A full five day work week here for everyone but me it seems as I had mine cut down by almost 2 days while I looked after a hernia that I developed on my Left side last week.  Nothing too serious, I had one on my Right side about 25 years ago and apparently my body wanted to keep all my internals symmetrical so time to fix the Left side this week.

WARNING:  This week’s intro may be TMI as my children used to often say; “Too Much Information” Dad!, so you are welcome to skip down to the next section below if you prefer.

The medical system here in Turkey is absolutely awemazing, easily amongst the best anywhere in the world and so after a few visits for ultrasound and other testing they did the laparoscopic or “keyhole” type surgery on Monday morning and I was released Tuesday noon and was able to stop in to see how things were going on XPM78-01 Möbius before heading home to rest for the rest of the day.

They ended up needing to put in a 10cm x 25cm (4” x 10”) strip of hernia mesh material which was much larger than they had originally thought because they decided to cover both my Left and Right sides for a more “future proof” reinforcement.

This required three different entry points for the laparoscopes so I ended up with three neat little “bullet wound” looking spots across my lower abdomen which should be fun for future wild tales from Grampa Wayne in the future.

Hence the double meaning of “tender” for this week’s Progress Update as it applies to my condition this week and MUCH more importantly the beginning of the build of the Tender to mv Möbius!

Best of all however is that I’m feeling much less Tender every day and the Tender to Möbius is feeling more and more real by the day.

So let’s jump right into this week’s Show & Tell of the overall progress on XPM78-01 Möbius for this week of August 24 to 29, 2020.

TENDER to “my Möbius” (my = motor yacht)

First for some perspective, here are the basic details for the Tender:

• Length: 5 meters,
• Beam: 1.8 meters.
• Material: Aluminium 5083 series,H Series, H321.
• Powered by internal 110HP/81kW Yanmar 4JH4 HTE diesel engine with direct manual fuel injection
• Castoldi Jet Drive 224 DD (Direct Drive)
• Central steering station with sloped dash area large enough for small navigation equipment, display screen, switches, gauges, etc.
• Twin side by side seats at steering station.
• Additional seats for minimum of 2 other adults, ideally 4
• Built in lockers sufficient in number and size to hold typical items including life vests, fire extinguisher, spare plastic fuel jugs
• Diesel fuel tank integral with hull, 80-100 L capacity
• Equipped with full cover such that the Tender can be used as the boat’s life raft.
• Designed to withstand ocean going conditions with waves up to 4m and wind up to 8 beaufort.
• Engine and propeller system will be owner supplied, small likely 3 cylinder diesel with fixed prop.
• Tender will have large continuous “bumper” wrapping around both sides and bow sufficiently strong to allow using these Tender to push Möbius and other boats and resist abrasion from rough docks, rocks, etc.
• Foam collar will be adhered to a custom built recess in the hull for this foam bumper and have a wide flat section across the Bow for pushing.
• Build in support bars on both side of the flat Bow for safety when boarding from the Bow
• Swim Step overtop of extruding Jet Drive to fully protect the drive gear when backed into docks, rocks, etc.

Here is what those specs and use case look like when transformed into the final 3D model after many months of working with Yigit and Burak.

We also worked with the engineers at Yamaha and Castoldi who helped get the hull shape, dimensions and weight distribution just right.
The Castoldi Jet Drive 224 DD (Direct Drive) …….
…… is coupled to the Yanmar 110HP/81kW
Yanmar 4JH4 HTE diesel engine using a Cardan shaft and a Centaflex flexible coupling.

We think this combination will make for an eXtremely safe, fast, fun and dry ride!

You may recall seeing in last week’s Progress Update that all the CNC cut plate for building the Tender to my Möbius had arrived and first thing Monday morning Uğur started sending me pictures of he and Nihat tearing into that stack of aluminium and starting to assemble all those CNC cut jigsaw puzzle pieces.

Similar to the building of the Möbius herself, this process of assembling precisely cut, numbered and interlocking pieces to build an aluminium hull boat is very similar to assembling a jigsaw puzzle or plastic model airplane kit.  As you can see if you look closely (click to enlarge any photo) the CNC cutter is programmed to leave tiny little “bridges” or tabs every so often along the through cuts so that the individual pieces stay part of the whole sheet of aluminium so they can be shipped/trucked very efficiently.

I received a lot of comments from last week’s posting of how much you enjoyed seeing the Davit go together so sequentially so I will do the same below with the Tender by quickly going through photos as the build progresses quickly with a bit of explanatory text along they way.  Ready – Set – GO!

Nihat likes to start by wire wheeling all the surfaces to remove the aluminium oxide layer and provide a super clean surface to weld to.
Next he uses a cutting disk in an angle grinder to sever all the little tabs and remove each individually numbered piece from the sheet.
He sorts all the pieces into stacks of similar pieces such as this pallet with all the Deck/Flooring plates.
Thursday morning, Aug 27th, the real fun begins as they start the kit building process by laying the three bottom hull plates on the floor and tacking the vertical frames in place which starts to pull the hull plates into the exactly correct angles.
To shape the more complex curved bow, we used an Origami boat building technique which our Rhino 3D modeling software makes very easy.  This process begins by creating a 3D model in Rhino (thanks Yigit and Burak!), and you refine the shape of the model using hydrodynamic testing to come up with the Goldilocks or Just Right shapes and angles for the use case the hull will operate within.  Then Rhino3D has a “Flatten” function that creates the paths for curved CNC cuts.

In this photo you can see the first Starboard/Right side hull plate laying flat awaiting the Port/Left plate to join the party.
Captain Christine joins Omer & Uğur to get a sense of the shape and scale of our new Tender.
Aluminium bars are tacked in place to provide temporary attachment points for the chain tackle to pull the curved cuts into contact with each other.
This proceeds in stages, welding the plates where they touch as you work your way forward.
Uğur ‘s keen eye is constantly checking as he pulls the two halves together to ensure that everything stays perfectly aligned as he welds the seam to join the two plates into the finished bow.

To assist with keeping all these compound curves all aligned with each other they have also now tacked the two strake plates to the top outer edges of each hull plate.  This strake helps the water flow both lengthwise and sideways to deflect the bow wave off to the side rather than up the hull and onto those of us aboard.
Similar process is used to now add the next row of hull side plates and pull them into alignment with the lower plates and strakes and tack them in place as the build continues.
View from the top makes it easy to see how this all comes together.
With the Bow end tacked in place Nihat and Uğur clamp the rest of these side hull plates into position and …………
………………… tack them along the whole length of the hull like this.
Looking at the stern from about the waterline level you can see the profile shape of the hull which is what a jet drive boat wants.  Also makes for eXtremely small Draft so we can travel through very shallow waters with no damage to the coral and nature below or to the hull.
Integral fuel tank has three sections, one on each side which flow into the deeper compartment on center in front.  The very front bow compartment will be for storage of things like anchor & chain.
Nihat starts adding in the frames inside each tank and tacking those in place.
First frame of the center console being fitted.  This will have monitors on the upper sloped surface with controls and steering wheel below and double seat aft.  There will also be an acrylic windshield extending above the top of the AL console for added wind and water protection for the pilot.
Port side console frame helps to fill in the overall shape and size of the console which is asymmetrically positioned to extend all the way over to the Starboard/Right side hull at the bottom of this photo and leave a walkway on the opposite Port/left side.
Uğur and Nihat are a great team so the Tender progresses quickly as Nihat tacks the pieces in place and Uğur follows behind doing all the finish welding.
Still lots of jigsaw puzzle pieces to be added!

Omur our student intern from Istanbul Technical Institute helps out by holding this upper coaming plate vertical for Nihat to smooth the curved edges from where they were attached to the CNC cut plat originally.
Console all tacked up as is the framing for the Floor/Deck plates fore and aft of the console and under the seat base.
Just for a test fit right now this inner side plate will wait for the internal welding to be completed before being slid into place and welded to the hull.
Burak kindly plotted some larger scale 2D drawings and shots of the model which Uğur has mounted on this board beside the Tender with Möbius looing on from behind.
25mm / 1” thick AL Engine Bed plates being test fit on either side of the “Engine Room” area aft.
Up near the Bow, Nihat has the one piece top deck plate ready for Uğur to weld in place.  As with the main hull of Möbius slot welding is used to weld AL plate to the frames that are inaccessible underneath.
As we have been doing most weeks, we are working on Saturdays to try to make more progress so this is where the Tender build was at when we finished the day yesterday.
Did I mention that day time temps are running 34-38C / 93-100F?  Add all the heat from the MIG welder and you have three VERY wet Tender Builders!  Uğur takes a well deserved pause to survey the days work and let the air blow over him from one of two big squirrel cage fans we have setup to blow air across the Tender.

I hope you enjoyed this whirlwind tour of the past three days and this photo is how the Tender build looks at quitting time yesterday.  Tune in again next week and I’ll walk you through the rest of the build of the Tender to my Möbius.

DAVIT ARCH BUILD:

Lest you think that the Tender was all that Nihat and Uğur worked on this past week, they also finished building the hinged Davit Arch that we will use to move the Tender On/Off Möbius’ Aft Deck.

This is the first test fitting of the three individual segments that make up the Davit Arch.  Two vertical legs on each side which are bolted to the horizontal cross beam above.
One of the vertical legs on the Upper Left here and the upside down cross beam on the Right.
For added strength these additional 25mm/1” plates will span the connection between the horizontal beam and the short angled pipes that connect this to the vertical Arch legs. 
Uğur quickly has them fully welded with multiple passes of his MIG gun.

The plate spanning the two braces will also provide two addition attachment points for the 6:1 blocks and Dyneema the Tender will be suspended from.
Now time to build the two Hinged Base assemblies where the bottom legs of the Davit Arch connect to the Aft Deck.
Two of these 25mm/1” thick base plates will attach to the Aft Deck and support the large Hinges.  These two triangular vertical plated form the outer sides of the hinge with the 50mm/2” SS hinge pin fastened in between.
Due to the camber of the Aft Deck and the different offset from the boat’s centerline, the two hinges are at different heights above the deck.
These two very thick tubes are the third part of hinge and will be machined to slide between the two vertical triangular pieces above. 
These tubes will be inserted into these large holes in the bottom of each Arch leg where they will captured between the two plates on the Base and rotate on the SS hinge pins that slide through all three parts of the hinge.

Stay tuned for mounting this to the Aft Deck and testing it out in the next week or two.

Mr. Gee Gets All Glossy

With my shortened week I didn’t get as much time to work on Mr. Gee but I was able to do some more painting and clear coating on Saturday including a good clear polyurethane coating of this aluminium beauty.  This is the rarely seen back side of the massive fuel inject pumps and governor assembly that bolts to the Port/Left side of Mr. Gee.
Sorry for the poor lighting but this is the side you see and where all the action happens with the fuel injection system.  The six vertical levers for example are what you pull to prime each cylinder and the high pressure injection pumps are located right behind them.

Burgundy part in the foreground is bolted to the flange above it and pumps engine oil through that massive solid Bronze oil cooler/heat exchanger on the other side of Mr. Gee that you’ve seen me rebuilding in previous postings.

These instructions are cast into the large aluminium Header Tank at the front of Mr. Gee which is like the plastic bottle on your car’s engine where you check and add anti-freeze/water.

I’ve painted these with matching Burgundy and next week I will polish off the tops of the letters to make them a bit easier to read and add a bit more class to Mr. Gee.
Same thing will happen to the instructions cast into this timing chain adjuster lever.

And these cover plates which bolt to the sides of the cylinder heads.

Mr. Gee’s Best Buddy; Nogva CPP

You might think that Captain Christine is “just” the Captain, she was also called up for our all hands on deck work schedule and spent two very hot days cleaning, sanding and masking the Nogva CPP Servo Gearbox that will soon be bolted to the back of Mr. Gee.

Mr. CPP may be small but he is mighty and provides the 2.95:1 gear reduction to Mr. Gee’s already slow spinning crankshaft. 

With a CPP, Controllable Pitch Propeller, we don’t have a transmission per se as we go from forward to reverse by simply changing the pitch angle of the four prop blades.

It is called a Servo because it also houses the hydraulic controls that move the Pitch adjusting rod that runs down the center of the prop shaft where it connects to each prop bladed inside the hub of the prop and rotates the four prop blades in unison to whatever angle of pitch we want.
A VERY cool bit of kit BUT we can’t have his Nogva Red clashing with Mr. Gee’s Gardner Burgundy now can we??  So a new paint job was required and hence the big cleanup and sanding this week. 
Uğur kindly helped move the Nogva to the far corner of the shipyard near where they are building the Tender so I could paint it there with the big shop doors open.
Nogva smartly provided a purpose built lifting eye that is centered on the weight of the CPP so we used that to suspend it from the forklift which made it real easy to paint with no supports in the way.
Christine had done a great job of cleaning and sanding as well as masking off all the rubber hoses, pressure and oil level gauges and al the instruction and labeling plates riveted to the case which made my job of painting him very quick and easy.

At least until THIS creepy single hander guy showed up!

Between us though, we soon had Mr. CPP ** resplendent in his matching Gardner Burgundy coat and ready to be lifted aboard Möbius and bolted up to the anxiously awaiting Mr. Gee next week.

** If anyone has a better suggestion for a name for Mr. Gee’s best buddy and our CPP, please add it below in a comment.

FRIDGE & FREEZER INSTALLATION

If you were with us last week you saw the initial fitting of the two 130L Door style Fridges in their Ro$ewood cabinets on the Left and the two 70L Drawer freezers on the Right.
Monday morning the refrigeration team returned to charge all the compressors with their respective refrigerant; Freezers with R290 and the two Fridges with R134A.  The reason for the different gasses is that the Drawer Freezers are a brand new model from Vitrifrigo and they have changed to using R290 which is a friendlier and more efficient refrigerant than the much older R134A standard in most compressors.  However it is not possible to mix the two or simply change refrigerant so we have to stay with using two different refrigerants.  Not that big a deal just means I need to carry a supply of each onboard to use with my vacuum pump whenever a need to fix and recharge the compressors might happen in the future.
Down in the Basement, directly below the Fridge/Freezer cabinets the four 24V Danfoss/Secop compressors are now fully mounted and recharged.  We ran them for a day and pulled them down to their lowest temperature settings and they all passed with flying colours.  Christine and I can hardly wait to be filling these with provisions when we get ready for our Maiden passage.

SPARKS CONTINUE to FLY ABOARD Möbius

Hilmi our head “Sparkie” aka Electrician was about the only one left of Team Möbius to be working onboard this week but he was his usual busy self and persevered by powering through his still quite lengthy list of electrical jobs needing to be done before we can launch.

Interior Lighting is one of those lists and that is nearing completion as evidenced by all this bright “stars” above the SuperSalon.  Each one is a fully dimmable LED so in addition to having eXtremely low amp draw they also allow us to fully control the amount of light in each space.
Each LED looks the same on the outside for esthetics but they are all different on the inside for their different purposes.  Some such as these task lights in the Galley are bright White and higher Lumens so the Chef always has just the right lighting when working in the Galley.  Other locations of warmer light and lower Lumens to best suit the activities there.
More exciting lighting up in the SkyBridge this week as Hilmi mounted and wired the LED light bars on the “ceiling” up there.  Christine and I are still debating how best to finish off these surfaces of the undersides of the eight solar panels that form the roof/ceiling of the SkyBridge.

Our top priority is to keep a good cool air flow over the undersides of all the solar panels to remove the heat they generate as as heat reduces the efficiency and output of a solar panel to an eXtreme degree.  However we also want this ceiling area to be attractive and in keeping with the style and esthetics of the rest of Möbius so we are pondering different ways to do this.  For now however and to keep things moving forward as fast as possible we will leave this ceiling as is and go with the “industrial’ and fully functional look that is very much in keeping with the exterior of Möbius.
Hilmi has installed these 50mm/2” wire trays down both sides of the center “ridge” extrusion and is also using these to hold the MC4 solar connectors. 
We took the KISS Keep It Safe & Simple and I believe more efficient approach to fusing each solar panel by using these MC4 solar twist lock connectors which also have 15A fuses inside them.  No  extra wiring, no fuse box, easy to access, what’s not to like?
Speaking of Industrial and Fully Functional, Hilmi finished off the installation of these goodies on the inside frame of the big AL hatch into the Forepeak.

The box on the far Left has the plug in for the hand held remote control for the Maxwell Windlass which is hiding under the cardboard box on the Left and this handheld remote will normally be in the holder on the Right.

The large Blue receptacle is where the Forward Shore Power Cord plugs in and the box on the far Right has the requisite RCCB or Residual Current Circuit Breaker.
The traditional marine “Twist & Lock” shore power plugs like this one used in North America are an abysmal design IMHO.
Quite frankly they “spark” great fear in me given how poor their electrical connections between the plug blades and the socket receptacles are.  Poor connections create resistance which creates heat and leads to these plugs literally burning out on almost every boat I know.  I strongly suspect these Twist & Lock shore power plugs cause more boat fires than we will ever know.
In any case they are forbidden on our boat and we instead use these CEE style plugs which have three round solid brass rods. 
For marinas which only have the Twist Lock style we carry adapters like these to adapt our CEE Blue plugs to the Twist Lock style AND these say ON THE DOCK and not on our boat! 
Our 220V @ 32A Shore Power cords plug into the boat at either this plug in inside the Forepeak …………..
…….. Or this one in the Aft end of the Workshop by the WT door from the Swim Platform.

These RCCP Residual Current Circuit Breakers or ELCI Equipment Leakage Circuit Interrupter are now required on all CE/ABYC compliant boats. 
These are very important safety devices which provide whole boat protection similar to what the GFCI circuit breakers you have, or should have, on the 120/220V plugs in bathrooms and kitchens.
We are using Schneider for all our AC electrical equipment and this is the RCCB we are using which must be located immediately after the Shore Power entry into the boat, hence one in the Forepeak and one in the Workshop.
One last round of exciting work from our Sparkie Hilmi is the installation of the ultrasonic Depth/Speed/Temp “triducer”.  This is our last, I hope, open hole (purposeful) on Möbius so we are now fully water tight.  Yeah!!!
The Airmar UDST 800 is a relatively new technology for measuring Depth, speed through the water and sea temperature.

See video at the link above for a quick easy demo.
The eXtremely welcome innovation is that the speed sensor has no moving parts such as the paddlewheels we’ve had to use on all previous boats which last for just hours sometimes before they foul with marine growth and stop working.

By using an Ultrasonic sensor the UDST 800 has just a smooth glass surface in the water which will rarely foul and is easily cleaned ever few months with a quick wipe.
I chose the location for this forward depth transducer, we have a much more powerful and bottom discriminating sensor Aft, so that it would be inside this otherwise unused integral tank.  If you peer down into the open access hatch (click to enlarge) you an see the AL pipe welded into the bottom hull plated and now the Black plastic outer housing is in place where the UDST 800 will be inserted from up here inside the Forepeak.

Why here?  Well, if we should ever have a serious grounding of the bow or a collision that managed to clean off the flush transducer, however unlikely, it means that the most water we can take on is what would fill this relatively small WT compartment.
Close up of the plastic housing with its very clever self closing flapper valve which allows you to pull the transducer up and out while still in the water and it will close off the gusher of water wanting to pour in while you push the blanking plug in place while you clean or maintain the UDST 800 at your leisure inside the Forepeak.

GALLEY CABINETRY

We were very disappointed and saddened to find out while I was in the hospital that Omur, who has been our Lead Cabinetmaker for the entire interior build on Möbius the past two years, is no longer working at Naval.  However his craftsmanship lives on and before he left he was able to finish off the matching Rosewood drawer and door fronts in the Galley such as this bank of drawers on the peninsula by the Entryway door.
Even surrounded by all the protective covering you can get a sense of the quality of Ömür’s work and how he prided himself in always being able to find the Goldilocks Just Right combination of matching grain patterns.
I have learned in my short life so far that it is the little things in life that often make the big differences and these beautiful solid SS latches is one of my favorite examples onboard Möbius.
Richard, one of our faithful followers, was instrumental in helping me track down the producer of these lovely latches that I had seen several years previous but could not find again.

Trying out a test mount in a scrap of plywood, you can see the nice big solid SS latch hook on the inside.
On the upper inside framing around each drawer the matching SS latch plate could not be simpler or easier to install like this.
Here is how they look when mounted in our drawers.

To operate you just hook your finger under the lower edge,
Gently lift up against the built in spring pressure to release the latch and the drawer slides out effortlessly on the SS ball bearing Blum drawer slides hidden away below the drawer bottom.
When you have gotten what you needed out of the drawer a gentle push slides the drawer back into its closed position with the automatic soft close feature of these Blum drawer slides and the drawer is again solidly latched in place.  No forgetting to lock them before you head out to sea or some passing boat’s bow wave sets you rockin’ and the drawers all slide out.

More features we can’t wait to start living with aboard the Good Ship Möbius.
And with that, I shall bid you adieu for this week and go rest my still somewhat tender little body for the rest of this Sunday evening.  I go back to the hospital tomorrow morning for a checkup and to remove the bandages and then I should be all good to go and be fully recharged and ready for the final push to finish Möbius and get her launched ASAP.

Thanks for coming along for the ride this week and hope to see you here again next.  As always PLEASE put in your comments, questions and suggestions in the “Join the Discussion” box below and add any feedback that will help me improve these weekly Progress Updates and make them more valuable and fun for you to receive.

Thanks!

-Wayne