But the first marine engine was installed only in 1912 on Christian X, a Danish freighter. Diesel-powered ships carried much less fuel than coal-fired steamers, but could travel further without refueling because the new engines were nearly twice as efficient—and because, per unit of mass, diesel oil contains nearly twice as much energy. An American engineer who saw the first diesel-powered vessel after her maiden voyage to New York in 1912 concluded that: “marine history is being written by the advent of the Diesel engine.”[41]
