Christine and I can’t wait for our SIC membership in the Self Isolation Club to expire this Sunday night (March 30) so I can get back to Naval Yachts on Monday morning. 

Our sincere thanks to all of you who have been inquiring about or status and situation and for those who didn’t know, we had gone over to London to celebrated Christine’s B’day two weeks ago and so when we returned to Antalya, we joined this not so exclusive SIC for the next 14 days.  We continue to be eXtremely grateful to be together and for being in what so far seems to be one of the better locations in the world and we continue to be in great health and spirits.  While they have started to rise, the case and death numbers from Covid 19 in Turkey remain relatively low which we hope will continue.  We are additionally fortunate in that Turkey and where we are in Antalya also has a very modern and extensive medical system staffed by world class health care professionals which hopefully bodes well for Turkey to be able to deal with the onslaught better than many other countries.

I am also delighted to report that everyone at Naval Yachts and on Team Möbius is also doing very well and continuing to make great progress as we all focus on these final stages of the build.  Through it all Yigit and Hakan continue to find time to take pictures and get those to me and enable me to share them here with you so let’s get right to them.

MASTER CABIN

We’ll start this week’s tour up in the Master Cabin so you can see our very own Stairway to Heaven, aka the SuperSalon, now that the team has fit the Rosewood stair risers and first layer of the treads.

Here’s the view from the top of these stairs with the arm of the Settee in the lower Right corner and the roughed in Header over the doorway and under the windowsill on the Right.
Back down inside the Master Cabin on top of the bed, Şevki is getting ready to fit this overhead AirCon and heating plenum.
Which he now has propped up in place here.

The ducting for this plenum runs up behind the white wall grid from the Air Handler which is hidden away in the cabinet below the prop stick.
Here’s a peek behind the wall at a section of the ducting.  With all the wall panels being snapped in place with FastMount clips it is easy to access this and all other areas behind walls and ceilings which makes future maintenance and repair SO much easier.
With their lids removed to show inside the cabinets on the Port side of the Master Bed you can now see the Air Handler all setup inside the aft cabinet. 

The cabinet on the bottom is for storage.
It is a 12k BTU Webasto BlueCool air handler that can have either Chilled or Hot water sent to its heat exchanger and serve as either an Air Conditioner in the tropics or hot air system in cooler climates.  We will use the In-Floor heating mostly though for colder situations but great to have this option whenever a quick warm up is needed.
Looking up above the bed area, the rough ceiling panels have been snapped into their FastMount clips.
Looking through what will the the etched glass corner walls of the Master Shower in the foreground here, this will give you a better overview of the bed on the Left, stairs up to the storage cupboard and Air Handler in the bottom Right and then some of the Leather covered wall panels snapped in place with the slotted ceiling vent box up in the corner.

MASTER HEAD & SHOWER

As you can see, Faruk and Osma have also been making good progress and doing beautiful work as they finish putting in the fully sealed interior of all the walls, floor and ceiling of the Master Head & Shower.

Shower is on the bottom here with its handy built in seat on the Left.
The sink will sit atop the bottom end of the countertop on the Left here that runs the full length of the wall back alongside the Head/toilet which sets atop that black ring flange on the raised platform in the rear.

The fittings in the far wall are for the Hot water in/out of the towel warming rack which Christine has always dreamed of.
The fully glassed framing for the Medicine Cabinet awaits its turn to be installed on the wall in front of the two rectangular access ports you see in the photos above and will have two mirrored doors with shelves inside for the usual toiletry supplies.

MAIN HELM

The Main Helm received a lot of attention from Omur and Selim this past week so let’s go up that Stairway to Heaven from the Master Cabin and check out the progress up in the SuperSalon.

We are looking forward at the Port/Left corner of the SuperSalon where the Main Helm stretches from side to side at the front. 

The pair of 70L Drawer Freezers can be seen in the bottom Left corner with the big 50” screen recessed into the angled corner and then the Main Helm going across.
This triangular area on the Port side of the Main Helm will have a Black leather covered hinged top providing access to this deep and voluminous area underneath which is created by the dropped ceiling box above the Bed in the Master Cabin below.
There is a matching triangular spot on the opposite side that is a bit less deep with the doorway into the Master Cabin below it but still has lots of volume for storing paper charts, electronic devices, etc..
There will be a sloped dashboard in the center Main Helm area seen here with two 19” daylight readable touch screens just below the window.

Stairway down to the Master Cabin is safely protected by the angled wall on the Right of the Helm and the end of the Settee on the far Right.
Our Blue Horizon Line BHL continues to be installed throughout the interior.
Such as here on the front Port corner that Omur is working on.

Even newer this week though is that Omur has started to install the window sills that run around the entire perimeter of the 360 degree negatively raked glass windows of the SuperSalon.

All the window sills surrounding the Main Helm will be covered with Black Leather to reduce reflections at night as will all the vertical window mullions and the ceiling panels.

We do a lot of night passages and maximizing night vision has been a top design criteria from the beginning.
These are the window sills being fitted on the opposite Starboard side of the Main Helm and behind the Settee.
More BHL going across the Main Helm.

But WAIT!!!

What is this new bit of kit we see for the first time?
Well, an eXtremely great Main Helm needs and eXtremely great Helm Chair right?

The chair has been moved to its furthest forward position on the slider and that piece of 10mm / 3/8” thick bit of plywood used to keep the edge of the footrest from touching the Helm wall.
You may remember seeing these fabulous Llebroc Helm Chairs when Captain Christine was unboxing them when they first arrived about a month ago.  She was also checking out the colour match between the chair’s ultra leather and the test strip of the Blue Horizon Line.

This week the team brought the chairs aboard to layout the exact location for mounting their bases.
With the chair in the right fore/aft position it was then carefully centered so Uğur, with his head just visible at the bottom here, along with Yigit, carefully marked the position of the bolt hole pattern in chair’s adjustable pedestal base.  
Next up they will fabricate the mounting block to attach it very solidly through the floor.
This is the Helm Chair that will be in the upper SkyBridge Helm hence the slightly different Blue colour. 

Armrests fold up and seat back reclines.  The black squeeze bulb connects to the air bladder lumbar support which my back REALLY enjoys!

This shot shows one of the many top features motivating us to chose these Llebroc chairs with their incredibly thick and sturdy all aluminium construction which we had them powder coat in White which makes them easy to keep clean and looking this great for their many years of use.
The pedestals have 18” of vertical air lift adjustment and the bases can be swiveled 360 degrees and can slide about 200mm / 8” foreword and aft to give you just the right position.

You will be seeing more of both these Helm Chairs as they get installed in the coming weeks.
Leaving the SuperSalon with this overall perspective from back in the Galley area you can see how this is all shaping up very nicely.

Mr. Maxwell I Presume???

One of the other New Arrivals you may recall seeing last month is our shiny new and eXtremely powerful Maxwell VWC 4000 Windlass.

We typically average several hundred nights on anchor each year so this is one of the more critical bits of kit onboard Möbius for getting our 110kg/242lb Rocna anchor along with its 100m/330ft of 13mm DIN766 G40 chain down and back up.

Our lives and that of the boat quite literally depend upon every component of our anchoring system performing at the top of their game EVERY time so a lot of attention has gone into selecting and now mounting it all.

The Maxwell anchor on our previous steel sailboat was  quite a bit smaller but it performed like a champ for over 25 years and I only did one rebuild with new brushes and bearings.  So we again chose Maxwell and upped the size and capacity several fold.

The VWC stands for Vertical Windlass with Capstan which is the grooved SS wheel on top which enables us to also use the Windlass for bringing large dock lines and ropes aboard.
Before mounting, the Gypsy which Mesut on the Left has in hand, needs to be installed with the friction clutches. 
The Gypsy needs to be ordered separately to be an exact match with the specific size and type of anchor chain on each boat so I had previously double checked that our 13mm / 1/2” DIN766 G4 chain matched up with the Gypsy Maxwell had sent and it fit like a glove.
Next task was to position the Windlass in just the right spot on on the Anchor Deck.  The AL deck plate all along the anchor chain’s path from the Anchor roller assembly to aft end of the Anchor Deck was cut from 15mm / 5/8” thick AL as part of the original cut files and along with some additional stringers below to provide an eXtremely strong base to mount the Windlass to and to deal with the tremendous forces it can sometimes take on.
Seen from the opposite direction looking forward this is where the Windlass will mount. 
Prior to all this Yigit updated the 3D model of the bow area and the Windlass so he could precisely locate the mounting base in the just right spot. 

The Goldilocks just right position of the Windlass involves getting it just right above deck for the chain and anchor and also below deck where the chain drops into the Black round chain bin you see outlined in this drawing.  The Green lines outline is that 15mm plate I mentioned above and the Red lines are the below deck stringers.  Black circle is the Chain Bin and the Yellow in the center is the Maxwell Windlass base.  The chain pipe there the anchor chain goes through the deck is at the Left narrow end of the Yellow base which Yigit has positioned to be directly overtop of the center of the Chain Bin.

While they were working up on the Bow Anchor Deck, Uğur and Nihat also worked on mounting the Lewmar EST65 EVO winch.  Last week you they had built this eXtremely strong platform for this winch out of the same 15mm thick plate and now they have drilled the holes in the plate where the mounting studs go through to the motor assembly below.

Stay tuned for next week’s Progress Update when both of the Windlass and the Winch are being installed.

AFT DECK VENT BOXES:

Uğur and Nihat continued their work putting in the doors and Mist Eliminators on the two Vent Boxes on the Aft Deck.

The upper Left frame is the Mist Eliminator or Moisture Eliminator as they are sometimes referred, for the Supply Air going into the Engine Room duct below.

Slotted door in the bottom Right is for the air extraction fan that is inside for areas such as the Guest Shower below.

The top of this Vent Box will sealed off with a welded on 5mm plate and then covered wtih some of our aquamarine marble for the finished countertop in what will serve as our Outdoor Galley.
We are using Mist Eliminators to remove most of the salt water droplets in the air and also control the ingress of any sea water that might possibly make it up to this height in severely big seas.  This set of carefully calculated vanes causes liquid drops or streams to be removed and drained out the bottom leaving the air to flow through.
This is what the Mist Eliminator mechanism looks like on the inside of the Vent Box with the rectangular AL duct running all the way down to almost floor level in the Engine Room.  This helps to create natural passive ventilation of the ER by bringing the cold outside air down to the bottom and then extracting the warmer air out the ceiling on the opposite side.
They also installed the Mist Eliminator on this spot in front of the SkyBridge where all the fresh air is funneled under the hinged frame of the three front solar panels you’ve seen being installed a few weeks ago.
The Vent Box on the other Stbd side of the Aft Deck is where the air is extracted from the ER, Workshop and Guest Cabin.  This compartment is for the Engine Room air extraction.  The thin AL frame on the Left has large axial fan inside and the larger galvanized box on the Right holds the Fire Damper.
These automatically controlled Fire Dampers perform the critical safety function of closing off their louvered vanes to help starve an Engine Room fire of oxygen by preventing air from being able to flow into the ER.

This is part of a larger automated fire extinguishing system for the ER that you will see being installed in the coming weeks.

While I wasn’t able to get any pictures of their work, Hilmi and Cihan continued to make good progress with the Electrical and Plumbing work they do and I will be able to bring you up to speed on all their work when I am aboard Möbius next week.

Please keep yourself and your family safe, healthy and happy as we all ride out this latest “storm” in the world and trust that “This too shall pass” and we can get to our new normal as soon as possible.

See you here again nest week and as always we sincerely appreciate and value all your comments, questions and suggestions so please keep putting those in the “Join the Discussion” box below.

-Wayne