For those who might not have seen or remember the line from the movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”, this week’s title is in reference to the tag line in that film where the homesick little Extra-Terrestrial kept asking “E.T. Go Home?”.  Unlike Spielberg my little friend Mr. Gee is definately not imaginary but he has been asking me the same question for a very long time now; “Mr. Gee Go Home?”.  So it was a very special day on Monday this week when I got to grant Mr. Gee his wish and move him into his new home inside XPM78-01 Möbius.

While we remain very understaffed with many members of Team Möbius still working on other boats, those working on Möbius this week made great progress and we saw more exciting milestones this past week here at Naval Yachts so I’ve got lots for this Show & Tell.

Oh!  And be sure to pay close attention as you go through this week’s Update as Captain Christine has more than one eXtra special surprise gifts for all of you. 

So as our 4 year old granddaughter Blair likes to say “Let’s DO this!”.

Mr. Gee Goes Home!

Mr. Gee has garnered some of the most enthusiastic “fans” here on the blog, Facebook and Instagram so I guess I better lead with the star of this week’s title as we grant Mr. Gee his wish, and ours, to finally move into his new home aboard Möbius.

Let’s go back to the big day of Monday August 17th, 2020 when the move began…….
Mr. Gee’s “Mom”, aka Captain Christine was on hand to supervise and help out with the big move and the first order of business was to tear down the scaffolding and plastic that we had built around Mr. Gee for the past few months to help keep him clean and be able to extract all the overspray from painting him.
Uğur on the Left and Nihat left their aluminium work to help move Mr. Gee from my Workshop up on the first floor and down to the shop floor. 

You observant motor heads will notice that Mr. Gee is also now sporting his exhaust, intake and cooling water manifolds and has his massive flywheel all wrapped up inside his flywheel housing where his two hind feet attach.
With all this well fed help we were able to wrestle all 1200 Kg/ 2650 Lbs of Mr. Gee onto a sturdy wood pallet and used the pallet jack to push him out the Workshop door onto the balcony.  We are fortunate to have access to the big Yellow “praying Mantis” type crane truck which was able to shoe horn his way into a small slot beside the sailboat “Caledonia” which is inside the scaffold tent on the far Right and the smaller paint booth on the Left.

In the center background, Möbius is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her beau Mr. Gee and the big 20m catamaran “Twinity” is in the scaffolded tent on the far Left.
Taking our typical “belts & suspenders” approach, we double wrapped Mr. Gee with doubled up yellow webbing and then I added two additional Green/Red Dyneema lines which are many times the breaking strength of the webbing and tied all of that to Mr. Hook on the end of the crane which lifted Mr. Gee like he weighed nothing at all.
Captain Christine was filming all this action from the balcony on the opposite side and later told me that her heart was pounding in her throat throughout the whole lift off and could barely film for shaking.  Mr. Gee said he shared her concerns as he went over the edge of the balcony but it all went off without a hitch and Mr. Gee was soon flying through the air and heading home.
Uğur kept a steady and reassuring hand on Mr. Gee as they moved the crane truck …………
………. behind Möbius for Mr. Gee’s connecting flight to his final destination inside the Engine Room of Möbius.
Unlike E.T., Mr. Gee didn’t need a spaceship, just this equally amazing crane that makes moving equipment like this into tight spaces easy peasy as my Canadian friends might say.
It was a complex move as Naval has not yet built the sliding engine lift frame that will be used for any future needs to remove/replace Mr. Gee and his Nogva CPP Gearbox.  If you look closely you will see that while the big ER Hatch opens up more than enough space for the total length of Mr. Gee AND the Nogva CPP Gearbox as a single unit, more than half of that hatch opening is underneath the cantilevered aluminium roof that extends out overtop of the Outdoor Galley on the Aft Deck.  And just for one more level of difficulty, the ER Hatch is located between the two big Vent Boxes.
But these preying Mantis type cranes as I refer to them, was able to do all this in two simple steps. 

First lowering Mr. Gee into the aft end of the ER Hatch where we could use the chain block to drop him down further into the ER.
And then using its hydraulic extendable arms the crane could slide Mr. Gee forward to the front of the ER.
And we then lowered his four anxiously awaiting feet onto the beefy engine beds below.
Lots of work remains of course to make all the life support connections for Mr. Gee’s water, fuel, oil, etc., drop in and bolt on the Nogva CPP Gearbox and then align the pair precisely to the flange on the CPP propeller shaft but I am eXtremely delighted to finally be able to say;

Welcome Aboard and HOME Mr. Gee!!

But WAIT!!        There’s MORE!!!!

Here is the first Bonus Prize for all of you from Captain Christine who has been hard at work learning her newest video editing software and has put together this short video of Mr. Gee Goes Home. 

Hope you enjoyed that and please stay tuned as Captain Christine is just warming up her video editing chops for you.

NOGVA CPP GEARBOX:

For those who might be wondering, we did not attach the Red Nogva CPP Gearbox yet because I’ve been waiting for the spray booth to be available so I can paint him to match Mr. Gee’s Burgundy colour. 

So we took advantage of having the crane there to move the Nogva off the Aft Deck and down onto the shop floor by the paint booth.
Sadly, this brand new Nogva CPP Gearbox has been sitting onboard Möbius since last November for some reason and so he is pretty filthy from the accumulation of ten months of shipyard detritus and will need a thorough cleaning before I sand and paint him back to new condition and worthy of becoming Mr. Gee’s partner in propulsion of Möbius.

MORE WORK on Mr. Gee

My Workshop/Office at the shipyard certainly feels very empty now but is still a great place for me to continue work on all of Mr. Gee’s peripherals such as the 24V and hand starters, two 250Ah alternators, and the copper/bronze oil & water pipeworks you can see in the back Left here.
I have multiple workbenches setup including this sold woodworking bench I built in Germany back in 1983 and still serves me very well. 

This week I was able to finish assembling this beautiful bronze and brass engine oil cooler so I can mount that on Mr. Gee’s Starboard/Right side and get it connected to his oil and cooling water lines.
It is impossible for me to chose a favorite part of Mr. Gee but this bronze & brass beauty is right up there.  As you’ve seen in previous Progress Update posts I’ve been working on this for about a month now and have all the parts fully cleaned, sandblasted and wire wheeled to fully reveal their raw natural beauty.
Last week I coated them with two coats of clear polyurethane to keep them looking this way and now have it all assembled.  A relatively simple heat exchanger, sea water flows through the rectangular shaped cast bronze housing made from two halves bolted together in the middle as you see here. 
To better answer the questions I’ve received about how this works, cold Sea Water is pumped into the large copper pipe in the upper Right foreground in the photo above and then out the downward facing 90 degree elbow  in the Left background.

Engine oil is pumped in one end and out the other of this 1.5 meter/5 ft long “dimpled” brass tube which lives inside the rectangular bronze housing above with all that cool sea water flowing along its length extracting the heat from the engine oil into the sea water which is then pumped out through the Sea Chest.

The short lengths of copper tubing I’ve soldered onto the edges here are to keep this dimpled tube from sagging in the middle and keeping the water flow even.  There is also a sacrificial zinc anode laying in the bottom of the rectangular housing to look after the corrosive action of the slightly dissimilar brass/bronze/copper materials that make up this engine oil cooler/heat exchanger.
However I don’t think you need to understand how it works to appreciate the raw beauty of this beast which I can’t wait to show you bolted up to Mr. Gee’s Starboard side and perfectly contrasted with his Burgundy and Aluminium colours so stay tuned for that!

Gentlemen; Start Your Engine; Either Way you Want!

24 Volt Starter

With Mr. Gee now in his new home I have tried to pick up the pace on getting him up and running and for that you need a starter, or TWO in our case of course.  First starter is this beast of a 24V SL5 electric starter.  It seems to be in very good shape so I just want to take it apart enough to confirm that, give it a thorough clean and lube and replace any parts needed.

Removing the double nuts on the end of the shaft and the four lower through bolts allowed me to pull off this drive end of the starter and check out  all the critical components of the drive gear, bushings and clutch.
The other housing for the pack of clutch plates affixed to the drive shaft of the starter and the four tabs on the outer circumference of each clutch plate interlocks with the four slots in this outer housing.
I learned long ago in my early days of restoring antiques and other engines,  the value of taking LOTS of photos as I disassemble things for the first time and this is likely more detail than most of you would like but this is an example of how photos allow me to create my own parts and service manual by showing me clearly what all the parts are, what order and side they are assembled in, etc..
The clutch pack itself resides in the housing of the drive end that you saw me removing above.  You can see the four tabs around the outer circumference that engage in the housing above and then the matching set of inner tabs on every other clutch plate.
Five sets of clutch plates in all which are mounted on the inner bushing that slides along the brass drive gear you can see one end of inside the drive housing on the far Left.
Apologies for the poor focus but this is the whole brass drive gear which has the clutch plates mounted on the top end and the drive gear that engages with the large ring gear on the flywheel when you activate the starter and it turns Mr. Gee on so to speak.
For those of you still hanging in there on this deep dive into Mr. Gee’s electric starter, let me show you a good example of why I love and respect these Gardner engines and why Christine and I are quite willing to literally put our lives in Mr. Gee’s hands.

What do you think this grub screw in the outer drive housing is for?

Took me a bit to figure out as well but the little coil spring is a good clue.
The light goes on when peering into the inside bore of the bushing and finding that long dark jelly bean shape on the Left is a thick piece of felt. 

Aha!  This is how you keep the starter’s bearing surfaces of the bronze drive shaft well lubricated with oil!  Once a year or so, remove that grub screw, squirt in a few drops of fresh oil and put the screw back in to keep the spring pushing the oil filled felt against the shaft.  Brilliant!

But wait!!!  There’s more!!!  Mr. Gee also has a

Hand Starter

The original Gardner 6LXB had this optional HAND CRANK starting system and thanks to the great efforts of Michael Harrison and his staff at Gardner Marine Diesel in Canterbury England they were able to find all these original parts and that box full of Gardner Goodness arrived yesterday!
To help you visualise how this hand crank starter system works, this is a photo of a different 6LXB with the hand crank fully assembled.  As per the illustration above you can put the crank handle on either end of the engine and given our space constraints at the front we will put Mr. Gee’s hand crank handle on the rear.
Unpacking the three boxes from Gardner Marine Spare Parts revealed all these original bits of pure Gardner goodness that I need to build a full hand starting option to Mr. Gee.  It is actually going to be quite an engineering challenge that I won’t bore you with any more right now but I am busy designing a way of combining an old and a new version of the Gardner hand crank system that I’ll explain in future posts.
This is the chainwheel that goes on the crankshaft and the little spring loaded lever at 2 o’clock engages with a slotted pawl on the crankshaft which the hand crank turns via the chain you see at the top here. 

Enough of Gardner starters for now but for suffice it to say that for Christine and I this is an eXtremely important fail safe starting option for us to have on our single engine boat.

PLUMBING:

Alfa Laval Holding Tank

We were only able to have Cihan for a few hours this week but he was able to add this critical part, which is the waste water storage tank for the Alfa Laval MOB 303 Centrifugal Separator/Clarifier that we have on the Starboard/Right side of the Workshop beside the Day Tank.
These Alfa Laval MIB 303’s are found on pretty much all large commercial ships where they are used to fully clean and clarify anything from diesel fuel to engine and hydraulic oils.  They are regarded as the ultimate in fuel cleaning for their ability to take the most contaminated fluids and remove pretty much every bit of dirt, water and contaminates in a very short time.  Their only downside is that they are very eXpensive but through more of our typical serendipity and good friends we were able to get a slightly used one from a super yacht in St. Martin and now have it installed on Möbius.

The aluminium tank which Cihan mounted this week is the holding tank for all the dirt and water the MIB 303 removes and we just empty it after each use for disposal net time we dock.
For those interested in how these centrifugal separators work I will just leave you with the link above and these two illustrations of their basic functional principles.  Bottom line for us is that we can turn the dirtiest water filled fuel there is and turn it into crystal clear diesel fuel with NO consumable filters or other elements required.  Another eXtremely big deal for us and our remote use cases.
Cihan also got started on plumbing our Kabola KB45 diesel boiler/water heater.  Copper pipes on the Right side are for the two independent coils of water In/Out of the boiler and the stainless steel pipe above is for the exhaust gasses which connect to an insulated SS exhaust pipe that takes the hot exhaust air out through the hull.

ANTENNAE ARCH

Picking up where we left off last week, Uğur and Nihat finished their work fabricating and mounting the aluminium Antennae Arch and turned things over to the Electrical Team to start wiring this “antennae farm”.  This was very much a whole Team effort with Uğur and Nihat looking after all the aluminium work and then Yusuf, Hilmi and Samet doing all the wiring.
As you can see all the individual mounts are just tacked in place at this stage enough for us to put each antenna, light, camera, etc. in place and see how well the arrangement worked with regards to all their conflicting requirements and locations relative to each other.  Meeting the ideal parameters each one wants in terms of their position, height, distance from each other, orientation, etc. is a classic example of the compromises that go into boat design.  I would liken it to managing a birthday party for a group of young children; “I don’t want to sit beside HIM!”, “I want to be her”, “I want to be higher than that one”, etc.
But by trying out various combinations we finally settled on this arrangement, starting on the far Left:

• AIS antenna for em-Trak Class A AIS
• Furuno GPS puck
• ACR remote control pan/tilt search light
• 360 degree OGM 3NM Anchor light on top
• 225 degree OGM 3NM Steaming Light
• MikroTik Groove WiFi antenna
• Furuno SC33 Satellite Compass
• Airmar 220WX Weather Station
• VHF Whip antenna (mostly hidden from view here)
• FLIR M332 stabilized Marine Hi-def Thermal camera (night vision)
• AIS antenna for Standard Horizon GX6000 VHF radio
  

With all the positions and heights finalized Uğur welded them all in place, Nihat cleaned up the welds and the Antennae Arch was ready to be taken up onto the Aft Deck to be welded onto the Main Arch.
After double checking the exact location where each of the four legs of the Antennae Arch would be welded to the Main Arch, Nihat cut in the large holes on each side where all the cables would pass through and put a nice smooth radius on all the edges.
The Antennae Arch we tacked in place and the two teams, Aluminium and Electrical, put their heads together to go over the cable routing and made sure the final location worked out for both the welding, wiring and mounting of each item on the Arch before Uğur welded it all in place.
Now each item could be mounted with all the proper gaskets, seals and cabling.
While all the items were being physically attached to the Antennae Arch Night cut the bottom cover plates that will seal in the underside area where all the cables pass through on the Main Arch and will then do the same for the Antennae Arch so that both areas stay clean and watertight from the elements.
The larger base of the Furuno FAR 1523 Radar gearbox bolts to the platform on top of the Main Arch and when flipped open as you see here, it also houses the first stage electronics for the Radar. 
The 20m/65ft cable has all the push/lock connectors preinstalled on both ends so it is very large in diameter and quite stiff so it needs to be installed and routed through the Main Arch tubes and all the way down to the Main Helm area.

That housing is all cast aluminium but with the large motor and all the electronics inside it still weighs 27 Kg/ 60 Lbs so Hilmi and the gang got a good workout carefully wrestling it in place on top of the Main Arch and routing the cable.
Even something as seemingly simple as these SS through bolts required special care and attention as they use special non grounding grommets with seals so you can not turn the bolts to tighten, only the nuts. 
But Yusuf, Uğur, Hilmi and Samet working together they soon had the FAR1523 mounted and ready for the 6.5ft open array radiator/antenna to be installed a bit later.
Over on the Port/Left side of the Main Arch the Standard Horizon loud hailer and the Wilson 4G wide band omni marine antennae have been mounted on the support strut for the paravane A-Frame and they are now ready to be wired as well.
With everything welded and mounted it was now time for Hilmi and Samet to take over and start chasing the miles of wire and cables down through the Arch tubes on either side and then down into their various destinations inside Möbius.  This is one set on the Starboard/Right side of the Arch where all the power based wiring goes to keep it well separated from all the data carrying cables which go down the tubes on the Port/Left side of the Arches.
The large hinge plates that allow the Main Arch to fold down, created a bit of a challenge as to how to safely and securely route all the cables in both the Up and Down positions of the Main Arch.  The idea they settled on was to run the wires as a bundle through this thick rubber hose and fit a fiberglass sealing flange to the upper hinge box.
Same kind of setup on the opposite Port/Left side of the Main Arch for all the data cables though it was a bit more challenging as it uses the aft most column which are closest to the hinge pin so a much tighter radius but no match for Hilmi and Samet who soon had it all looking like this.
Looking up from the shop floor I took this shot to put it all in better perspective for you as Hilmi and Samet start filling up that rubber hose with its wires and cables and getting it all stuffed inside the Arch tubes. 

Trust me, you will be seeing much more of Samet & Hilmi and all the wiring they have yet to do.

INTERIOR WIRING:

Earlier in the week Samet & Hilmi had been busy doing more of the wiring for AC and DC outlets throughout the interior of the boat.  They completed all the connections inside this Main DC box down in the Basement where all the high amperage cables, switches, shunts and bus bars connect the four House Battery Banks to their primary loads and distribute the DC power to the forward and aft DC Boxes in the Forepeak and Aft Workshop.
For lower amperage 12 and 24 Volt loads I’m using these neat little fused junction boxes throughout the boat, upper one here for 12V and lower for 24V.
This pair on the Starboard/Right side of the Workshop are mounted aft of the electrical junction box for the Delfin Watermaker.

You may have noticed in the photo above that they have also now mounted the AC receptacles for 120V and 230V at the bottom Left of the Watermaker box and these too are found throughout each compartment of Möbius.
Industrial style light switches are also now starting to appear throughout the non-living spaces such as this one you can see on the bottom Left of the stairs which turns on the LED lights in the ceiling of the Basement.

INTERIOR DETAILS:

Just a quick update for you on some of the various interior details which are now showing up such as these Ultra Leather cushions in the Dinette Settee.
The lighting does not do justice to the great smoky blue colour Christine picked out for these cushions so you’ll just have to wait until we launch and have proper sunshine coming in through all those windows but you get the idea.
Up above the Main Entrance doorway and stairs, Omur has been busy finishing the FastMount panels that go around those walls and ceiling.
Looking from the opposite direction when standing in the Entryway Door, Omur is measuring up the panel sizes for that Port/Left side wall panel and you can also see he has the removable L-shaped cover in the upper corner of the overhead Entryway.
This cover will soon be upholstered in matching Blue/Green leather and inside will be home to a bunch of electronics such as network switches, Axios video decoder, N2K multi-port blocks and connections for cables going into the SkyBridge Helm Station out of sight on the other side of the Right wall in this photo.
Down at the bottom of those stairs in the Corridor Office area, Omur is finishing the installation of those wall panels including the recently snapped in place leather covered panels underneath the marble countertop/ workbench.

Brrrrrrr, it’s Cccccccold inside!

I suspect that most of you can guess what’s going on here?

Correct!  The refrigeration company has arrived to look putting in the copper tubing for the remote mounted compressors for the pair of large upright Vitrifrigo door fridges and their matching pair of freezer drawers.
While Hilmi and Samet are busy lengthening all the wiring between the Fridge/Freezer units and the compressors, Omur is busy up on the Port side of the Galley putting in the extra 50mm / 2” of insulation that wraps around all 5 sides of each Fridge/Freezer.
Meanwhile, down in the Basement the refrigeration guys are busy mounting the four Danfoss compressors to this rack above the coffer dams.
Now the insulation wrapped copper lines coming out of each compressor down below, can be carefully routed up through their penetrations in the floor and in through the holes in the back of their respective cabinets ……..
……………….. where they can now be soldered onto the copper lines coming out of each Fridge/Freezer like this. 
Once soldered together these copper lines are wrapped in new EPDM foam insulation and carefully routed in the area behind each cabinet.  Enough extra length of copper tubing will be coiled up behind each unit to allow them to be pulled out in the future for any repairs or maintenance.
Here is a quick look in behind the Fridge cabinets to see how the insulated coper lines will be run along the sides and eventually zip tied to the cable trays once everything is all complete and working.  The backs of the cabinets will also be sealed to keep them air tight and have marine plywood backs installed.

Can’t wait to show you all these units fully installed next week.

DAVIT ARCH CONSTRUCTION BEGINS:

This stack of CNC aluminium plate showed up this week and can you guess what it will soon become?
The subtitle tells part of the story, the upper 20mm / 5/8” plate has all the CNC cut parts for the hinged mounting foundations for the Davit system which will bring the Tender On/Off of the Port/Left side of the Aft Deck and In/out of the water.

FYI; The rest of the CNC cut plates underneath are all the parts for our 5 meter/ 16/4 ft jet drive Tender!

But the Davit goes first and the this recently arrived stack of AL pipe will be used to construct the ladder style double tube Davit Arch.
This quick and dirty rendering of the Davit system shows how the overall system will work.  There will be two separate Raise/Lower systems both made using Dyneema line on 6:1 Garhauer blocks and clutches going to Lewmar winches.  One system will look after Raising/Lowering the Davit Arch itself and the second system will Raise/Lower the Tender from the Arch.
This is the only rendering I have time to grab right now and it was from when Yigit and I were first designing and testing the Davit Arch model so much has changed since then such as the orientation of the laddered Davit Arch and the Tender design but it will help show how the Davit moves the Tender On/Off the Aft Deck.
The design of this Tender Davit System is the result of a LOT of prior experiences launching and retrieving dinghies and LOTS of thought and experimentation with these 3D models but I am VERY happy with the end result which I believe will be one of the safest, fault tolerant and easiest Davit systems we have ever known.  Stay tuned for the real world testing after launch to confirm all this really works!

Nihat and Uğur waste no time getting started and soon have the 50mm / 2” connector/ladder tubes all cut in the background and the extruded aluminium elbows cut at their final angles and chamfered edges for full penetration welding.
Our student intern Omer is really learning a lot and enjoying the whole experience of working with us on this new project as Uğur starts prepping the 20mm pieces he has removed from the CNC cut plate that will become the hinged bases for the Davit.
I designed the Davit Arch to be three independent parts so it will be easy for Christine and I to disassemble and store on the Aft Deck when we are in Hunkered Down or Canal mode with the whole SkyBridge roof lowered.  Simply done by putting in these double Blue 20mm joiner plated which will be bolted together.
Nihat has tacked two of those joiner plates together to keep make it easy to cut them to shape and now drill out the six bolt holes in each pair of joiner plates.
And he soon has all four joiner plates and the other hinge plates all drilled and edges radiused or chamfered for welding.
Simple yet very strong and effective construction allows Uğur to quickly tack up these two vertical legs of the Davit Arch.
KISS design continues with simple slots cut into the bottoms of each Davit Arch pipe where the hinge plates will be inserted and welded.
Like this.
Flipping the vertical legs upside down atop their joiner plates ….
…… makes it easy to align them and tack them in place.
And the two vertical legs are all tacked up and checked for alignment and ready for final welding.
Uğur begins the fabrication of the horizontal upper beam by laying out the angle where the elbows connect the angled 90mm / 3.5” pipes to the upper ladder beam.
Fabrication of this Upper Beam goes quickly with the KISS design.

Note that Uğur has inserted short lengths of inner reinforcing pipe to strengthen the joint between the angled pipes and the elbows.
Which end up looking like this.
And does the same thing at the other end of the short angled connecting pipes of the Upper Beam.
The fully assembled Davit Arch can now be tacked together.
Bottoms of the Arch pipes are closed off.
And now the whole assembly can be checked for perfect alignment and square and ready to be fully welded up and taken up to the Aft Deck next week.
And that’s another week gone by and hopefully another week closer to launching XPM78-01 Möbius.

Captain Christine has two more Bonus Gifts for all of you but I’m going to keep you waiting just a wee bit longer for those to post but I think you’ll agree that they are worth the wait.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this week’s XPM78-01 Möbius Progress Update and if you did or didn’t please let me know one way or the other and add any other comments or questions in the “Join the Discussion” box below.

See you here again next week,

-Wayne