Heavy metal rumblings
For more a century Gardner diesels have been hard at work powering boats all over the world and, in the process, gathering groups of hard-core fans.
Tales from the wonderful world of Gardner diesel enthusiasts.
In old school atlases, much of the planet was printed pink. It covered the real estate purloined by Britain to build her empire. The real power behind the empire though, was provided by Gardner diesel engines.
“They crop up all over the place,” says Auckland’s Gardner agent Dave Shaw. Gardner was established as a general engineering company in 1868 and produced its first diesel engine in 1918. Today there are about 75,000 Gardners operating in at least 58 countries worldwide.
Real Gardner folk keep immaculate engine rooms and will cock a finely-tuned ear as a boat enters an anchorage. “Gardner,” they’ll say smugly, and then launch the dinghy and row across for confirmation and a gander around. Many have the bronze Gardner name plate screwed to a wheelhouse bulkhead.
The legendary engines began when Mancunian engineer, Lawrence Gardner, started the eponymous outfit from a small workshop at
Patricroft, UK. He was eventually joined by two of his six sons – Thomas and Edward.
The brothers recognised a market in the marine sector and, in 1902, produced a model 4KM which produced 75hp at 500 rpm. The engine came in one, two, four, six and eight cylinder versions, and ran on a variety of fuels with varying horsepower.
They incorporated an ingenious governor which stopped the ship’s propeller from racing when it broke the surface in rough weather. They were bolted to a Gardner-built reversing gear, a huge piece of machinery that came in two sizes – 2UC and 3UC – to handle any available horsepower. They were replaced by Twin Disc models in 1975.
Gardner gearboxes were legendary. I recall one Stewart Island fisherman nicknamed, for obvious reasons, ‘Flat Batteries.’ Almost every morning we’d pass him a tow line. Once we got to about five knots he’d slam his Gardner into gear and close the decompression levers until his venerable engine was running smoothly on all six cylinders, then cast off and get about his day’s cod potting.
Thomas, the design genius of the Gardner family, was the brain behind a relatively small internal combustion engine that ran on diesel directly injected into the cylinders. This innovation became commonplace among diesel engine manufacturers.
But within a couple of years the engine had been modified with lightweight aluminium componentry and became the renowned LW series Gardner which remained in production for 42 years. Examples still power vessels all over the Pacific and elsewhere.
The first numbers in the designation signify the number of cylinders and the remaining numbers the model designation.
Britain’s first diesel-powered car was a 1925 Bentley which Gardner engineers re-engined with a 4LW (68/75 kw@1700rpm). The cross-bred vehicle won four consecutive Le Mans 24-hour endurance races and caused an Italian opponent, Ettore Bugatti, to sniff that: “Bentleys were the fastest lorries in the world.”
The car averaged 129km/h using 21 litres of diesel per 100 km. It was estimated that the cost of diesel was one seventh what it would cost to do the same mileage with petrol. In
Thomas, the Gardner family’s design genius, was the brain behind a small engine that ran on diesel injected directly into the cylinders.
the 1950s, a Gardner-powered XK150 Jaguar almost halved that consumption at a Mobil economy run in the UK.
Meanwhile, on the marine side of things, Gardner gained experience in using aluminium alloys from a six-cylinder unit it developed and supplied to the Italian navy in 1918 for powering torpedo boats.
The company’s quality construction, economy and reliability caught on among fishermen and boat operators, public services and port authorities and WWII provided the impetus to build specialised power plants. An ultra-lightweight LK series was developed for mini submarines like the ones which helped sink the German battleship, Tirpitz. It also powered generator units for anti-aircraft searchlights and a variety of small harbour defence craft and utility vessels.
The Gardner factory at Barton Hall grew to cover several city blocks with a workforce of 3,000, many of them women. Females had tackled most production jobs during the war and many continued working post-war.
The company had a reputation for enlightened treatment of its workforce. A large canteen was built and clubs for soccer, cricket and lacrosse were formed and pitches laid. There were tennis courts, a bowling green and a rifle range.
For less sports-minded workers there was a reading room and a social club that hosted meetings of dramatic and operatic societies. Heady stuff for class-obsessed England at the time.