[2] An Englishman before him in 1868, Henry Bessemer had tried to use hydraulics and a spirit level watched by the steersman to stabilize ship rolls, also with dangerous results.
The gyroscopic stabilizer idea was later developed further by the US American inventor Elmer Ambrose Sperry but this system could hold the ship at an extreme angle for prolonged periods.
[3] By the time these stabilizers were abandoned, gyroscopes had already found their place in ship navigation as gyrocompasses and in control systems.
In 1875, he became managing director of the Norddeutsche Schiffbau-Gesellschaft in Kiel, where he oversaw the building of many freight steamers and also some warships, including the German Royal Yacht Hohenzollern.
He wrote a handbook for iron ship construction ("Handbuch für den Eisenschisfbau") which was published in Leipzig in 1890.