First motor ship

The first sea-going motor ship was Shell Oil’s 1,179 gross ton trunk-deck tanker Vulcanus built in Amsterdam in 1910 by Nederlandsche Scheepsbouw Maats. Measuring 59.6 m between perpendiculars by 11.5 m (195.54 by 37.73 ft) it had a 6-cylinder 460 bhp Werkspoor engine giving 7.5 knots (13.89 km/h; 8.63 mph) and was designed to distribute oil products in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). It was scrapped in Japan in 1931.

German engineer Rudolf Diesel invented the internal combustion engine which took his name in 1893 and its first marine use was in small tank lighters in Russian rivers and the Caspian Sea.

The first large oceangoing motor ship was the 4,964 tons gross passenger/cargo ship Selandia, first of three sisters ordered by the Danish East Asiatic Company, two from Burmeister & Wain, Copenhagen and one from Barclay Curle on the Clyde. It measured 117.7 m overall by 16.2 m (386 by 53.2 ft) and its twin eight cylinder B&W engines were the largest yet constructed, each developing 1,250 bhp for a service speed of 12 knots (22.2 km/h; 13.81 mph). It lacked a traditional funnel (exhausts being carried up the mainmast in pipes), introduced electric winches for cargo handling and carried 26 first-class passengers.