Our first full 5 day work week for Team Möbius in a long time plus another full day for Hilmi and I yesterday (Saturday) so much more to share with you for this week’s Progress Update report.  Several new jobs began this week, new aluminium arrived, Mr. Gee got some much needed TLC and then we did have the “runaway” incident as per this week’s title. 

AND, compliments of Captain Christine there is a bonus surprise video embedded along the way below! 

So grab your favorite beverage and strap yourself into your comfy chair and let’s jump right into this week’s Show & Tell here at Naval Yachts.

Miss Möbius Tries to Runaway from Home!

Our little girl “Miss Möbius” has been growing up quickly over the past two years and based on her behavior this week I’m thinking that “boat years” must be like “dog years” as she seems to have become a teenager.  How else to explain that earlier this week she tried to make a run for the sea and run away from home?!?

Or maybe, like her owners, she just got frustrated by the ever changing Launch Date? 

Or maybe her big Nose Cone sniffed the smell of the sea blowing through the shipyard with the big winds we had on Monday and decided to make a run for it? 

Whatever the reason she somehow had managed to conspire with her new best friend, 56 Wheeled Wanda, the second biggest boat mover in the Free Zone, to come pick her up and they were headed out the door when Captain Christine caught wind of their plan and tried to block them from leaving.
Alas, the barn doors were wide open and there was no stopping them and they were off and running for the sea.

OK, OK, just kidding. 

The real reason is that a big new refit and stretch job on a 36 meter/120 ft yacht is arriving at Naval on Tuesday and they need the entire length of the bay Möbius has been in so they needed to move us out and over to the opposite side of the shipyard.
We’ve been storing all the major equipment yet to be installed down on the floor underneath Möbius so that all had to be moved first.
Everyone pitched in and the forklift helped out and it was soon all clear below.
Uğur and Nihat put in four longer supports that went all the way up to the rub rails so they could cut off the shorter ones to give room for …………..
………..  52 Wheeled Wanda to slid her two rails full of hydraulic jack stands all the way under the anxiously awaiting Miss Möbius.
Each dual set of wheels have one set of hydraulic cylinders that can turn them to a very steep angle that allows them to move the boat sideways.
Every other set of axels have their own hydraulic drive motors built into their hub to power the wheels forward or back.  The two side rails are locked together using the big cross tie rails you can see here.
The whole boat mover is completely self contained and this single diesel motor powers a very large hydraulic pump pushing high pressure hydraulic fluid down all those steel lines you see extending down the upper area of the side rails.
And all this is run by a radio remote control unit that you can see hanging from the neck of Wanda’s operator standing on the left of Nihat here.

And just like that, the whole bay is now empty and ready to be VERY fully filled up with the new 36 meter job to take its place this coming week.
We couldn’t stop Miss Möbius entirely but we were able to thwart her escape and redirect her back into the shipyard two bays over and what should be her new home until it really is time to have Wanda help us take the fully finished Möbius to the sea!

Now the moving process is reversed and the steel stands are moved back in place under the length of the central Keel Bar to support Miss Möbius so that Wanda can set her down and leave.
The side stands are welded back in place and the concrete floor is drilled for long steel pins and lag bolts to keep her upright.

And we can say “Bye Bye, See you soon” to Wanda until we need her again on Launch Day.
Möbius’ new “bay mate” is “Twinity”, a 20 meter/ 65 ft catamaran who’s height and width make Möbius look positively diminutive but she’s the Just Right size for us.
For some perspective and sense of scale I shot this photo looking the length of the shipyard from one floor up in my Workshop.  Möbius used to be in the empty bay on the very far Right here and now sits in the background by the big bay doors.  the other ship tented in plastic in the foreground is “Caledonia” an all steel sailboat that should have her launch date next month sometime.
Up on Möbius for the first time in her new home, we hope that she is a bit more content with her big nose cone as close to the doors as possible so she can keep enjoying those fresh breezes blowing in from the launch harbour a few block away.  And hopefully no more than a few months away!!!!

But Wait!!!!            There’s more!!!!

We have heard all your many requests to have more video content of this whole process and so Captain Christine has been spending a lot of time in the past month getting up to speed on some new video editing software she really likes and she will be using this to create some more video for us to post here with all the “spare time” she has between the 7 day work weeks we are both logging to try to get Möbius finished and launched.

We both did our best to shoot some video of Moving Möbius and so here is a time lapse video Christine just put together.  Hope you enjoy it.

Antennae Arch

New aluminium arrivals mean new jobs so can you guess what this pile of pipe is for?

Two new jobs actually, first as you’re about to see is building the new “mini arch” or Antennae Arch that sets atop of the Main Arch to provide a “roll bar” kind of protection around the 2m/6.5’ open array Furuno FAR1523 Radar antennae and also provide all the real estate for the myriad of different antennae, GPS, weather station, satellite compass, search light, etc..
With all the various roles I’ve taken on for the build in the past few months, time is in limited supply so I just created this quick hand sketch of the design I came up with for the new Antennae Arch and the critical placement of each bit of kit that mounts on it. 

I’m not sure how legible this will be (click to enlarge) but here is the list of each numbered item on the Antennae Arch.

Designing this Antennae Arch and the placement of each item is perhaps one of the best examples of how much compromise is a big part of design in that almost every one of these items has its own quite strict set of requirements for placement relative to how high it is, how much above/below its neighbors, how close to centerline, etc.  Of course most of them would like to be an “only child” and be the highest of them all with no one else nearby so you quickly realise that you just have to prioritise each item’s requirements and then do a triage type process of putting each item in the best position possible. 

Christine and I spent two days putting our heads together to come up with this eventual layout and I’m sure it could be improved upon even further but we think this is at least good enough for now and we will see how it all works in the real world once we launch and start using all this equipment and we can make changes from there.  We’ve had a list for what we call “Rev 2” and “Rev 3” with the changes or improvements we would like to make in the coming years so we’ll just add these to those lists.

Once they had Möbius moved Nihat and Uğur dove right into that pile of pipes and elbows and started to build the Antennae Arch. 
The elbows needed to be altered a bit as the angle of the corner of the arch is greater than 90 degrees so that’s what Nihat is up to here.
The ends of each pipe and elbow are bevelled to create a deep V for maximum penetration of the weld and then tacked in place.
The first of the dual mini arches that will be built to match the Main Arch they will be welded to the top of.
Like this.  We are using this ladder type construction in several places on Möbius; the Main Arch as you have seen for a long time and now this mini-arch that goes on top and soon you will see this same construction on the second new job that some of this new aluminium pipe is for, but I’ll keep that for next week.

We went back and forth on whether to just have the interconnecting ladder pipes all the way across the top or to put in a solid plate and decided that the plate was best as it creates a well protected wire chase to run all the many  wires and co-ax cables from all the antennae and other equipment.
Uğur has framed in the bottom for two plates that will be bolted and sealed in place to help protect the wiring further.
And here is the completed Antennae Arch.
Yusuf on the far Left, Nihat and Uğur and I then put our heads together to work out the details of all the different mounts that need to be created for each item on the Antennae Arch.
With so many different antennae and items to be mounted on this Arch, the numbering of each item was very helpful to keep them all straight and provide an easy shorthand for what was what.  This is where we finished up on Friday so I will show you the whole antennae farm next week.

Nogva CPP Propeller Blades

While everyone else was busy prepping to move Möbius I took on the other job that needed to be done before the move which was to reassemble the Nogva CPP propeller blades. 
You may recall from previous posts many months ago that we removed the CPP (Controllable Pitch Propeller) blades and hub when we were cutting the hole in the Rudder that enables us to remove the whole prop shaft without having to remove the Rudder.
Now the whole CPP propeller hub & blades needed to be reassembled now which is a fairly straightforward process as these CPP mechanisms are eXtremely simple but they are also very high precision fit and have critical rubber O-ring seals that need to be put in place just right.
Each of the four prop blades are a single piece CNC milled from a solid billet of special bronze alloy which weigh about 20kg/45 lbs so they are a bit unwieldly to handle and get them to slide into the high tolerance fit into the hub.
Like this.
Uğur helped me in the beginning until he had to go look after moving Möbius so we thoroughly cleaned each part, put on a lots of new grease.
Fortunately, there were two excellent student interns working at Naval this past month, Omer on the Left and Alp on the Right, and they were eager to learn about how CPP props work so they joined in and helped wrestle each very slippery and heavy prop blade into position.
If you look closely in the photos above (click to enlarge any photo) you can see that each prop blade fits into a slot in the hub so they can’t fall out and will stay in place once they have been fully slid into place.  Then the hub end can be slid in place to capture the other half of each blade and this is then torqued down with some thread locker on each of the 8 bolts.
And Voila!  Miss Möbius has her CPP prop all good to go.
Viewed from the forward side looking aft you can see how there prop shaft itself is fully enclosed within the outer aluminium collar with the holes in it which thus prevents any errant ropes or fishing nets from wrapping around the prop shaft.  The holes are where the water injected into the far forward end of the prop shaft exits back to the sea and keeps the prop shaft fully protected by fresh seawater inside the prop shaft log tube.

Kobelt Hydraulic Steering Oil Tanks

Last week we covered Uğur and Nihat building the two header tanks for the hydraulic oil supply to the Kobelt steering pumps.

This is the larger of the two tanks which I designed to hold about 52L/14 USG of oil to keep these two Accu-Steer HPU400 auto pilot pumps well fed and I was able to design it to fit just perfectly into the space above these pumps.
This is a combination sight gauge and thermometer that makes it quick and easy to check the temperature and level of the hydraulic oil inside.
And we recessed this filler pipe and vent cap into the wall on the hinge side of the Watertight door from the Swim Platform into the Workshop so it is easy to access but not in your way as you walk in and out.
This is the small little 1.5 liter header tank on the Left that keeps the bronze Kobelt manual steering pump on the Right full of hydraulic oil.
I was able to design this tank to fit nicely into the space underneath of the Main Helm Dashboard which hinges up out of the way for access and Cihan soon had this tank all mounted and plumbed into the Kobelt hydraulic system.

PLUMBING:

Speaking of our head Plumber Cihan, he was back on Team Möbius this week thankfully and was busy installing several other systems on Möbius including the equipment for the shower on the Swim Platform.
Christine had picked up this very high quality bronze mixing valve at Ikea and Cihan soon had fabricated a bracket and mounted it up above the top of the Haz Mat locker where it will be super easy to access when needed yet well protected from the elements when not in use. 
Next week he will finish plumbing the Red/Blue Hot/Cold PEX water lines and the hand held shower wand.  The large White wrapped hose is the supply for the Fire Hose that will also live here inside the Haz Mat locker.
These long delayed Whale Gulper 220 Grey Water pumps finally arrived so Cihan was busy installing one of them in the Forepeak and one in the Basement where they will be used to pump out the contents of the Grey Water tanks to the exiting Sea Chests. 
NOTE:  In practice we don’t use these very much as we almost always let the Grey Water from showers and sink drains go straight back to sea but when we do use the GW tanks in a marina for example, these pumps let us empty them next time we are out at sea.

Cihan also had time this past week to finish plumbing both of the VacuFlush toilets.  This one is in the Guest Head and is now fully plumbed for the Fresh Water flushing water and supply water for the Bidet as well as the exiting Black Water.
Ditto for this one in the Master Cabin Head. 

These are both quite exciting milestones for Christine and me as they represent a new stage of the build as we move into such finishing work.
And just outside the Master Head the pièce de résistance of Cihan’s work this past week was the installation of this bit of beauty; our Vanity Sink at the very front end of our Master Cabin.
This unique sink is made from a solid clear glass casting which then has a iridescent coating of these beautiful blues.  The drain cap is still wrapped in its protective film so it is normally adding its glimmering polished stainless steel glow to the whole look.
And we think this faucet we found is equally unique and the perfect Goldilocks match for the sink it supplies.

There is a matching rectangular version of this sink and faucet in the Main Head/Bathroom where the all White walls create a complimentary yet different look.  Can’t wait to see and share that with you in the next week or so once the Corian countertop is installed in the Head.

INTERIOR WORK:

Back on the other side of the Vanity Sink the White gelcoat cabinetry is also getting closer to being finished.  Bottom doors are now mounted on the Blum hinges and the countertop awaits the Corian that we hope will arrive in the next week or so. 

The removable Teak floors for this Head and Shower as well as the Guest Shower are being finished up as well so I hope to be able to show you them being installed next week.
Moving Aft to show you the recent progress in the Corridor which connects to the Guest Cabin off to the Left outside of this photo and then through the WT door into the Workshop and Engine Room in the upper Left background.

The area on the Port/Left Hull on the far Right of this photo will be my Office and “clean room” workbench which now has this gorgeous hunk of Turkish quarried Turquoise marble now in place.  We ended up with a double order of this fabulous marble so I decided to use some of it in place of the Corian countertop we had originally specified.  Should make an eXcellent working surface for me with plenty of storage drawers and cupboards above and below.

Seen from the other end just inside the WT Workshop door, you can see the large Aft Electrical panel full of circuit breakers for all four voltages; 12 & 24VDC and 120 & 230VAC is on the far Left side of the stairs leading up to the Galley and SuperSalon.  This electrical panel will eventually be enclosed with an large labelled front panel and a hinged Rosewood and glass door.
Upstairs looking Aft at the Galley, Omur has continued his relentless work to complete all the Rosewood cabinetry throughout Möbius. 
In front of the Galley our Dinette Settee is also nearing completion.  Next up will be building and installing the large table here.  That will be fun to show you as it moves in all three axis; Up/Down Z axis as well as fore/aft X axis and side to side Y axis as well as able to be rotated in any of these positions. 
Might sound excessive but it is “little details” like this which add so much joy to our lives when we are able to get things like table height and position just right, just for us as we use this table for everything from our main dining table, an office table for the two of us, a coffee table when relaxing and a bed when we have more guests than our cabins can sleep.

If you can see through the clutter of the work going on here you can see how this forward end of the SuperSalon is also starting to take shape.  The large Rosewood slotted panel on the far Left will be hinged inside the opening behind it where the 50” SmarTV mounts. 
Helm Chair goes in the center of the Main Helm where all those wires are being tamed and then the stairs down the Master Cabin on the far Right.

ELECTRIC & ELECTRONICS:

As you can see, Hilmi has also been making good progress with his electrical work at the Main Helm.  This week he and Selim have been busy wiring up the switch panel on the angled wall above the Forward Electrical Panel as well as the various controls mounted in the Dashboard of the Main Helm.
The Furuno 711C AutoPilot control head is under that Gray protective cover in the center of the Dashboard with the Jog Lever to its Right and then the dual Kobelt control levers for Throttle and CPP Pitch on the far Right with the round Prop Pitch gauge above.  Maxwell windlass control above the Jog Lever and the empty hole soon to be filled with the Vetus Bow Thruster joystick and the ACR Pan/Tilt searchlight in the upper Right corner.
Lifting up the hinged Dashboard reveals more of Hilmi’s work as he starts to connect all those items as well as filling the Grey wire chases with the many wires that need to traverse from one side of the Main Helm to the other.
This “handkerchief” triangular storage area is on the Port/Left side of the Main Helm with a matching on on the opposite side.  We intend to use this one for a central Charging Station for the growing list of wireless electrical items that need charging.  
The two black panels you see in the back of this storage area are blocks of fused 12 & 24 VDC connections using Anderson PowerPole connectors to give us a single standard for all our 12 & 24 volt connections.

The rectangular hole is for the 120 & 230VAC receptacles.

 
More progress inside and behind this Forward Electrical Panel on the Right side of the Main Helm with the addition of the white mounted shunt, one of three, which is required for measuring current amps in this panel.
Above the Fwd Electrical Panel Hilmi and Selim completed most of the wiring of the switchboards up on this angled top.
The underside of the lower switch board shows the ready access to all this wiring.
Top side shows the layout of all these switches.  They are divided into the upper12 switches that control the High Water evacuation system which we hope we never need to use but is in just the right place here at Command Central if we ever do need it.

The bottom set of switches are for the exterior lighting and the labels should make that all self explanatory.

The uppermost switch panel has all the switches for controlling the Kobelt steering and propulsion equipment.
To the untrained eye this may still look like a Medusa hairdoo but for those who have been following along and know wiring this is a “Beautiful Mess”!

Still in the early stages of wiring all these switches but Hilmi’s skills and attention to detail is already emerging on these two switch panels.
Always a Team effort so Omur installed this multi pin socket into the top of this Rosewood switch panel where the Kobelt WalkAbout handheld remote control plugs in.  A metal cap threads onto this socket when not in use.
For a much more finished look, rather than install this receptacle from the top we decided to have Omur recess it in from the bottom with this mortise. 
This will give you an early idea of how these three switch plates will look in the end.
And finishing up with this weeks electrical progress, the aft depth sounder has now been mounted inside the aluminium fairing block you saw Uğur making and welding in place a few weeks ago.  This is the Airmar 600 Watt 520-5PSD transducer which provides the raw data of the bottom below us to the Furuno BBDS1 Bottom Discriminating sounder which gives us detailed graphics of the contours and material below us.

Uğur and Nihat were also able to get to this small but important job of providing external access to the inside of this Port/Left side Vent Box on the Aft Deck.  The White plastic fitting below its mounting hole provides an easy to remove but fully sealed opening that I can reach through to ……
…… access this shut off air damper on the Air Supply into the Engine Room.  Normally this shut off is fully automated and controlled by an thermostatic switch that closes this damper when the engine is off or if there were to ever be a fire in the Engine Room.  However in case this electrically automated motor should fail, you can activate this damper manually.
Peering down the 3 meter rectangular supply air duct into the Engine room to show where this damper is bolted to the top.

Same damper setup is on the opposite side Vent Box for shutting off the Exhaust Air extraction vent.

Putting Humpty Dumpty (aka Mr. Gee) Back Together Again!

Another exciting milestone this week was that I finally started to put all of Mr. Gee’s bits and bobs back together again.  After many months of doing all the prep work of cleaning, replacing, rebuilding, painting , etc. I was finally able to start actually assembling all those parts and putting Mr. Gee back together again in his better than factory new condition.

I know this is not of interest to many of you so feel free to skip ahead to the end while I take the others on a quick tour of Mr. Gee’s transition.

As you can see Mr. Gee is now all painted in his final colours of Burgundy Red for all the cast iron parts and silicone based aluminium paint for all the cast aluminium parts.
This past week I was able to tackle the next metal parts; all the copper and bronze pipework which transports all of Mr. Gee’s  the coolant water and oil to where it needs to go.

As you can perhaps tell from this photo I started by using paint removing gel and then sandblasting all these parts thoroughly to remove the almost 50 years of accumulated paint, grease, oil and dirt.
I considered going with the quite nice matt lustre left from the fine sandblasting sand but after some experimentation I decided that a brighter look left from wire wheeling the copper and brass, which you can see the beginnings of here, was more in keeping with the finished look I thought most befitting of Mr. Gee and Möbius’ Engine Room.
So I brought out my full compliment of WMD’s, Weapons of Mass Denuding, including wire wheels of various sizes in my angle grinder, benchtop grinder and Dremel tool and spent several days and knights bringing all these copper pipes and their bronze end fittings to an even bright lustre. 
Keeping this beautiful bright look was the next challenge as copper, brass and bronze all tend to oxidize quite quickly and loose this look.
So I cleaned them all up with acetone to remove all the leftover grime from wire wheeling and my fingerprints, hung them all from poles spanning the ceiling of the paint booth I had created and sprayed them with 2 separate coasts of clear AlexSeal polyurethane which I have had great success with for many years.
The photos fail to capture how great this clear coat worked but I am eXtremely pleased with both the look and how well protected these surfaces all are now and for the next few decades.
If you were here last week you might remember that I had given Mr. Gee himself two coats of the same clear polyurethane so he too is now very nicely all plastic coated. 
While much of this is just cosmetic there is a very real pragmatic benefit I’ve found with having such surfaces on my engines and mechanical parts which is that I can see any leaks or even loosening nuts SO much sooner and these surfaces are all SO much easier to keep clean so I was quite willing to put in all this extra time, effort and expense. 
Plus, quite frankly, Mr. Gee and me are worth it!
A few weeks ago I had found the time to clean and paint Mr. Gee’s massive, almost 150 Kg flywheel so I had Uğur lift it up to my Workshop using the forklift
Where I could then use my handy dandy 2 ton hydraulic lift to finally install the flywheel on the end of the crankshaft.
Which in turn let me bolt the outer flywheel housing onto Mr. Gee.

Next week we will move Mr. Gee onto the Aft Deck of Möbius where I can then bolt the Nogva CPP Gearbox to the SAE1 flywheel housing to complete the full propulsion package.  You can see the SAE14 flange I have now bolted to the flywheel and each of those inner semi cylindrical cogs will mate with the rubber drive ring on the Nogva Gearbox.

When I was cleaning and painting the flywheel I masked off the six sets of markings on the outer circumference of the flywheel and now you can see why. 
This little window on the top of the flywheel housing allows me to precisely set Mr. Gee to TDC (Top Dead Center) for each cylinder which you need to do to set the exact timing of the open/close of the valves and the timing and advance of the fuel injection.

Now the fun begins as I carefully remove all the masking taped areas and started installing things like the two cast aluminium valve covers, upper cast aluminium water manifolds on each cylinder head and the single manifold on the bottom of the cylinder block.
Followed by the Intake and Exhaust manifolds on this same Starboard/Right side of Mr. Gee.
Test fitting the dual thermostat housing on the end of the front water manifold and the coolant header tank.
Next week I hope to start populating this Port/Left side with all its gear including the whole fuel pump and injection system which mounts to those two circular clamps you see here. 
BTW, for those who would find it interesting, this is Mr. Gee’s “service side” where you do most of the day to day work when starting and maintaining him as this is where things like the decompression levers, fuel priming levers, water pump, fuel pump, oil dipstick, temperature and pressure gauges for oil and coolant, etc.  Hence this is the side where I located the door into the Engine room and have the most access on this side as you will soon see when we mount Mr. Gee into his new home and Engine Room.

If you made it this far I hope you took my advise to get a good beverage and comfy seat or you stopped along the way to do so.  I really do appreciate you taking the time to follow along and join Christine and I on this latest adventure and we both look forward to getting your feedback with the questions and comments you put in the “Join the Discussion” box below.

See you again next week I hope.

-Wayne