Dieter König (motorboat athlete)

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Dieter König 1985

Dieter König (born May 19, 1931 in Berlin ; † August 17, 1991 ibid) was a designer of racing boat engines and a motor boat racing driver.

Life

His father Rudolf König founded König Motorenbau in Berlin in 1927 . The first engines sold were self-developed side motors for small boats. His son Peter became a successful racing driver. He was unable to keep the company after Dieter König's death.

Dieter König learned engine construction from his father. In 1950 he won his first motorboat race with the 500 cc three - cylinder radial engine , and in 1955 his first European championship. In 1956 he took part in a motorboat world championship in the USA. He was the fastest, but because a stamp was missing from the acceptance test, he was disqualified.

After that he shifted more to the design and construction of outboard motors. With touring engines he was not successful against the industrial production of American companies, but his racing engines won one victory after the other. Around 120 world championship titles and over 180 European championship titles - mainly in the displacement classes 250, 350, 500 and 700 cm³ - were won with König engines. König boat engines were also successful in motorcycles: Rolf Steinhausen / Sepp Huber won the world championship with a Busch-König team in 1975 and 1976.

In 1958 he took off from Berlin's Wannsee with a self-constructed gyroplane on a 75 meter long tow rope . Dieter König designed aircraft engines such as the three-cylinder two-stroke star engine SC 430. He had an accident on August 16, 1991 during a test flight with the ultralight aircraft "Quicksilver" and succumbed to his injuries a day later.

Sporting successes

  • 1955 European champion class OC in Starnberg
  • 1955 world record class OC with 118.48 km / h (flying kilometers)
  • 1957 European champion class OB in Hanover on the Maschsee
  • 1958 European Champion class OC in Liège , (BEL)
  • 1960 European champion class OC: Series with races in Gavirate, ITA and Dessau , GDR
  • 1964 World Champion class OC in Traben-Trarbach on the Moselle
  • 1964 world record class OD with 171.88 km / h (flying kilometer)
  • 1966 European champion class C-floor in Berlin-Tegel
  • 1966 German master class C-pole
  • 1968 European champion class CU in Makarska , CRO
  • 1968 European champion class EU in Palamós , ESP
  • 1969 European champion class EU in Famagusta , CYP
  • 1977 world record class OB with 158.21 km / h (flying kilometer)

O classes = racing boats with outboard motors: OB up to 350 cm³, OC up to 500 cm³, OD up to 700 cm³
C-Stock = like OC, but engine with normal gasoline, U-classes = sport boats with series engines: CU up to 500 cm³, EU up to 850 cm³,

Special honors

  • 1957 John Ward Trophy
  • 1961 John Ward Trophy
  • 1963 John Ward Trophy
  • 1965 Silver bay leaf as the first German motorboat racer

The John Ward Trophy was donated in 1925 by the first Secretary General of the UIM and is comparable to a world championship in the 500 cc racing boat class.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Unknown in: Die Yacht (Berlin), Heft 10, 1950, p. 241
  2. ↑ Helmut Hütten: Schnelle Motoren ( ISBN 3-87943-974-5 ), Motorbuch Verlag (Stuttgart), p. 363
  3. ↑ Dieter König † . In: aerokurier . No. 10 , 1991, pp. 80 .
  4. ↑ Kevin Desmond: A century of outboard racing ( ISBN 0-7603-1047-5 ), MBI Publishing Company , Osceola (USA), 2001, p. 115
  5. ↑ Unknown in: Die Yacht (Berlin), Heft 9, 1957, p. 220
  6. ↑ Unknown in: Die Yacht (Berlin), Heft 22, 1961, p. 946
personal data
SURNAME King, Dieter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engine builder and boat racer
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 17th August 1991
Place of death Berlin