Speaker: John Dobson, Maritime Historian
This presentation covers the time that Karl Otto Keller (1877 to 1942), a Swiss national, was Chief Designer at W Doxford and Sons Ltd. at Sunderland on the North-East coast of England. Keller was the designer/inventor of a very successful opposed piston internal combustion engine, and over two decades in the interwar period successfully developed and built a range of these revolutionary diesel engines for Doxford’s, then a major shipbuilder on the River Wear.
The typical most basic requirements of ship owners, then and now, is for a ship to carry a certain deadweight of cargo at a particular speed, resulting in an installed power. Being presented with this required horsepower, Keller built an engine to suit by varying the size of the cylinders – an odd but a very confident approach – and typically through a single screw. His contemporary engine builders, for example Harland and Wolff Ltd who typically built for Bank Line with a Burmeister and Wain licence, Scott’s Shipbuilding and Engineering Co Ltd who typically built for Blue Funnel with their Still engine, and Barclay, Curle and Co Ltd who typically built for British India with their North British Diesel, were producing similar ships but with twin screw and engines with a standard cylinder size.
