MAX OERTZ / Kramer

Max Oertz Regatta in Neustadt, Max Oertz Cup in Berlin, Oertz Yachts, Max Oertz ... - the name is on every sailor's tongue, but only very few really know the object of their admiration - the real genius concealed behind the name.
This book by Klaus Kramer is the first to truly appreciate the multifaceted life's work of the greatest German yacht builder, aircraft builder and inventor.
The shipbuilding engineer born in Neustadt/Holstein and raised in Berlin became world famous through his large schooners METEOR IV and V and GERMANIA, which he built for Kaiser Wilhelm II and Gustav Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach.
In addition, his yard at Reiherstieg in Hamburg built more than 450 ships and yachts.
Many of his form-perfect achievements have been described in the history of yachting.

Yet yacht building was only one part of Max Oertz's achievements. Even very early in his career, he had patents for his various inventions. For yachts he developed, among other things, deck winches and for rowing, racing straps. He also developed an extremely light building method for boat building. For the army and marines he made a self-stabilizing captive balloon and much more. In 1909, just a few weeks after the Wright brothers first flight, Max Oertz caused a sensation as the builder of his own motor-powered airplane. Two years later he built the first aerodynamic and closed fuselage.
His hydroplanes for the Kaiser's marines were the first flying boats with inherently stable bodies.
Because of his large contribution to aircraft building, Max Oertz was awarded the title Dr.-Ing. h.c. from Darmstadt University in 1918. After the first World War, Oertz built quick high-seas fishing cutters and beachable boats for the coastal fishermen. He developed the Oertz otter trawl, which is standard today in the net fishing industry.
The inventor revolutionized the shipping industry through the so called Oertz rudder. It had a far higher efficiency than all known rudders at the time, sparing up to 15 percent of the required energy and allowing the ship to travel at higher speeds. With the help of the Oertz rudder the two large steamers of the Norddeutschen Lloyd company, BREMEN and EUROPA, were able to break the transatlantic record set by the British MAURETANIA and win the blue ribbon for Germany.

Because of the large number of recently released documentary photos, this book is able to give a detailed overview of the diverse life's work of this genius of the German yacht-, airplane- and shipbuilding history.

74 pages, format 21 x 25 cm, 78 never-before-seen pictures, brochure, stapled.

German edition.