Ole Evinrude

Ole Evinrude ( born O. Evenrudstuen; * April 19, 1877 near Oslo, † July 12, 1934 ) was a Norwegian- American inventor, he made the outboard popular.

Life

Born he was on a farm 100 km north of Oslo. In 1882 his parents emigrated to the U.S. and settled in Cambridge (Wisconsin ), where Ole left the elementary school early. He preferred to work with the farm tools and machines, first with his father, then as an apprentice and workers in factories in Chicago and Pittsburg. In the 1880s, he read the first time by the internal combustion engine. In 1900 he returned to Wisconsin, where he opened a shop. In his spare time he built his own horseless carriage.

To 1903, he helped Harley Davidson and with her first companions.

His colleague in the office was the young neighbor Bess Cary, with whom he became engaged in 1906. During a picnic on an island he made a rowboat tour of five miles to his fiancée to get ice cream. On his way he came to believe that cars can not be the only vehicles that could benefit from a gasoline engine.

In the summer of 1907, he tested his first outboard motor with 1.5 hp, which looked more like his wife a coffee mill. The following two years he improved it and received it in 1911, the Patent No. 1,001,260 ( Marine Propulsion System). He founded the company Evinrude Motor Co. and marketed the engine under his family name Evinrude. Although other inventors experimented with outboards since 1881, his was the first time successfully.

In 1911 he entered into a partnership with the steamship magnate Chris Meyer. Because of the deteriorating health of Bess sold Ole 1914 the rest of the shares in Meyer to take a vacation. Together with her son Ralph (* April 27, 1907 ), they traveled five years by the United States.

When he returned, he thought it was fair, Meyer his new invention to provide a two-cylinder, three -horsepower outboard. Meyer refused. However, since this had the rights to the name Evinrude, Evinrude had to sell his engine under the new company name " Elto " ( Evinrude Light Twin Outboard ). He thus continued a successful competition with the firm of Meyer. 1929, the Company Elto, Evinrude and Lockwood to " Outboard Motors Corporation " (OMC ) were combined. The acquisition of Johnson and the name changes over Outboard Marine and Manufacturing Company for Outboard Marine Corporation ( OMC with unchanged abbreviation ) did not live to Evinrude.

Swell

Evinrude, Johnson And The Legend Of OMC, Author: Jeffrey L. Rodengen, eds: Write Stuff Syndicate Inc., Ft. Lauderdale, 1992, ISBN 0-945903-10-3