Josef Ressel

Josef Ressel

Joseph Ludwig Franz Ressel (Czech: Josef Ludvík František Ressel; 29 June 1793 - 9 October 1857) was a Czech-Austrian forest warden who designed a ship's propeller.

Ressel was born in the Austrian monarchy in Chrudim, Bohemia. His father was a German native speaker, while his mother's mothertongue was Czech. After studying in Linz (Gymnasium), České Budějovice (artillery school) and Vienna (university) he worked for the Austrian government as a forest engineer in the more southern parts of the monarchy, including in Motovun, Istria (modern-day Croatia). His work was to secure a supply of quality wood for Austro - Hungarian Navy.He worked in Landstrass (Kostanjevica on the Krka river in Carniola in modern-day Slovenia), where he tested his ship propellers for the first time. In 1821 he was transferred to Trieste (modern-day Italy), the biggest port of the Austrian Empire where his tests were successful. He was awarded a propeller patent in 1827. He modified a steam-powered boat Civetta by 1829 and test-drove it in the Trieste harbor at six knots before the steam conduits exploded. Because of this misfortune, the police banned further testing. The explosion was not caused by the tested propeller as many believed at the time.

As early as 1804, the American John Fitch is credited with a screw propeller, which was unsuccessful. In 1836, the Englishman Francis Pettit Smith tested a screw propeller similar to Ressel's. The first transatlantic journey of a ship powered by a screw-propeller was by S.S."Great Britain" in 1845. Propeller design stabilized in the 1880s.

Besides having been called "the inventor of the propeller", he was also called the inventor of the steamship and a monument to him in a park in Vienna commemorates him as “the one and only inventor of the screw propeller and steam shipping”.

Among other Ressel's inventions are pneumatic post and ball and cylinder bearings. He was granted numerous patents during his life.

He died in Ljubljana, and was buried in the St. Christopher Cemetery in the Bežigrad district.

Literature

• Erhard Marschner: "Josef Ressel. Erfinder der Schiffsschraube - Seine Vorfahren und Nachkommen" [Josef Ressel. One of the designers of a ship's propeller - its ancestors and descendants], 1979, ISBN 3-7686-6016-8.
• Václav Gutwirth: "Vynálezce Josef Ressel" [Inventor Josef Ressel], 1943, Prague.
• Jiří Charvát, Pavel Kobetič et al.: "Josef Ressel a Chrudim" [Josef Ressel and Chrudim], 1986, published by the Chrudim Regional Museum. The museum keeps collection of porpotions about Ressel.

External links

• Ressel Monument in Vienna, Austria a Video of his monument and his poor Austrian inventor colleagues.
• Comprehensive biography
• Short biography
• History of propeller inventions

See also: Ressel