Success storie - AutoNaut - Making the most of wave power
1 Jul 2014 01:35 PM
For 30 years management consultant Mike Poole
had an unusual hobby: finding a way to use the power of the waves to propel
boats rather than stop them. He even built a 20-metre wave tank at the bottom
of his garden to test how his designs performed in a variety of conditions.
He thought a wave-powered boat equipped with sensors, that
didn't need fuel and therefore could run almost indefinitely, could be a
cost-effective and efficient way to gather data from the
oceans.
Retired Royal Navy commodore David Maclean agreed and soon
after they met in 2011 they teamed up to build a prototype, funding the project
out of their own pockets.
They founded MOST (Autonomous Vessels)
Ltd in 2012 and with some help from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and
the Technology Strategy Board they saw their idea come to life as the AutoNaut:
a 3.5 metre unmanned surface vessel designed to gather oceanographic data over
long periods.
Success at sea and on land
Just over a year later the AutoNaut has successfully
completed trials with the NOC, is going into production and already has two
confirmed orders.
Its
success has seen MOST (AV), which is based in Chichester and Devon, grow from
just the two founders - now its two directors - to five full-time and five
part-time staff. They expect to take on three or four more people as production
begins.
"We hope to build six to eight boats by the middle
of 2015. We absolutely wouldn't have been able to do it without the NOC and
the Technology Strategy Board," said David Maclean.