Burmeister & Wain

Burmeister & Wain, usually shortened to B&W, was a Copenhagen shipbuilder and engine builder. Its roots lie in a mechanical workshop that Hans Heinrich Baumgarten opened in 1843 and in the partnership formed with Carl Christian Burmeister in 1846, and the Englishman William Wain joined in 1865. The firm became a limited company in 1872, the year its Refshale Island shipyard was founded, and it delivered its first ship, the steamer Hermod, in 1854. In 1898 it secured the exclusive Danish rights to Rudolf Diesel's engine, and in 1912 the motor ship Selandia, fitted with two B&W four-stroke diesels, set out from Copenhagen for Bangkok as the first ocean-going diesel-powered ship. The shipyard and the engine works were split into separate companies in 1971, the engine business was sold to the German group MAN in 1980, and the yard delivered its last volume production unit in 1996. This make gathers the ships and other vehicles the company built.