Author’s Note: “The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel”
Douglas Brunt's own introduction to his fascinating new book, “The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel” offers some insights for readers and book groups to the story behind the story.
“THIS BOOK BEGAN in 2015 when I bought an old boat. It was a thirty-eight-foot runabout built in 1996 with the original gasoline engines. I stood on the dock by my new purchase and spoke with the gentleman who owned the boatyard. He’d run the yard for decades, having taken it over from his father, and the whole place appeared frozen in the 1950s. The man’s face was rough and tanned from the sun and salt air, his fingers like stones. He rolled his own cigarettes. I asked him what he thought I should do to fix up the boat.
He said that a boat like this should have Diesel engines, not gasoline. I had always thought one engine delivered on the same promise as any other, so I asked him why. He launched into his reasons: that on my two-hundred-gallon fuel tank I’d get twice the range; that I wouldn’t breathe noxious fumes from the Diesel fuel the way I would with gasoline; that nearly all boat fires came from gasoline engines and none from Diesel. He held up the stub of his cigarette, which looked like a splinter pinched between his fingers, and said, “I could drop this lit cigarette into a barrel of Diesel fuel and nothing would happen. Gasoline engines start with an electric spark, but not Diesel. Diesel fuel’s not flammable and the engine doesn’t use a spark. The fuel needs to be pressurized inside the engine first. Diesel is a different engine. A better one.” I followed the old salt’s advice and repowered the boat with Diesels.
A year later, in the strange lull between having finished one novel and not having started my next, I was doing what I always do to connect with a new idea. I was on my computer, exploring anything and everything, plucking the threads of random discovery that bring me to different eras and geographies. As I clicked my way down threads, sometimes following one for a great distance, then hopping to a new thread, I came upon a list of “mysterious disappearances at sea.” Down the list a bit I saw the name Rudolf Diesel and wondered if there was any connection between this person and my new Diesel marine en- gines. I clicked to a summary of the events of September 29, 1913, and began the extraordinary voyage that led to this book.
The Author's Diesel-Powered Boat (1996)
The Author standing by the fardier à vapeur, Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot's steam car built in 1770. This exhibit is still in the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris where Rudolf Diesel first studied it in the 1860s.
The Author standing at the address 38, rue Notre Dame de Nazareth in March 2022.
The plaque that marks Rudolf Diesel's childhood home at 38, rue Notre Dame de Nazareth in Paris, France. The condition of the plaque and its remissful placement that is easily overlooked reflect the enormous deficit of appreciation for Rudolf Diesel.
