Cabinetry predominated the progress this week as the building of XPM78-01 aka Möbius continues “all engines ahead full”. And a very exciting new stage was added to the list of “firsts” as per this week’s title with the first of the cabinetry being moved inside Möbius and fitted into their new full time homes. Let’s go see …………
First in place is this full height wardrobe or hanging closet which is the first thing you cabinet as you see as you descend the stairs from the SuperSalon and enter our Master Cabin.
If you are new to these weekly updates and to help with orientation, here is the original rendering from many months ago of the layout of the Master Cabin. This is the view when you are standing with your back against the Port/Left side hull walls looking across the bottom of the King bed towards the entry door and wardrobe closet in the photo above.
To the left is this large bureau of drawers with the mirrored space above for our 3D sculpture of a Möbius strip and then more closets continuing to the left all the way to the forward end of the Master Cabin.
This is the view when standing beside the closet as you enter the Master Cabin and look forward to the glass walled shower and head/bathroom area in the back left of this render.
With the first closet clamped in place the next cabinet moved onboard is the base of the bureau of eight drawers. Thanks to having every part of the boat in the 3D model the cabinets can be made to very close to just right sizes over in the cabinetry shop which dramatically reduces the fitting needed once they are moved aboard so the process goes quite quickly.
Omur (rear) and Selim are a well coordinated team as they make the minute adjustments to getting the cabinets in just the right spot.
The white boards creating the foundation for all the furniture have been previously installed and leveled before being affixed to the aluminium tank tops that make up almost all the floors on the boat. This provides a solid level surface for all the furniture cabinets to sit upon and once they are all fully finished they will all be more permanently attached to these foundation boards as well as the surrounding aluminium frames.
Where anchoring points are needed in between frames the 50mm/2” thick EPDM insulation is cut away and the AL hull plate is thoroughly cleaned prior to having an epoxy coated wood brace glued in place using industrial adhesive.
The marine plywood sides of the cabinets are extended back towards the hull area inside the frames so they can slide into slots in the anchor blocks as seen here. Once the cabinets are fully leveled and fitted they will be glued and screwed to these anchor blocks and create eXtremely strong and rigid cabinetry that does not move or squeak, EVER!
One of the many benefits of building an aluminium hull with such an eXtremely rigid framework which this skeletal rendering shows and then covering it with equally eXtremely thick AL plating is that the hull does not flex or move so we take advantage of this by attaching the cabinets the way you are seeing here.
The back panel above the bureau of drawers has been fitted and clamped in place along with the overhead ceiling plywood and Rosewood edge.
Omur is moving what will be the cabin’s main entryway door out of the way so that the base for the last set of full height cabinets can be moved into place and fitted.
Having been previously dry assembled in the cabinetry shop as they were being made and as we’ve seen in previous updates the vertical dividers slot into place very quickly with biscuit joints top and bottom.
Shelves are also attached using biscuit joints in the slots you can make out with the two slots running across the middle of this inner vertical divider.
Throughout the interior all vertical corners are solid Rosewood with large 50mm/2” radius corners for both safety and great looks and you can see two examples here with the two full height radiused corner pieces that flank the bureau of drawers.
Once the cabinets have been fitted and clamped in place the working hardware such as drawer slides and these gorgeous SS recessed hinges will be set in place and adjusted. The groove running horizontally here between the solid door jamb with the recess for the hinge body and the divider above it is where the custom silicone gasket will be attached to ensure there are no drafts when the doors are closed and no rattling or squeaking from any wood on wood contact.
Comfort is one of our five fundamental priorities for these boats and while these kinds of “little details” with these solid cast hinges and silicone gaskets cost both time and money to execute, noise, especially when underway is a huge factor in the overall comfort onboard so we gladly go to such lengths to create eXtremely quiet boats.
When they were not onboard Möbius fitting the cabinets they’d built, Omur and Selim were working on the components to go into those cabinets such as these solid edged drawer fronts for the bureau of drawers. These will next have light gray leather panels laminated as is indicated in the rendering at the beginning.
Most excitingly to me they also have these solid rosewood hand holds all ready to be attached along all the cabinets and doors with the aquamarine “horizon line” behind them as described in several previous updates. Can’t wait to show you this other unique feature once we start installing them and I can show you better how they work and what they look like.
Lest you think that Uğur and Nihat were missing in action nothing could be further from the truth as they were busy working on aluminum details aboard Möbius all week as well. One job getting finished off is the closing in of the insides of the two wing boxes on either side of the aft end of the Pilot House.
The rear half will be fully welded in place and the forward one will be bolted in place. These are removable so we can attach and service the extraction fans which are in composite ducting boxes attached to their inner surfaces. There are ducting tubes connected to the Guest Cabin, Corridor walkway, shower and head and these fans can aid the airflow in these areas as needed.
Don’t be confused by their temporary resting spot on and inside the Day Tank but the final aluminium detail for this week’s update is the completion of the bolt on covers for the two vent box hatches for the fuel which are located on either side of the outer surfaces of the coaming below the windows just ahead of the Wing Boxes above.
The gaskets have been glued on and these covers will be bolted in place with SS countersunk machine screws.
The slots allow air to flow into the vent pipes for all the fuel tans and the Gray and Black water tanks. Sounds like another minor detail but trust me that well ventilated tanks are eXtremely important. Ask me how I know?!!
And that’s the week that was July 22-26, 2019 here at Naval Yachts in Antalya Turkey. We’ll be back again next weekend with more photos and explanations of the continued progress as Möbius gets closer and closer to the water and we get more excited with each of these steps.
Thanks for joining us and please be sure to add any and all comments, ideas and questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.
-Wayne
Hey Wayne, How do you control condensation behind cabinetry?
Hey John, good question as avoiding condensation aboard our boats is a high priority (obsession?) as it can produce some very nasty consequences. We have a multi layered approach to reducing condensation as close to zero as possible. The 50mm thick EPDM which extends down below the WL and almost to the bottom of the “gutters” that run along the down angled margin plates where the tank tops join perpendicular to the hull plates is the biggest single condensation preventer on the list. EPDM has zero moisture absorption and was one of the big reasons for choosing to go with this more expensive and very labour intensive to install insulation. We have covered every interior aluminium surface of the hull with this and taken it below the WL so there will be minimal temperature differential on the interior and hence little to no condensation as we keep the interior surfaces at very close to the same temp as the interior air. The only situation where we think that there could be some condensation created is when we are in polar waters that get down to low enough temperatures that there would likely be some condensation down in the uninsulated gutters.
These gutters are about the only “bilge” we have on these XPM boats as almost every part of the hull below the WL is integral tanks and so the only area where we have a traditional bilge is underneath the engine/CPP servo box in the Engine Room. However we want to take every precaution for removing any water that might find its way into these gutters and so each length of gutter running down both sides of the Master and Guest Cabins and the Basement, have individual dedicated diaphragm bilge pumps plumbed in to remove pretty much every bit of water that might be there. We prefer diaphragm pumps over the traditional centrifugal ones for many reasons but in this context we favor them for their ability to slurp up the most water and leave almost none behind. We also prefer these diaphragm pumps because we can mount them independent of the bilge and keep them high and dry. In the past few weekly updates you may have noticed the clear wired bilge hoses going in which take the bilge water exiting the pump to the nearest sea chest. What we have not installed yet are the shorter runs of the same hose which goes from the very bottom of the gutters to the intake port of the pump. The ends of these hoses have pick up strainers on them which attach to the very bottom of the gutter plates and help remove the pump to slurp up the last drop.
The other layer of defense against condensation behind the cabinetry is to keep these areas relatively sealed off so that there is no circulation of the interior cabin air in there. We do this by having thin 5-8mm marine plywood backing on all the cupboards or mounted to the grid on the AL frames. We don’t go as far as to try to make these areas behind the cabinetry, walls and ceiling completely air tight but they will go a long ways towards eliminating the circulation of warm moist interior air into these spaces which is the source of condensation. BTW, these plywood backs are made to be removable so that if I ever need to access any of the wire/plumbing trays, connections to water tanks, etc. I can just unscrew and remove the backing plate in that cabinet and have full access to that area of the hull.
Well, my typically “brief” response to your simple question but it is a good one that others have asked about so thought it worth providing a worthy answer.
“One of the many benefits of building an aluminium hull with such an eXtremely rigid framework which this skeletal rendering shows and then covering it with equally eXtremely thick AL plating is that the hull does not flex or move so we take advantage of this by attaching the cabinets the way you are seeing here.”
“the hull does not flex or move” Really?
Good question John and in this I would certainly agree that in this context “not” probably doesn’t want to be interpreted to mean zero. However in general the way these hulls have been designed and built is such that they are eXtremely rigid when they are fully assembled and welded. As you may recall seeing in the early days of building the hull, the inner framework of longitudinal stringers running the full length of the hull and half slotted into each frame was assembled first and as each stringer was interlocked with each frame the whole assembly became more and more rigid and perfectly aligned. One of the big benefits of having all the hull pieces CNC cut as the precision of these cuts and the use of all the half slots that caused each intersection to be interlocked and create both great rigidity and self aligning structure. Once all the stringers and frames were in place the eXtremely thick hull plating which was already CNC cut and curved to shape was set in place and only then did all the welding take place.
The result is that the hull is somewhat like a boxed frame with all the inner framework and the outer plating and so relatively speaking I think it is accurate to say “the hull does not flex or move”. Having been on and owned other metal boats built with much less robust framework or welding in extremely severe weather and high seas it is quite amazing to be looking down a long expanse of deck or hull in these conditions and see that there is just no visible twisting or flexing. This is in stark contrast to the way wood and fiber based boats are built where in those cases they are purposely built to flex in order to absorb some of those forces and these materials are very good at that. However one of the consequences of having a very stiff/rigid metal hull is that the interior cabinetry is not forced to flex and move so they are eXtremely quiet inside due to the absence of the noises caused by their foundations flexing and moving. Comfort is one of our fundamental principles with these XPM boats and for me at least noise onboard, particularly in more severe situations at sea is a huge factor in the amount of stress on those aboard and in any conditions having a super quiet boat goes a long way towards making it a very comfortable boat. Hence our focus on making these hulls very stiff, insulated like a Thermos bottle and very well sealed. I’m anxiously awaiting the opportunity to have Möbius out in stormy conditions and windy anchorages with my sound meter to be able to quantify the real world quietness with decibel readings I can share with all of you.
Make sense?
Wayne
Yup
Had as little smile when I wrote that. If you can’t have fun with “it” it’s not going to work. Still, it was worth taking a minute to talk about hull strength.
No worry at all John, I took it as intended I think and thoroughly enjoy the process of going through the logic, well my logic at least, of the advantages I see to building our hull out of aluminium and to be so strong and rigid with this interlocking joints method for all the frames and stringers. I sincerely appreciate your questions and find them all to be quite thought provoking and I do have great fun, at least my version of fun, in answering them as best I can.
My years of long single handed passages taught me many lessons and one of them was the need to have absolute confidence in the boat beneath you so this hull construction goes a long ways towards establishing eXtremely high confidence in Möbius for Christine and myself.
Another big lesson I learned on those passages on my previous steel boat was how big a role noises play in your overall sense of a challenging situation at sea and how many of those noises while the product of Mother Nature can be mitigated significantly by the way the boat and her systems are set up. This is where the rigidity of a metal boat really shines for me by effectively eliminating the sounds emanating from cabinetry that is flexing. It took me awhile to realise this as my steel boat was the only boat I’d done passages on and so those noise levels were my sense of what’s normal. It was only when I was aboard fiberglass boats of friends or doing deliveries that I noticed the significant increase in noise levels, particularly inside the boat and came to realise that most of them were coming from the squeaks and creeks section of the onboard orchestra playing that cacophony. This has led me to believe that while it might be counterintuitive to many, a quiet boat is a safer and much more comfortable boat and with those two characteristics being up at the top of our fundamental design and building priorities we factor noise reduction into all aspects of the design and build.
I really hope you will keep contributing your questions, comments and suggestions John however serious or fun. I’m sure enjoying and appreciating them a lot and I think others reading here are too.
-Wayne
“the hull does not flex or move” Really?
Inadvertent repeat above and I haven’t learned the delete routine yet