Another busy week for Team Möbius as we all focus on getting her finished and ready for her Splash Day first kiss with the sea, which we are now counting in weeks rather than months or years, so exciting times here at Naval Yachts to be sure.  As is often the case near the end of an eXtremely big project and certainly at the end of Project Goldilocks, most of the work is on all those “small jobs” chasing down all the loose ends from previous work installing all the systems, cabinetry, propulsion, etc.  And as most of you would know from your work on projects it is the last 5% of a job that seems to often take 50% of the time!  However, good progress is being made and I will take you on a whirlwind tour through all the little things that got done this week which add up to be an eXtremely BIG deal as it gets us another week closer to Launch Date.

So strap yourself in and hang on for this week’s Show & Tell tour of the Good Ship Möbius for the week that was January 11-15, 2021.

HELMS:

You may recall from reading previous posts that we have been very busy finishing off lots of those “little jobs” to complete the Upper and Lower Helm Stations and that continued this week. 

This is the Llebroc Tradewinds CX High Back helm chair that will be our perch when piloting Möbius from the Upper SkyBridge Helm and Nihat and Uğur got that all mounted and through bolted this past week.
We needed to wait until the TreadMaster had all be glued down to all the aluminium floors in the SkyBridge and then we could mark out the exact location of the 6 through bolts for the base of the pedestal.
Directly below this Upper Helm Chair base is this area above the Galley so Nihat removed the 50mm/2”  EPDM insulation foam to expose the area where the supporting plates and through bolts would go.

This is a good example of why all the panels on the ceilings and many on the walls are made to be easily removable by using FastMount clips which are the White dots you can clearly see against the Black ceiling framing in the photo above.  Being able to remove any panel in a few seconds is an eXtreme time saver for such jobs.
There can be a tremendous amount of force exerted on that base when a good sized adult is perched way up on top of the Helm Chair in rough seas so Nihat & Uğur installed some 20mm AL plate on the underside of the AL floor plates and then ran the through bolts from the pedestal base to sandwich the whole assembly and create an eXtremely solid pedestal for this Upper Helm Chair.
As is so often the case with these “little” jobs, all the time and work is in the preparation and the actual installation goes very quickly.  So once they had all the prep work done with the support plates and drilling the holes it didn’t take them long to torque down these six 316SS C’sunk bolts and the Upper Helm Pedestal was all done and ready for the adjustable base plate and slider of the chair to fit over the top of the AL piston you see here.  This piston has a powerful gas lift cylinder inside that makes it easy to raise/lower the Helm Chair about 30cm/12”.
In front of the Upper Helm Chair, this custom made Switch Panel for all our external lights finally arrived and fit like a glove in the opening below the Standard Horizon GX600 VHF-AIS.
Hilmi had already installed all the wires so it did not take him long to get all these switches wired up.  We tested out all the lights and everything worked just as planned.
Such as these Green Navigation Lights that Hilmi is checking out here on the Starboard/Right side of the SkyBridge coaming.
Red Nav Light on the Port side working just as well.

BTW, a fun way to remember the Red/Green orientation is “There’s no Red Port Left”  (thanks for the correction Max!)

TreadMaster on these side decks is all ready to be glued down which they also completed this past week.

Christine and I installed the two 24” touch monitors as you saw last week and there are a few more “little jobs” need to be looked after but this Upper Helm Station is nearing completion now which has been great to see.
Similar story down below at the Main Helm where we also installed the two 19” touch monitors last week and this Helm is now also getting close to finished.
This is the Llebroc Bandera Series 2 Helm Chair which, similar to the Upper Helm Chair, needs to have its pedestal mounted and through bolted in the floor.
We needed to wait until Ramazan had finished installing all the Ado LVT vinyl flooring and then layout the location of the solid block floor that had been installed here for the through bolts to go through the 50mm/2” thick insulated and heated floor. 

Drilling and installing these through bolts is a bit tricky due to all the cable trays filled with electrical cables running underneath this floor in the Basement, but we lowered the cable trays and drilled all the holes with no problem after lots of careful measurement.

This is where we left off on Friday so Uğur and Nihat will pick up here when we all get to work Monday morning.
Just behind the Main Helm Chair we had to do the same kind of layout and prep for through bolting this Zwaardvis Triton Deluxe adjustable pedestal for the Dinette Table.
In addition to the Up/Down adjustment of the pedestal itself you can see here how the Zwaardvis T-System XY slider bolts on top and allows us to move the table fore/aft and left/right by 200mm/8” which enables us to put the Rosewood table in the Goldilocks just right position for eating/working, lounging of made down into a bed.  The little Black unit on top will be fastened to the underside of the table and you just pull that Black lever and the cable releases the “brake” while you slide the table in the XY axis you want and then release to lock the table in place. 

Very KISSS – Keep It Simple Smart & Safe!
By Friday Faruk, Orkan and Ali had finished up the remaining “little jobs” with the TreadMaster non-slip surfaces.  Both Side Decks and the front platform in front of the hinged Solar Panel bank is now all completed.
As is this small area around the Lewmar EST65 Warping/Kedging winch.

OTHER ELECTRICAL JOBS

Our head Sparkie Hilmi had a busy week as well. 

He installed the Black Foot Switch for the Warping/Kedging winch above, so one more little job checked off the punch list.
Finished wiring up all the components in the Upper Helm Station.  Kobelt WalkAbout remote control box in the upper Left corner, Nogva CPP clutch controls below it and Horn, Engine Stop & Start buttons on the bottom.

Std Horizon GX6000 VHF-AIS top center with the External Light Switch panel below which we saw earlier.
Right of the VHF is the Vetus Bow Thruster joystick and the Furuno NAVPilot 711C below it.  Maxwell anchor windlass control upper Right with Kobelt 7170 Jog Lever below.  Round gauge on far upper Right is the Pitch angle of the CPP propeller and hiding under the plastic is the Kobelt 6501 electronic control head for the Gardner Throttle and Nogva CPP Pitch adjustment levers.
Looking through the WT door off the Aft Deck and peering into the dark space above as you walk through into the SuperSalon, you might be able to make out the neat little alcove up above that Hilmi and Christine worked on this past week.
Here is a closer view with the upholstered panel removed to show the components installed in this well protected space.  Far Left is the Axis M7104 Video Encoder that puts our non IP cameras onto the network,
In the middle is one of several Planet Industrial 10/100TX Ethernet switches and the incredible Kingdel i9 9th gen mini computer that Christine put together to be our Boat Computer #2.

HOUSE BATTERY BANKS

Yesterday (Friday 15th) Hilmi and I spent some time down in the Basement working to finish off the installation of the 24 FireFly Carbon Foam batteries which make up our 1800Ah 24V House Battery.
Hilmi has all 24 batteries wired up in their 6S4P configuration where six 4V batteries are wired in Series to create four 24V @ 450Ah banks which in turn are wired in Parallel to create a single 24V @ 1800Ah House Battery which gives us a total capacity of 45kWh to power all the AC and DC circuits onboard.  While we can safely take these Carbon Foam batteries down to 20$ SOC State of Charge, we will typically not take them below about 50% SOC so as to maximize their cycle lifespan and still give us up to 900Ah or 21.6kWh to keep us safely and fully powered up at all times.
Before we look after the last step of organizing and supporting all the cables, Hilmi, Ramazan and I worked on this very KISSS way of holding each of the 24 4Volt cells in solidly in place under all conditions.  Each 4V cell/battery weighs 43kg/95lbs and by wedging each battery in place using these composite foam pieces you see in these photos.
Right beside Möbius, Naval is building a big fancy 20m catamaran out of very high tech composite materials and this foam board was all left over “scraps” that caught my curiosity so I tested out some samples and this stuff is awemazing! 

It is literally light as a feather and I can beat it with a sledge hammer and not put a dent in it!  I’ve tried soaking it in water, vinegar and acetone with no absorption or other affects so I had an Aha! moment and thought this was the Goldilocks solution for a KISSS battery hold down system you see here.
Along the sides, while difficult to see here, a two stepped piece of composite foam snuggly wedges in place between the sides of each pair of batteries and the aluminium tank sides and the thicker upper stepped part holds the batteries down by the ledge along the outer edge of each battery case.
Down the middle a T shaped piece of composite foam is wedged into the 40mm/1.6” air gap where the sides of the batteries meet.  If you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) at the foam piece on the far Left, you can see how the T cut out fits on top of the ledge on the Blue plastic battery case.  When the AL plate lids are bolted on top this will squeeze the batteries tight against the AL floor down at the 25mm ‘’/ 1’ thick Keel Bar

I’ll be back next week to show you how we have organized and tied down all these big 25mm² / 4/0 cables and then bolt on the 6mm AL cover plates with gaskets to seal the whole battery compartment which is then vented with thermostatically controlled fans to keep the batteries cool and well vented.

LIFELINES!

Christine has been working onboard Möbius every day for the past few weeks now and took on one of the larger jobs remaining; installing all our Dyneema Lifelines.  I’m not sure if she is holding on out of pride of her work here on the Aft Deck or to help keep her tired little body upright after a grueling week.

We are using Dyneema for all our lines and rigging as it just SO superior to standard lines and Stainless Steel twisted wire being stronger, safer, kinder to the hands, easy to inspect and monitor.  Christine is going to do a separate blog post here with all the details so I will leave you to read that when it goes up in a few days.

Being as pleased and proud of her as I am though, can’t resist just a few photos of her handiwork to whet your appetite for more.

Simple eye splice where each Lifeline begins with this “Luggage Tag” style attachment to the 40mm/1.6” thick walled AL stanchion posts.
The top Lifeline is 90cm / 36” above the deck and the bottom one is a custom Goldilocks Just Right height to help keep our stubby legged Barney the Yorkshire Terror onboard.
Where the Dyneema Lifelines simply pass through a Stanchion these short lengths of 10mm / 3/8” AL pipe have been welded at the height of each of the 3 Lifelines.
For Lifelines that we need to remove regularly, she splices a Pelican Hook on the other end with a simple endless loop around the end gate stanchion pipe.
Along the length of each Lifeline, to provide adjustment and re-tensioning over time, Christine has spliced on two Black aluminium “donuts” and then lashed between the two with smaller diameter Dyneema.  This one is just temporary while we are testing out the layout but will give you an idea how this system works.

SuperSalon is Floored!

Ramazan has quickly become a Master at installing the Ado LVT vinyl flooring we are covering all the floors in all three living compartments on Möbius.  For orientation of this photo I am standing about where the Main Helm chair is looking Aft at the stairs leading up to the Aft Deck.  Ramazan has about half of the Ado LVT vinyl planks installed on the Right side in front of the two door style 130L Fridges in the back and 2 70 liter drawer freezers in the foreground.  The bare plywood rectangular piece on Ramazan’s Left is the hinged hatch that lifts up to access the stairs down into the Basement under the whole SuperSalon floor.
Here is what it looks like from the opposite end, standing in that WT door off the Aft Deck looking forward to the Main Helm at the front of the SuperSalon.  Galley is partially visible on the far Right.
A few hours later and that Basement Hatch is almost fully covered and Ramazan did a fabulous job having it blend in almost invisibly to the rest of the floor.
Main Helm and Dinette Table floors all laid down and I’ve started to lay out the locations for the pedestal bases of the Helm Chair and the Dinette pedestals.
Flooring all done in the Galley now.
With the LVT flooring all done in the Master Cabin and the SuperSalon, Ramazan transferred his attention to the Corridor and Guest Cabin area which will likely the the most time consuming as there are 10 tank access ports he needs to lay the flooring around.

Here in the Corridor that connects the stairs up at the top of the photo coming down from the SuperSalon, to the WT door into the Workshop which is where I’m standing to take this photo.  He pulled up the temporary plywood covering that has been covering this area so he could level off the tops of the Blue rigid foam board for the final marine plywood to go on next.  Easy to see how PEX tubing for the In-Floor heating is snaking through the foam and the aluminium tape helps reflect the heat upward through the plywood.
Plywood is now screwed in place to the wood frames underneath and Ramazan has started to lay down the Ado LVT vinyl planks.

Stay tuned for next week’s episode where he will likely finish off all the vinyl flooring.

Mr. Gee gets Cagey!

You may recall from last week’s Progress Update that I had designed this pipe rail or cage setup attached to the four motor mounts I had designed months ago and work continued on this week.
Here is where we left off last Weekly Update with the front and rear rails or “staples” that Uğur and Nihat had installed.
On Monday, Uğur and Nihat finished off the “cage” by bolting on the two lengthwise tie rods to complete this very rigid cage around Mr. Gee.  As with so many elements on Möbius this serves multiple purposes, one is to provide a safety element when we are doing our hourly engine room checks on a passage and a sudden lurch in the boat’s movement might cause you to loose your balance and reach out to grab one of the hot or moving parts of Mr. Gee.  Now this “cage” provides you with a safe cool hand hold all the way around.

Second purpose of this pipe cage is to provide the frame for the four support rods that need to go up to support the dry stack components of the Halyard exhaust system.  These four “ears” or tabs have been welded on to provide the lower attachment point for those four SS support rods.
Cihan and Mesut fabricated four of these SS support rods in no time by welding some SS slugs into the end of each SS pipe and threading it for the Heim joints that would go in each end.
I am just test fitting the Heim joints here so the SS lock nuts are not yet in place but you can see how this simple setup creates a Goldilocks support rod that is of course all very KISSS Keep it Simple Smart & Strong.
Here is what it looked like as we shut down yesterday.  Next week Cihan will install the front two supports but already the exhaust dry stack is eXtremely solid and I can barely make it move when I grab it and shake it for all I’m worth.
Two other important “little” jobs Cihan and I worked on this past week were the mounting of the Morse cables to the Nogva CPP Pitch lever and the throttle lever on Mr. Gee, and the solenoid for the shutoff lever on Mr. Gee. 

I whipped up this little sketch on my new favorite drawing board; cardboard!  No work of art and rather embarrassing for a former Draughting/Drafting instructor but it works well to outline my basic ideas and communicate them with Cihan with no problems given my poor Turkish language skills.

I just love working with Cihan and everyone on Team Möbius because it is such a collaborative relationship.  I did that initial sketch you see above and discuss the key parameters with Cihan and ask him to run with it and build whatever he thinks will work best and is easiest for him to build.  This is the modified design he came up with and fabricated in minutes out of some 10mm / 3/8” aluminium plate.
The purplish colored Morse cable on top here transfers the mechanical movement from the Kobelt electronic Actuator box up above on the ER wall down to thee throttle lever on Mr. Gee to change his RPM and then the 24V solenoid underneath moves the engine shut off lever below.

A similar Morse cable comes down from the other side of the Kobelt Actuator to move the Pitch control lever on the Nogva CPP Servo Reduction gearbox but I failed to get some photos of that.
Her is a better angle of the finished result of the Throttle cable on top and the Shut off solenoid below. 

• Two more jobs checked off the list!
  Another prime example of how these “little” jobs take a BIG amount of time was finishing off this very busy area around Mr. Gee’s oil filter.  The bronze block on the Left has four fittings in it, the top one I’ve installed one of the two direct oil pressure gauges and then the Black line below it takes the pressurized oil directly to the valves in the cylinder head.  The bottom two outlets I have just plugged off for now but will soon have an oil pressure alarm sensor installed.
  On the Right side of the big cast Oil Filter canister is the Black oil pressure adjustment valve and then that beautiful bronze oil temperature thermometer and a 2nd oil pressure gauge on the far Right.  The reason for two oil pressure gauges is that the one on the Right measures the oil pressure when it is highest coming directly out of the oil pump inside the crankcase whereas the one on the far Left measures the oil pressure at the far end of the line just before it gets pumped back into the crankcase.  This setup allows me to instantly see the difference from start to finish of the oil pressure to the engine and enables me to quickly spot any problem long before it advances.
• There are also digital equivalents in the form of temperature and pressure sensors that will put this data onto our N2K network where I can log it by the minute and have a full history of all these metrics being logged every second of every day.

And that’s a wrap for the week of January 11-15, 2021 people!  Thanks so much for getting through yet another one of Wayne’s rambling Weekly Progress Updates and in spite of my pathetically long response time to them, PLEASE do add your questions and comments in the “Join the Discussion” box below.

I hope to see you again next week.

-Wayne