Max Oertz
Max Johannes Heinrich Oertz (born April 20, 1871 in Neustadt in Holstein , † November 24, 1929 in Hamburg ) is one of the great German yacht designers . He had a decisive influence on German yacht building at the beginning of the 20th century.
Life
Max Oertz grew up in his hometown Neustadt / Holst. on. At the age of five he lost both parents and grew up in a foster family in Berlin. After graduating from high school, Oertz studied boatbuilding and shipbuilding at the Royal Technical University in Charlottenburg . The love for shipping brought with him from Neustadt led him to the Academic Sailing Association (ASV) in Berlin. Both shipbuilding and sailing determined his life from then on.
After completing his studies, he first worked as a senior designer on Blekholmens-Varf in Helsingfors (now Helsinki). Then he built a yacht yard in St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg he developed the so-called seam frame construction for the construction of light racing yachts.
In 1895, when he returned to Berlin, Max Oertz constructed the first experimental racing yacht Luna made entirely of aluminum for the Berlin banker Barthold Arons .
Oertz 'yachts were famous for their speed and elegance, without neglecting the comfort on board. Oertz was a passionate perfectionist who kept an eye on every detail of a yacht construction. So it was only logical that he wanted to build the yachts in his own shipyard. In 1895 Max Oertz and his friend Hans Harder took over the Dreyer shipyard on Reiherstieg in Hamburg and continued it under the name Oertz & Harder . From 1902 the shipyard was continued by Max Oertz as the sole owner.
Max Oertz achieved his big breakthrough with the design and construction of the large schooner yacht Germania , which Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach commissioned from him in 1907. “German from the keel to the flag button ” the yacht became a symbol that the local shipbuilding industry had finally succeeded in catching up with the leading industrial nations of the time - especially England. Except for the masts made from US Oregon pine, all material, even the cotton sails, was sourced from Germany. In 1909, according to Oertz's plans for Kaiser Wilhelm II, the 47.14 m LüA racing schooner Meteor IV was built , followed in 1914 by the Meteor V for Wilhelm II , both built at the Krupp Germania shipyard in Kiel .
A total of 450 yachts and boats were running on the shipyard at Hamburg Reiherstieg from the stack . There were also during the First World War , the speedboats LM 5 , LM 6 , LM 14-16 and LM 27-30 (fast motor boat with L uftschiff- M otor) and the small submarine destroyer UZ 9 and IP 10 for the Imperial Navy .
But Oertz not only constructed successful sailing or motor yachts and fast motor boats. His constructions also included airplanes and self-stabilizing tethered balloons . For the zeppelin , Oertz constructed a so-called scouting basket that could be roped down on a long rope to below the cloud cover from the military airship moving above the clouds . Similar to his American colleague Starling Burgess , Oertz was also interested in aviation.
As early as 1909 he designed his first powered aircraft, and in 1911 the first closed aerodynamic fuselage. Max Oertz constructed several flying boats for the Navy and maintained his own airfield in Schneverdingen for test flights . Most of the known aircraft were flying boats, of which the Oertz W6 flight schooner was particularly noticeable, a tandem double-decker with an additional conventional horizontal stabilizer and double rudder. The two Maybach motors were housed in the elegant hull of the boat and drove the propellers via long-distance shafts.
In 1918 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering (Dr. Ing.hc ) by the Technical University of Darmstadt for his services to aviation .
After the war, Oertz first built fishing boats and, at the same time, revolutionized trawling by using curved otter boards, which fan out the nets significantly with the same drag force - the Oertz otter boards are still standard in fishing today.
In 1922 Oertz withdrew from the shipyard, which had since been sold, and worked as a freelance designer.
Max Oertz made numerous significant developments beyond yacht construction and held numerous patents. Mention should be made of the Oertz rudder , developed for large-scale shipping , which causes up to 15 percent less resistance with 40% savings in rudder force and reduces the turning circle of a ship. Not least with the help of the Oertz rudder, the four-screw turbine steamer of the North German Lloyd Bremen was able to break the transatlantic record of the British Mauretania in four days, 17 hours and 42 minutes on its maiden voyage in 1929 and win the Blue Ribbon for Germany (average speed 27.83 Knot ). In March 1930, the sister ship Europa was able to undercut the record, only to return it to the Bremen in 1933 after an engine conversion. After these spectacular successes, the Oertz'sche Patentruder was not only to establish itself in large shipping within a few years, it was also used to control torpedoes , submarines and cargo-carrying sailing ships (for the first time on the training ship Germany , built in 1927).
From 1926, Max Oertz also dealt with the aerodynamically shaped chimney for large seagoing ships. With a chimney cladding with a teardrop-shaped floor plan, Oertz achieved a clean smoke outlet without the turbulence on the back of the chimney that was customary up to that time. This enabled the ship's chimneys to be made much lower.
On November 24, 1929, Max Oertz died in Hamburg of the consequences of a heart attack .
Famous yachts
The schooner yacht Germania , built at the Germania shipyard for Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach , was completed in 1908. It was the first racing yacht of this size designed and built in Germany. As she also sailed successfully, Max Oertz received important follow-up orders. For the first time, the German Emperor Wilhelm II , who was enthusiastic about sailing, had his yachts developed by a German designer - Meteor IV (1908) and Meteor V (1913).
Numerous special class yachts were drawn by Max Oertz. Kaiser Wilhelm commissioned the special classes Samoa I to III from Max Oertz . Angela I to IV were created for the German crown prince . Oertz special classes Wannsee I to IX, which he built for and on behalf of the Berlin association Seglerhaus am Wannsee , became famous . They were sailed from victory to victory by the most successful German sailor Otto Protzen . A good third of the special classes that exist today can be traced back to Max Oertz. The oldest still preserved Oertz special class (S OE 1) dates from 1904.
Other yacht constructions (a selection):
- Sea cruiser 150 KR Prosit III (1918)
- Sword Flounder Dora (1894)
- Racing yacht Marina (1894)
- Racing yacht Navigare necesse est (1894)
- Aluminum racing yacht Luna (1895)
- Racing and cruising yacht Prosit (1898) of the Academic Sailing Association in Berlin.
- Schooner Margola (1898)
- Racing yacht Klein Polly (1899). As the first German yacht to successfully take part in regattas in France.
- Racing yacht Polly (1900)
- IIB cruiser yacht Carola (1905)
- Sailing yacht Skidbladnir (1905)
- Felca racing yacht (1906). Winner in the international race for the Cup of France 1906
- 12mR sword yacht Davo II (1911)
- Motor cruiser Roland (1910)
- 12mR-Yacht Heti (1912) for the Lübeck entrepreneur and chairman of the LYC Hermann Eschenburg
- 19mR-Yacht Cäcilie (1913)
- 8mR-Yacht Stint (1914)
- several fast submarine destroyers, LM boats, torpedo motor boats and shallow mine clearing boats for the Imperial Navy (1916–1917)
- Eight Oertz fishing trawlers for the Cordes & Peters shipping company, Lübeck. In 1925, Holstentor HH 177 became the Hamburg cutter , with which Carl Kircheiß sailed the world
- Schooner yacht Aello (1922) for Egypt
- Camalote twin-screw motor yacht (1922) for an Argentine banker
- Racing cruiser Marianne (1925) for Franz Brinkmann
- Ketsch Senta (1928) for the shipyard board member at Deutsche Werke, owned by the Schmidt family, Bremen, since 1931, converted into a spreader ketch at A&R in 1935 .
meaning
Max Oertz was the first world-class German yacht designer. On the threshold of the 20th century, he succeeded in developing yachts that were both fast and beautiful. This made Oertz a pioneer for a number of other German yacht designers such as Wilhelm von Hacht , Henry Rasmussen and Fritz Naglo .
In Neustadt in Holstein the place every year in memory and the memory of him Max Oertz regatta of the Friends for classic yachts.
The Academic Sailing Association in Berlin also organizes a Max Oertz regatta every year in honor of its deceased member after its foundation festival , which is one of the largest regattas in Berlin.
literature
- Klaus Kramer, Dr.-Ing. hc Max Oertz - genius, yacht designer, aeronaut and inventor . Klaus Kramer Verlag Aichhalden, ISBN 3-9805874-3-6 .
- The Oertz rudder . Yacht 1929, issue 11, p. 10 ff
- Christian Ostersehlte: Oertz, Max . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 6 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4 , p. 233-234 .
Sources and Notes
- ↑ Yachtsport Archive: History of the Oertz & Harder shipyard . Retrieved January 17, 2009.
- ↑ Svante Domizlaff, Alexander Rost: Germania - Die Yachten des Haus Krupp , p. 47ff
- ↑ Klaus Kramer: Max Oertz - genius, yacht designer, aeronaut and inventor , p. 61ff
- ↑ Klaus Kramer: Max Oertz - genius, yacht designer, aeronaut and inventor , p. 69ff
- ↑ http://www.heti-12mr.de/
Web links
- Literature by and about Max Oertz in the catalog of the German National Library
- Yacht sport archive: Max Oertz
- Yacht sport archive: Oertz shipyard
- Max Oertz Regatta in Neustadt
- Pictures of the Max Oertz Regatta in Neustadt
- Pictures of Prosit IV (identical to Prosit III)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Oertz, Max |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Oertz, Max Johannes Heinrich (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German yacht designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 20, 1871 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Neustadt in Holstein |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 24, 1929 |
| Place of death | Hamburg |