling up as the handrail. All in a day’s work for Omer though as he preps the inside surface of this wall which is inside the Guest Head/Bathroom. That wall provides the support for this side of the door frame for the double acting “Swiss Door” that closes both the Corridor entrance into the Guest Cabin and the Head/Bathroom. The thin groove on the upper Right is for the door seal that wraps around the whole door frame and keeps the door snug to this frame and sealed from noise and drafts. The Corridor wall above is rather complex as it has a solid Rosewood hand rail that incorporates my infamous “Blue Horizon Line” with embedded indirect LED lighting …. which requires the groove Omer is routing out here. And soon has mocked up here. This is that “Swiss Door” all ready for the leather covered panel that will soon be snapped into place after the door has been varnished and fitted to its hinges. With all the cabinetry out of the way it was time to fit all the blue rigid foam board insulation atop all the tank tops which create the base for most of the floors throughout the boat. The foam cuts easily and is soon all in place and provides the surface for Yigit and Omer to layout the circuitous centerline for the PEX in-floor heat tubing which is what Omer then follows with a half round bit in his hand router that is just a bit smaller than the OD of the PEX tubing to create a nice tight fit when the PEX is pressed in place. Yigit has become the Master PEX router which as you can see is no small feat as he finds the just right path for the PEX tubing to follow that will put the right amount of heat in the right places without crossing any of tank access port “no go” zones. The circles you see add to the challenge as these represent the minimum bending radius of the PEX tubing and then Omer used a circle of plywood with that diameter as a guide for his router as he put in this grooved channel for the PEX tubing. Next step is to line each groove with AL foil tape to increase the efficiency of the heat radiation up through the plywood flooring that goes on top. Omer has fashioned a simple wooden tool with the matching radius on the bottom to help press the AL foil tape down into the bottom of the grooves. As is often the case, the prep work takes all the time and effort so now pressing the Red PEX tubing into the snug fitting grooves is quick and easy. The single continuous loop of PEX is soon all in place. The PEX is entering and leaving this zone through the same penetration in the WT Bulkhead …… with the Basement on the other side where ….. …… the hot water manifold and circulation pumps for each in-floor zone are located.
All the PEX tubing outside of the floors will be insulated with EPDM sleeves to keep the heat in and we should see that happening next week.
Let’s finish up with some eye candy via a quick tour of the Finishing Department where the Varnish Masters, Tamer seen here and Neşet are applying their skills as they lay down the 5+ coats of PU Varnish with a full sanding between each coat which makes for a super flat and fully filled surface. Tamer looks after most of the sanding between coats, some of which he can do with a vibrating sander for the first coats but most needs to be done by hand with a sanding board to prevent swirls from showing through and keep the surface dead flat. After the first coat, any larger pores in the Rosewood are filled with a paste made from Rosewood dust and then sanded flat for the next coat which renders them invisible. Look for yourself. This is the inside of those drawers beside Christine’s Desk which we saw earlier after the 2nd coat has been sprayed. That same Corridor stairs wall panel we say earlier freshly sprayed with its 2nd coat and the other wall sanded behind it. More cabinets from the Guest Cabin patiently awaiting their next coats of PU Varnish.
OK, this has gone on WAY too long already and likely straining the limits of your “Double the Pleasure, Double the Fun” quotient so just a few shots of this week’s exciting new arrivals.
I think I’ll let my Captain’s expression say it all for this one. If you missed the last post you can go back to get the details on the two Helm Chairs we ordered from Llebroc and I waited till Christine flew back to do the unboxing. This bright Blue Ultra Leather covered Tradewinds XX Hight Back Series2 Helm Chair is going up in the SkyBridge Helm Station. Fully adjustable in all axis; side to side, forward/back, rotate, recline and moves up and down 24” with the help of an internal gas assist cylinder.
Oh, and an pneumatic Lumbar support adjusted with that black bulb pump.
Can I start my night watch now???? My Captain smiling smugly after seeing how well the colours in that sample of the Blue Horizon Line strip which she is holding that she and Yesim came up with, matches the more subdued Turquoise colour of the Ultra Leather on this Llebroc Bandera Series2 Helm Chair which will be front and center in the Main Helm area of the SuperSalon. As I mentioned in the last post, we had a Llebroc helm chair in our previous boat and we literally logged thousands of hours in over 50 thousand miles and learned the value of a super comfy and well supporting helm chair. We’ve tried out many other makes and models when delivering other boats including many with bigger brand names and much higher prices but we always came back to these Llebroc chairs as our favorite for our Goldilocks just right long term comfort and value. These all new models are MUCH better still than our much older version on Learnativity so we are both really looking forward to logging many more thousands of sea miles in these beauties. Thanks Llebroc!
We just unboxed these helm chairs on Friday so I have not had time to attach the equally nice and matching foot rests so it was a bit of a climb for Christine to get up when the pedestal is all the way up. Easy peasy when she has the footrest to step up on. OK, enough, Enough, ENOUGH WAYNE!!!!
Whew! If you’ve made it this far you deserve both a medal and a Möbius.World T shirt and your reading selection criteria might need a bit of adjustment!
Seriously though, we do REALLY appreciate you choosing to join us on this adventure and we want to sincerely thank you for taking the time to come along for this fun ride.
Going by the schematic you will have a single N2K network for all (types of) sensors? I ask because – in case you haven’t seen these posts – Steve Dashew and John Harries both advocate seperate networks:
Hi Carl. Thanks for the references and yes, we’ve read them all several times over the years and more recently as we, especially Christine have been doing the design of our N2K and other networks onboard Möbius. John’s post on AA is from back in 2013 or so I think so some things have changed since then but to your point we have two N2K networks which we are tying together with a combiner. To our way of thinking we think this gives us the best of both worlds in that the overall N2K system and all our screens see this as a single network which keeps things a bit more “simple” in such a large N2K network, but then should one part of the N2K network fail, we can quite quickly change over to just a single network while we look after whatever the problems are elsewhere.
And as with all our systems we carry a good supply of spares so we have spares for all the pre-made N2K cable lengths, both out Blue Backbone cables and our Gray Drop cables as well as lengths of straight N2K cable of both MID and MICRO along with a good variety of field connect terminals and the necessary tools to build our own N2K cables if necessary. A good portion of our N2K network is Maretron based so we carry a good selection of spare Maretron sensors and Black Boxes so we can swap those in for any that fail along the way.
We also have both a Maretron IPG and USB connection box so we can access the N2K for diagnosis and fault finding, as well as a Maretron N2KMeter and a good variety of software tools for analysis and fault finding. So I think we have done as much as possible to follow our mantra of “Readiness for the Unexpected” and should be able to effectively deal with things as they break or fail over time.
Lastly for now, we have also gone through as many “What If??” scenarios as we can think of and one of those includes What If we lose the whole N2K network? and while we would definitely lose some information and capabilities we have other systems and equipment that will allow us to continue to safely and effectively run the boat on passage or anchor while we worked on fixing the problems at hand.
Our years of experience have taught us well that there is no such thing as zero maintenance or zero faults, so we just do everything we can to put ourselves on what I think of as the asymptote to zero 🙂
You’re close Craig, however we already have the two drogue “chainplates” installed on both corners on the Aft Deck and these have pressed in in SS inner bushings to deal with the eXtreme forces should we ever need to deploy one of our drogues or sea anchors. Ugur and Nihat have been off working on another boat the past 2 weeks so they have not had time to finish the three “mystery parts” you’re trying to guess but I will show you what they are once they get back to work on making and installing them. Keep the guesses coming though!
thanks so much for the detail in all these postings ! so much to catch up on as a new discoverer … it may be elsewhere but are you all doing any kind of stabilizer system? and if so what … if money is no issue it seems like fins for running and gyro for mooring would be a great combo
Stabilisation is a key factor for these kinds of passage making boats and so we have put a LOT of thought into this and what is best for us and Möbius. What we have decided to do is go with passive stabilisation using Paravanes for the first year or so and see how they work for us. As with most systems we will be constantly evaluating this as we get the real data of being at sea and the experiences of living with the boat and all her systems and in the case of stabilisers we will see if passive paravanes are the best choice for us or if we will want to “upgrade” to active. You can find much of this covered in previous posts from back in the early days of the build when you can see how we have designed the hull with all the superstructure needed for installing active stabilisers. So all the framing, WT coffer dams, plumbing, etc. are already built in and it would be a relatively simple process to add them in the future. This also meant that other XPM owners can opt to have these installed from the beginning without needing to have any changes made to the hull.
If we were to install active stabilisers today I think we would most likely go with one of the Magnus Effect types such as DMS Holland or Roto-Swing as they would fit our use case the best rather than fins or a gyro.
I will cover the Paravanes in much more detail as we start building out more of that system but you can already find much of this as we are building the large A-frame Paravane booms that are on either side.
Hope that helps and “shout” out more questions as you have them.
sign me up for the T-Shirt.
Hi Wayne and Christine,
Going by the schematic you will have a single N2K network for all (types of) sensors? I ask because – in case you haven’t seen these posts – Steve Dashew and John Harries both advocate seperate networks:
https://setsail.com/the-evolution-of-the-fpb-super-cruiser-20b/
https://www.morganscloud.com/2013/05/26/nmea-2000missing-the-obvious/
I believe it’s possible to separate but bridge networks to get a coherent view?
Hi Carl. Thanks for the references and yes, we’ve read them all several times over the years and more recently as we, especially Christine have been doing the design of our N2K and other networks onboard Möbius. John’s post on AA is from back in 2013 or so I think so some things have changed since then but to your point we have two N2K networks which we are tying together with a combiner. To our way of thinking we think this gives us the best of both worlds in that the overall N2K system and all our screens see this as a single network which keeps things a bit more “simple” in such a large N2K network, but then should one part of the N2K network fail, we can quite quickly change over to just a single network while we look after whatever the problems are elsewhere.
And as with all our systems we carry a good supply of spares so we have spares for all the pre-made N2K cable lengths, both out Blue Backbone cables and our Gray Drop cables as well as lengths of straight N2K cable of both MID and MICRO along with a good variety of field connect terminals and the necessary tools to build our own N2K cables if necessary. A good portion of our N2K network is Maretron based so we carry a good selection of spare Maretron sensors and Black Boxes so we can swap those in for any that fail along the way.
We also have both a Maretron IPG and USB connection box so we can access the N2K for diagnosis and fault finding, as well as a Maretron N2KMeter and a good variety of software tools for analysis and fault finding. So I think we have done as much as possible to follow our mantra of “Readiness for the Unexpected” and should be able to effectively deal with things as they break or fail over time.
Lastly for now, we have also gone through as many “What If??” scenarios as we can think of and one of those includes What If we lose the whole N2K network? and while we would definitely lose some information and capabilities we have other systems and equipment that will allow us to continue to safely and effectively run the boat on passage or anchor while we worked on fixing the problems at hand.
Our years of experience have taught us well that there is no such thing as zero maintenance or zero faults, so we just do everything we can to put ourselves on what I think of as the asymptote to zero 🙂
So mind bending complex now, I have decided to order my yacht pre-finished on Amazon!! 🙂
Cool Elton! Can you please send me that Amazon part # when you have it??
I’m assuming those were a set of nicely substantial storm drogue chainplates being welded up for attachment to the transom …
You’re close Craig, however we already have the two drogue “chainplates” installed on both corners on the Aft Deck and these have pressed in in SS inner bushings to deal with the eXtreme forces should we ever need to deploy one of our drogues or sea anchors.
Ugur and Nihat have been off working on another boat the past 2 weeks so they have not had time to finish the three “mystery parts” you’re trying to guess but I will show you what they are once they get back to work on making and installing them.
Keep the guesses coming though!
thanks so much for the detail in all these postings ! so much to catch up on as a new discoverer … it may be elsewhere but are you all doing any kind of stabilizer system? and if so what … if money is no issue it seems like fins for running and gyro for mooring would be a great combo
Stabilisation is a key factor for these kinds of passage making boats and so we have put a LOT of thought into this and what is best for us and Möbius. What we have decided to do is go with passive stabilisation using Paravanes for the first year or so and see how they work for us. As with most systems we will be constantly evaluating this as we get the real data of being at sea and the experiences of living with the boat and all her systems and in the case of stabilisers we will see if passive paravanes are the best choice for us or if we will want to “upgrade” to active.
You can find much of this covered in previous posts from back in the early days of the build when you can see how we have designed the hull with all the superstructure needed for installing active stabilisers. So all the framing, WT coffer dams, plumbing, etc. are already built in and it would be a relatively simple process to add them in the future. This also meant that other XPM owners can opt to have these installed from the beginning without needing to have any changes made to the hull.
If we were to install active stabilisers today I think we would most likely go with one of the Magnus Effect types such as DMS Holland or Roto-Swing as they would fit our use case the best rather than fins or a gyro.
I will cover the Paravanes in much more detail as we start building out more of that system but you can already find much of this as we are building the large A-frame Paravane booms that are on either side.
Hope that helps and “shout” out more questions as you have them.