Scandinavian American. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1945-1958, 1949-09-13
DANISH SHIPBUILDINC
From Viking Ship to Diesel Engine

Fulton submitted to a sceptical
world his famous paddle-steamer
"Clermont," the first ship to move
by steam power. A good deal hap
pened in that century. In the 183Os
appeared the ships screw and in
the same period, in England, the
first iron ships were built. 1t was
in 1919 that the first paddle
steamer came into Danish owner
ship. It was, of course, a wooden
ship, and as its name, Caledonia
suggests, it was built in Scotland.
In 1880, the first steamship, the
"Frederik VIZ, wooden paddle
steamer, was built at a Danish
yard, though the engine, of 80 h. p,
had to be ordered in Britain. The
first marine steam engine to be
built in Denmark was delivered in
1S47 by the firm of Baumgarten
and Burmeister Qater Burmeister
and Wain). The first iron ship was
built by the same firm in 1857
and was fitted with 40 hip. steam
engine. Then began the building
of iron ships and ships engines,
one after the other, and by 1900
Burmeister and Vain had delivered
$50 ships. It is worth mentioning
as curiosity that small paddle
steamer, "Hjejlen', built by Ber-
meister and Vain in 1862 for pas
senger traffic on the lakes at Silke
borg, in Jutland, is in service this
very day as the oldest existing
Danish-built steamship.
By the end of the century there
were three Danish steel ship yards
operating. 1t was a feather in the
cap of Danish shipbuilding when
Burmeister and Vain, at the end of
1905, built the famous Russian
Imperial yacht the standard, at
that time the finest thing yet pro-
duced by shipbuilding anywhere.
Several new steel ship building
yards appeared in Denmark before
and during the first World War;
some of them disappeared during
subsequent periods of depression,
but the seven large yards that re-
manned in 1927 all continue to
flourish.
The date which was to play the
biggest part in modern Danish
shipbuilding was February IS, 1912,
when the first large sea-going ship
driven by diesel engines went on
trials f + o m the Burmeister and
Vain yard in Copenhagen. The
ship was the "Selandia", built for
the East Asiatic Company, of Co
penhagen. She was of 1864 gross
registered tons and had two B & w
diesel engines developing together
$500 i. h. p. The ship stood the
test, and under the eyes of the
world completed her maiden voy-
age to Bangkok and back. Thirty
years later she was still in COM
mission with the original engines.
What the East Asiatic Company's
great head and founder H. N. An
dersen, and the gifted engineer
Ivar Knudsen, managing director
of Burmeister and Vain, had start
ed together was to prove fantas-
tic development in world shipping,
and it gave Danish ship-and en-
gine-building a vigorous impetus.
setting in motion a force which to-
day, 81 years after, has not ceased.
Not the least important cause of
this is the triumphal development
of the B & w engine. Shipowners
the world over, not least in Scan
dinavia, quickly realized the supe-
riority of the diesel engine over
the steam engine in regard to GER
tain sizes and types of both cargo
and passenger ships. By 1885
years after the "Selandia's" maiden
voyage-the amount of diesel ton
mage in Denmark had exceeded
that of steam tonnage, and the
latest shipbuilding figures show
that in the world as a whole more
than twice as many motor ships as
steam ships are now under con-
struction. If we compare the total
tonnage OF the two categories the
difference is not quite so great be-
cause the biggest shiDS are still