After Frédéric Charles Dyckhoff founded the Société Française des Moteurs R. Diesel with Rudolf Diesel in 1897 , he equipped the first ship with a diesel engine in 1903. The existing Péniche Petit Pierre , built for operation on the Rhine-Marne Canal, was 38.5 meters long, almost five meters wide and had a load-bearing capacity of 265 tons. The inland barge received a single-cylinder four-stroke opposed piston engine from Dyckhoff with a bore of 210 mm, a stroke of 300 mm, which results in a displacement of 20.8 liters, according to other sources, a two-cylinder opposed piston engine with a bore of 210 mm, a stroke of 250 mm and a displacement of 16.6 liters (which contradicts itself), according to yet another source a three-cylinder four-stroke engine .
At a speed of 360 rpm, the engine developed between 18 and 22 kW (25 and 30 hp), which was transferred to a controllable pitch propeller . The first test run took place in September 1903 and on October 25th the inland motor ship carried out its maiden voyage with Rudolf Diesel on board.
literature
Johannes Bähr, Ralf Banken, Thomas Flemming: The MAN: A German Industrial History, Verlag CH Beck, 2009, ISBN 3406577628
