The Future of the Motor Ship

Abstract

THE introduction of the “Otto” cycle for gas engines by Nicolas August Otto in 1876, the construction of the compact light spirit engine by Gottlieb Daimler in 1884, and the publication of his memoir, “The Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat Motor,” by Rudolf Diesel in 1893, are three of the landmarks in the history of the internal combustion engine. The first led to a great extension in the use of gas-engines, the second paved the way for the motor car and aeroplane engine, while Diesel's work gave us the most efficient of modern heat engines. Just as the petrol-engine has revolutionised transport by road, so the Diesel engine bids fair to revolutionise transport by sea. Otto died in 1891, Daimler in 1900, and Diesel was drowned in the North Sea in 1913, but each lived long enough to see his work bearing good fruit.