Tidewright develops modular tidal devices and the moorings that keep them from becoming sculpture. They work with Strathclyde, EMEC, and anyone who has a boat and a conscience.
Work packages tend to be hydrodynamic, structural, or the unglamorous business of retrieval.
Being based in Orkney rather than visiting it has shaped the engineering. The company's designs are organised around what can be installed and recovered by locally available vessels within the weather windows that actually occur, which is a considerably tighter constraint than most device developers accept until their second deployment.
The modularity follows from the same logic. A device that can be recovered in sections, by a smaller vessel, in a shorter window, has a maintenance cost that a project financier can believe. This costs some hydrodynamic efficiency, which the founders regard as an entirely reasonable trade.
Capabilities
- Modular tidal devices
- Mooring and retrieval
- Site characterisation
- Marine operations planning
- Installation design for constrained weather windows
- Operational data collection in high-flow sites
Ways in
The routes that exist, and what each is suited to.
Published work packages
Hydrodynamic, structural and digital work put to the network, usually requiring tank access or modelling capability they do not hold.
Test site collaborations
Joint campaigns with test facilities and berth operators, where the company supplies the device and the marine operations plan.
Array and consortium participation
Willing to work with a second device developer on array-scale questions that neither can answer alone.
How to approach them
They will ask about vessel availability and weather windows before they ask about the technology. Partners who treat marine operations as logistics rather than engineering do not last long here.
Site visits require a genuine commitment to travel, and occasionally to wait. They are good company while you do.
Known for
- A modular device deployed and, importantly, recovered intact from a high-flow site
- A mooring arrangement redesigned after a snatch loading failure during recovery
- Multi-year operational data from an instrumented berth, shared with academic partners